Gumdrop Cookies

A little over a year ago I bought a box of things from a garage sale. From between the pages of a very old book, a dilapidated recipe card fell out that read: Gumdrop Cookies. It didn’t even have directions, oven temperature or bake time but at the very end, in cursive handwriting, it read: “Kids loved these – + took along to eat on the way home”. My heart dropped and I immediately knew I had to make these cookies.

           Okay, I let a year go by, I know. But the recipe card was lost in the move to Portland and this year has truly been one of the craziest of my life. However, a fateful Tuesday brought this recipe card back to me from the left-hand drawer in the back corner of my desk, as if it was waiting for me all this time.

           Now, truth be told, I don’t like gumdrops that much. I don’t know if anyone really does anymore. So, feel free to sub out any gummy candy in this recipe. Dots? Yes. Swedish Fish? Sure. Twizzlers? Why not! But I figured, for the sake of the kids in the back seat of their mom’s car, who enjoyed these cookies very much, I would make them true to form. Just this once.

           And they are delicious. Soft, buttery and chewy. They remind me of the classic cookies that used to sit at grandma’s house. The ones that didn’t need to be perfectly styled with pooled chocolate melted on top or flaked sea salt added at the very end. Just a true to form… cookie. With its many lumps and deformities.

           This is why I love baking the way I do. It connects us to people we don’t even know, from a time I don’t even remember. Maybe these “backseat-kids” have been looking for their mom’s famous gumdrop cookies just to find them placed on the internet by me. Maybe it’s just another nostalgic recipe on my blog. Either way, I’ve done my part.

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