Bachelor’s Buttons (1868)

With a crackly, sugar-coated exterior, and a light center, these simple little sugar cookies are easy to make, and sure to please.

Dear friends ~

These easy little cookies are so quick and easy to make, and unlike many 1800’s recipes, the recipe isn’t massive. You’re not making cookies to feed an army with this one. This recipe makes about 2.5 dozen small, soft cookies.

We love these for a lunchbox treat, or an after-school snack with a nice mug of hot cocoa.

Hope you enjoy!

BACHELOR’S BUTTONS

One egg, two ounces butter, five ounces flour, five ounces sugar; make into small balls, roll in sifted sugar, and bake on buttered tins, allowing room to spread.

Every-Day Cookery for Every Family, 1868

Here’s a photo of the recipe as it appears in the cookbook:

A FEW COOKING NOTES: 

1800’s recipes don’t get much easier than this one, so it hardly requires any notes. Here are a few things I noticed when making these cookies, that you might find helpful, though.

Salted or unsalted butter?

I prefer making these with unsalted butter, but since no salt or spices are called for in the recipe, it does not make these too salty if you do opt for salted butter. You really can lean on personal preference with this, and go either way. From a historical standpoint, in the 1800’s, if you were making these in the winter, you’d be using butter that had been salted to help it keep. It wasn’t uncommon to “wash” butter before using it to make sweet cakes and cookies, to make it less salty.

If “fresh” unsalted butter was available, this was considered strongly preferable for making cakes and cookies, so it would be opted for, when making sweet baked goods.

Can you give me the measurements in cups instead of ounces?

You bet. I get this question every time I share a recipe that was written in weight measurements, rather than volume. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, and need to use measuring cups, these amounts will work well.

2 ounces of butter = 4 tablespoons
5 ounces of flour = 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons
5 ounces of sugar = slightly scant ¾ cup

How big to make these cookies?

I made my cookie dough balls about 1″ in diameter, and this made 2.5 dozen cookies. This felt like a good size, and it’s what I’d do again. You can make these a little smaller or larger, and would just need to adjust the baking time to make sure they bake correctly.

Rolling them in sugar

“Sifted” sugar isn’t powdered sugar, this was nice, fine sugar that was sifted to ensure it was finely-grained and lump-free.

In the 1800’s this would likely have just been grated off a big block of sugar, that was sold in the shape of a cone. After grating it, the sugar would be put through a fine sieve to ensure a nice fine texture, without any hard, solid bits. You can use either regular granulated sugar, or “superfine” granulated sugar to roll the cookie dough in. Both will work well.

How hot should the oven be?

I baked these in an oven pre-heated to 350°, and that worked well.

How long to bake these cookies

At 350°, with 1″ diameter balls of cookie dough, these baked perfectly in 10-11 minutes. If your cookies are just a little smaller or larger, they might take a bit more or less time.

The cookies are done when the edges are just barely beginning to look golden and the centers are set.

Storing these cookies

This recipe just makes a small batch, so chance are, you won’t be storing them long! They do keep nicely for several days though, if stored in an air-tight container at room temperature, or a little cooler.

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Just a few more days until Thanksgiving, can you believe it? This morning on the drive in to school, I actually suggested that we make some hot cocoa and Christmas cookies after school today, and my 9 year old informed me that making Christmas cookies before Thanksgiving simply does not seem appropriate.

Can’t quite argue with that! These ones are a great little cookie for cold weather and cozy afternoons, without being a Christmas cookie, so I think they’ll fit the bill. Hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Until next time, ~ Anna

📖 Recipe

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