Cherry Winks

Will Rogers famously said, "I never met a man I didn't like." That's about how I feel about cookies. But like men, some cookies are better than others. I rate Cherry Winks tops.

Mom has always kept a recipe that she cut out of a magazine (or so it seems). The reverse of the recipe (which I'll post below) was clearly written for the holidays in 1954. One line says, "May 1955 bring us closer to peace on earth".

Clearly this recipe is a Pillsbury "Bake Off" winner. A winner, indeed!

 "That's about the year I began baking," Mom said. I was just five years old - not yet in first grade - and these cookies were certainly a great treat. Mom early on modified the recipe to use raisins instead of dates. When I made this batch today, I used margarine (Blue Bonnet) instead of Crisco and I only had half a cup of pecans on hand.
 Otherwise, I used the ingredients and quantities as noted. I almost never follow directions, though. I melted the margarine, added the sugar and eggs and stirred it well. I then added all the other ingredients at the top of the list, lastly the flour. I added the nuts and raisins near the end. And I added the maraschino cherries last so that they wouldn't bleed and color the dough red.

 The final cookie count was 28. That's far below the 60 the recipe calls for. I like larger cookies. I baked these about 17 minutes and they were perfectly done.

 Here is the original clipping from 1954: