This recipe is from my grandmother, Mrs. George Hollinshead of Milledgeville, Georgia.  They really were ice box cookies – no refrigerators. My mother’s 1932 diary tells of the family getting a kerosene powered refrigerator that year.  To modernize this recipe, you could start by calling them “Refrigerator cookies”.

Anyway, these cookies are my grandmother’s recipe.  They should be as thin as you can cut them and very crisp after cooking and cooling. But if you make them thicker and chewy, they are still good.  And my sister Jean and I can testify that the raw cookie dough is tasty too!

• 1 C. butter ( 2 sticks )
• 2 C. brown sugar
• 1 C. chopped nuts ( pecans, of course )
• 3 1/2 C plain flour ( not self rising)
• 1/2 t. salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 t. soda

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs, mix well.  Sift salt and soda with flour.  Mix into first part.  Add nuts.

Roll into long rolls.  ( This part can be messy, as the dough is sticky.  I usually divide the dough into 3 or 4 parts, and put each part on a big piece of wax paper, trying to shape it into a cylinder about 2 inches in diameter as I go.  Then I can flour my fingers and pat it into a more uniform shape or just shape it through the wax paper.)

Twist the ends of the wax paper shut.

Put into refrigerator, or better yet, freeze. (The knife for slicing and also the wax paper doesn’t stick to the frozen dough.)

When ready to bake, slice very thin and bake in moderate oven. ( 350 ).  Use a slender non-serrated knife to slice them.  How long to bake them will depend on how thick you sliced them.  I try to slice mine about 1/8″ thick and they cook in 6.5 minutes.  Grandmother probably didn’t have a thermostat on her oven when starting making these.