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The best cookies come in tiny shapes
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About the Recipe: The recipe is unique and doesn’t use any flour at all. The cookies are very delicate and brown sugar crispy. Since they are about the size of a quarter when they are baked, they disappear quickly from a cookie tray. If you like challenges, unique techniques, using only a few ingredients, and have the patience to boil/simmer, cool, bake, and peel off before serving, do give this recipe a try. It really is lots of fun to make!
Recipe from: Frances Price, Norfolk, Va. In article Old-time Cookie Recipe Finally Can be Shared; October 23, 1991, The Cincinnati Enquirer D-3 Food.
Heartwarming Story about the Recipe: Frances Price kept the recipe Market Mystery Cookies, the ultimate snack food, a secret for 25 years.
So tiny, less than bite-size, these cookies were sold by weight, not by the dozen, years ago at the Lancaster County Farmers’ Market in Wayne, Pa.
The originator of the recipe was an elderly woman, who baked and sold the cookies at the Market. She made them with ingredients you’d never guess from tasting them and used a method so unorthodox, that you would think that Frances made it up. Frances watched men, women and children of all ages gobble them up.
Frances checked to see if anyone was still making a living off these cookies at the Lancaster County Farmers’ Market, but no one there had heard of them. So now, since recipes are for sharing, here is one of the most unique recipes for you to try.
Cook’s Note: The recipe takes a long time to make since it cooks for 1 hour in a double boiler and cools another hour before you can bake them.
They are easy to make since they don’t require any constant stirring. I have never baked cookies using only 1/4 teaspoon of dough for each one. We didn’t think they would turn out, but they did. If you don’t bake them long enough, you won’t be able to remove them from the foil liners. By the way, I did notice the family munching on them as the cookies were peeled away from the foil liners. Delicious – you bet!
Bake Cookies: In preheated 350-degree F oven, bake cookies for about 6 to 7 minutes or until well browned and bubbly. Cool cookies on foil lined pan
Remove Cooks from Foil: Cooled cookies will peel easily from foil if you follow these directions. Lift foil vertically. Then, peel foil from each individual cookie. Do not try peeling cookie from foil or they will break. Also, if they are not fully baked they will stick and not release. So there is a sweet spot between under baked, just right and burnt tasting cookies. If under baked, you can put them back into oven for a couple of minutes and they will come out perfect,
Saving Cookies: Store in tightly covered container.
Yield: Makes a little over a pound of tiny cookies. (about 200 tiny cookies)
pdf for Copy of Recipe – Market Mystery Cookies
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