Chewies - Vintage Recipe

My grandma Bunny was known throughout her community of friends, neighbors and family as an excellent cook. She worked full time as a writer, editor and art director for most of her adult life, so her recipes had to be reliably easy to prepare, hard to ruin and always tasty.

This little recipe for Chewies was one of her go-to desserts, good for those occasions when one of her kids did particularly well at school or when she was called on to bring a contribution to a church bake sale. Another handy thing about this cookie is that the entirety of the batter can be mixed up in a single pot, making quick work of clean up.

A recipe with a bit more detail is after the jump.

Bunny's Chewies

1/4 pound butter (1 stick)
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
i cup nut meats, toasted and chopped fine

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium sized pot, melt butter and sugar together over low heat. When melted, remove the pot from the stove and let the mixture cool a little. Temper your beaten eggs by taking a couple of spoonfuls of the butter and sugar mixture and stirring it into the eggs. Repeat with a few more spoonfuls, until the eggs are warmed (the goal of this is to prevent scrambling when you mix the eggs into the butter and sugar). Add eggs to sugar and stir to combine. Add vanilla at this time.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the wet ingredients and stir to combine. Stir in nuts (I particularly like to use pecans, but you can use whatever you have around).

Spoon out onto parchment or silpat lined cookie sheets and bake 8-10 minutes.