Connecticut Spice Cookies

These Connecticut Spice Cookies are soft, a little chewy, and have a rich flavor and a slight bite. Perfect for sharing on a sunny front porch.

When I was a little girl, I would sometimes curl up in my grandmother’s bed in the early mornings, where she’d tell me stories of our family and sing to me in French. She called Connecticut home, though she lived more of her life in New York than Connecticut.

The Nutmeg State was where our family’s homestead was located, where she’d spend summers on the shoreline with her mother, sister, aunts and cousins. It was where holidays were spent, gathered around a big table.

By the time I was born, the family homestead – a Victorian house and farm – had been sold and much of the family had relocated to Cape Cod. But the house is still there, just a few miles from where I live now. It’s no longer a home or a farm though. The land has been sold off, and the house loosely converted into offices.

Still, it retains the charm and magic that captivated my family for nearly 70 years.

I spent summers here as a child with sandy feet and salty wet hair from the Long Island Sound and for the last 10 years, I have called it home.

This recipe is adapted from our family cookbook, The Moulding Board, a 30-year-old book that combines recipes from my extended family and diary pages from my Great-Great-Grandmother, all compiled by my cousin Barb. According to the cookbook, a former neighbor at our family's homestead, Mrs. Phil Webber, used to make these cookies for my Great-Great Aunt Sarah, my namesake.

For my rendition of these classic cookies, I've replaced shortening with butter, changed the method a little and added nutmeg -- in honor of Connecticut (which is nicknamed the Nutmeg State).

These Connecticut Spice Cookies are soft, a little chewy, with a rich flavor and a slight bite. They're sweet but not crazy sweet. They would be amazing served with coffee, shared on a sunny front porch with a cousin or neighbor.