Southern Belles

Reading a back issue of the magazine "Reminisce" in bed late last night, I came across someone's grandmother's recipie for a type of sheet cookie called Southern Belles.

It was around midnight when I decided, "I'm going to make these tomorrow."



Now I'm not going to lay out the recipe for you here, because it's not my recipe, it is a prized family recipe that had been passed down through the this person's family, and I don't want to take any credit for it.

But, what I will tell you is that I found the idea of making these cookies to be one of the coolest things I could spend my Sunday morning doing.  There is enough sugar in here to give me a headache ( which they did ), and there is no baking time mentioned in the recipe, so I had to spend 25 minutes pacing my kitchen floor watching them bake like a hawk, but boy was it fun.





Southern Belles remind me of a type of shortbread with a brown sugar coconut meringue spread over the top.  I followed the recipe to a tee, and this is the result I got.



They were delicious, I can tell you that.  And yes, I did say were, because believe it or not, they are half gone already I don't honestly think they are going to make it through the night.   My family and I are piranhas, you see, so nothing really last all that long around here.

I can think of a few ways to switch things up a bit to tailor these wondrous treats exactly to my family's liking.  In fact, I believe I might be inspired to make a Southern Belle recipe for our family, to be passed down through the years and the generations.

One thing I know I might have to change is how the meringue is made.  In the recipe it said to throw everything in with the egg white and beat till fluffy.  I wasn't so sure, but I wanted to do it exactly how the recipe said, so that's what I did.  I could hear Julia from America's Test Kitchen yelling at me from a distance.  Now I think that next time I'll make the meringue like you would normally make meringue, and then fold in the coconut after I've gotten it to a stiff peak, so that it'll be a bit more meringue-ish.  I think that'll make Julia feel better ( if you've ever watched the TV show, then you'll know how much she loves to get her meringues just right ).

Overall though, I was very impressed with myself, and I felt quite fancy, for some reason.  These seemed to me like a special tea time treat from the days of old.  So I made some tea, and sat down to a tea party for one.  Perhaps the next time I have friends over I'll make these again, and we can all tea party together.



Em