Great Grandma Lefler's Icebox Cookies

I have a recipe that makes some of the tastiest cookies ever, but it’s one of those “contributed by ____ to our school fundraiser cookbook” recipes, so you’re not going to find it easily in any standard cookbook. As with all recipes on my blog, I have modified it, but not as extensively as others, so I still feel like this is not my own recipe. Still, I suspect it will be lost if someone doesn’t preserve it somehow. I’ve done extensive searches online that indicate that only the wording of recipes is copyrightable, not the list of ingredients (nobody owns “3 eggs” because how else can you say it?). So here, paraphrased and slightly tweaked but with full attribution, is the recipe for “Great Grandma Lefler’s Icebox Cookies,” which apparently “men love.” We all love them, and the dough is the hardest to resist ever.

The original was contributed by PJ Holtzman, who donated a good many recipes to the book. It can be found on page 65 of “Reading, Writing and Recipes: A Collection From East Antioch Elementary”, published by Cookbook Publishers, Inc. from Lenexa, KS, in 1996, for the East Antioch PTA. It is one of the better “folk” recipe collections I’ve found, although it suffers still from amateur-cookbook-itis (says too much or too little, but not ever just enough).

½ c butter or margarine
¾ c shortening
1 c light brown sugar
1 c sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla (my addition)
4 ½ c flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Cream butter and shortening together. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, and vanilla. Beat well. With the mixer stopped, add flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda, in that order (no need to sift!). Mix well. Press dough into an 8x8” pan. Cover and refrigerate at least overnight. When you are ready to use the dough, use a sharp knife to cut it into two 4x8” chunks. When you want cookies, cut off ¼ inch slices and bake them on an ungreased cookie sheet for 6-8 minutes at 400 degrees. You can also cut them into four 2” strips in you want square instead of rectangular cookies. They make good “cookie sticks” for dunking in milk.

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