QUING Parties at the Palace with CHARLIE BOYS

Mary had 'flapper-flair'. Beauty. Talent. She loved to dance, laugh, and fill her home with friends and family. Mary could bake. Younger brother Joe left work early to secure loaves of freshly baked bread- before anyone else could take them. Almost fifty years after her passing, my Dad still longs for his mom’s famous Banana Cream Pie. Soon after my parents married, Dad jotted down the recipe for his favorite cookie; one of Mary’s specialties. I never met my grandmother, but I have baked countless batches of 'Dad’s Cookies.' As a student, I brought them to every international bake-fest I attended, varying their origin from French to Italian to Spanish, depending on the language I was learning at the time. Strangers and friends who tasted one cookie always grabbed another. Women I had never met called our house, requesting the recipe. We didn’t share my grandmother's recipe, but we sure shared a lot of her cookies. As time passed, and my Dad’s title changed, we renamed the cookie ‘Chief’s Cookies’ or ‘Papa’s Cookies.’ My sisters and I bake a batch whenever we entertain, because these cookies are as easy to make as they are delicious to eat. It doesn’t matter what we call them, or where this recipe originated. It matters that they are original. Just like my Grandma Mary.  

With Dad's permission, I have renamed the cookies for a final time. Henceforth they will be called “Charlie Boys”- in honor of Mary, and the beautiful blue-eyed boy she adored, her Charlie Boy.  Gustare!

CHARLIE BOYS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Baking time: 20-25 minutes

1 cup of softened butter
1 cup of sugar
1 egg, separated
2 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of cinnamon
A pinch of salt

½ cup of nuts

Grease/butter a 15x10x1” jelly roll pan.  Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add egg yolk and beat until smooth. Sift flour, cinnamon and salt, and incorporate into butter mixture. Add nuts and mix into a dough ball.  Press dough into jelly roll pan, making sure it is level.  Pour egg white on dough, and use a pastry brush to coat it completely (...or just tip the pan back and forth, like I do.)  Empty all excess egg white from pan, making certain that none is left pooling on the dough. Bake in the center of the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool for ten minutes before cutting into squares.

VARIATIONS: mine, not Grandma’s!

1. My grandmother used a wooden spoon when baking. I use my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer.  Beat the egg/sugar mixture with paddle attachment at medium speed for three minutes, till fluffy.  Add egg yolk, mixing on low speed till blended. Add dry ingredients, mixing on low till the dough forms a ball. Then add the nuts, stirring them in by hand.

2. Grandma's recipe calls for salted butter.  I use unsalted butter and add ½ teaspoon of kosher salt to the dry ingredients.

3. Grandma used chopped walnuts in her cookies. I bake the walnuts to enhance their flavor-  8 minutes at 350 degrees- before I chop them and add them to the dough. Sometimes I substitute pecans for walnuts. 

4.  You can also use a 11x16x1" pan.  Bake 18-20 minutes till golden brown.