{"id":3371,"date":"2017-12-15T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T16:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/villasentieri.com\/?post_type=recipe&p=3371"},"modified":"2026-09-02T10:58:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:58:49","slug":"aunt-margies-colored-cookies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/villasentieri.com\/index.php\/2017\/12\/15\/aunt-margies-colored-cookies\/","title":{"rendered":"Aunt Margie’s Colored Cookies"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 15, 2017<\/span><\/p>\n

We called them \u201cColored Cookies.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never seen them anywhere but in my hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania though I can\u2019t believe they are unique to there.<\/p>\n

Truth be told, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever had them made by anyone besides Aunt Margie until I made them from her recipe.<\/p>\n

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Aunt Margie in 2004 with me on an architectural tour of Chicago by boat<\/strong><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many of the Italian and Italian-American cookies that I grew up with were cake-like. A stiff batter of flour, sugar, eggs, and fat (lard and butter were the most common), leavened with baking powder, flavored in some way (vanilla, lemon, chocolate and spice, sesame, and so forth), rolled or shaped and baked, and usually iced with a thin powdered sugar-milk icing that would harden to a glaze.<\/p>\n

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Totos <\/a>are a perfect example of the chocolate and spice variety.<\/p>\n

Anginetti (Genets, as we called them in Italian-American-dialect-slang) also referred to as Lemon Knots, are lemon flavored. Although I\u2019m devoting most of December to posting Italian-American pastry recipes, Anginetti won\u2019t appear until next year.<\/p>\n

Sesame Seed Cookies (which certain members of my family like to dip in wine) have no flavoring other than the sesame seeds they are rolled in before baking. These are coming next December, too.<\/p>\n

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Colored Cookies are flavored with vanilla despite the riot of color that might suggest otherwise. There was a brief period of time, however, when Aunt Margie got creative (read iconoclastic) and used coconut extract instead of vanilla. Coconut and almond are my two favorite flavors when it comes to sweets, leagues beyond chocolate and vanilla as far as I\u2019m concerned, but coconut-flavored colored cookies strayed too far from tradition for my taste. It didn\u2019t keep me from eating them, however!<\/p>\n

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Colored Cookies<\/span><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is Aunt Margie\u2019s original recipe. And if you flavor them with anything other than vanilla, please don\u2019t tell me\u2026just kidding!<\/p>\n

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If you have a favorite family recipe and a bit of a story to tell, please email me at santafecook@villasentieri.com <\/a>and we can discuss it. I am expanding the scope of my blog to include traditional recipes from around the country and around the world. If you haven\u2019t seen Bertha\u2019s Flan<\/a>, it will give you an idea of what I\u2019m looking for. <\/span><\/p>\n

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I don’t use a lot of food coloring.\u00a0 The only other exception in recent memory (other than these cookies) was Jim’s Hawaiian Guava Cake<\/a>.\u00a0 Take a look at my box of food coloring.\u00a0 The number 39 is the price:\u00a0 39 cents!\u00a0 I’ve had it a long time, though I used up the red making the Guava Cake.<\/p>\n

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Aunt Margie's Colored Cookies<\/h2>\n
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Use a very good quality vanilla extract, not artificial vanilla flavoring, as that is the predominant flavor. The best way to mix these is using your hand. If you don\u2019t start there, you\u2019ll end up there so just use your hand from the beginning. Although Aunt Margie\u2019s original instructions were to ice the cookies while still warm, that is very difficult to accomplish without assistance. You can ice them after you have baked all of them with no noticeable difference. It is best to use medium-weight shiny aluminum cookie sheets. Dark metal makes the bottoms too dark before the cookies have completely cooked. You can divide the dough into five parts and color the last one yellow. If you do so, you will need to use slightly less of each dough to make a cookie.<\/div>\n
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Prep Time <\/span>1 hour<\/span><\/span> hr<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Cook Time <\/span>2 hours<\/span><\/span> hrs<\/span><\/span><\/div>
Total Time <\/span>3 hours<\/span><\/span> hrs<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n
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Servings: <\/span>8<\/span> dozen<\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Ingredients
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