The Best Amish Cookies Ever

This recipe for Amish cookies was given to me by a neighbor many years ago and is the best one I've ever found, bar none. They're made with buttermilk, so they turn out light and melt-in-your mouth delicious. You'll want to make a mixture of sugar and cinnamon to sprinkle on top before they go into the oven.

Be sure to follow the instructions to the letter, otherwise they'll be a disaster. I found that out a while back when I tried the usual method of combining the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately, and then adding the dry into the wet. DON'T DO THAT! 

These turn out large, so I use a 1/4 c. measure for dipping the batter onto the cookie sheets in order to keep them at a reasonable size. They yield a thinner cookie than most sugar cookie recipes and a lot of them! You can easily halve the recipe if desired.

The original instructions said to use ungreased cookie sheets, and I've always done that, assuming that the cookies won't rise properly if you grease them. You'll have to gently scrape them off the sheet with a spatula while they're hot, being careful not to scrunch them up. 

After the cookies are all off, I lay the sheets across the sink and scrape off all the residue that I easily can before using them for the next batch. It's fine. Doesn't hurt a thing. Because of the suger in the cookies, the residue that's left scrubs off easily under hot water when you're finished baking.

Give these a try and enjoy!

Amish Cookies

Preheat oven to 400°

Make a cinnamon-sugar mixture and set aside.

Cream together:

2 c. oil

3 c. sugar

4 eggs

Add and mix:

2 c. buttermilk

2 tsp. soda

2 tbsp. baking powder

Add and mix:

1 ½ tbsp. vanilla

1 ½ tsp. salt 

6 c. flour

Let sit for 5 minutes.

Drop by ¼ c. batter on ungreased cookie sheets. Sprinkle liberally with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake 7-8 minutes at 400° or until set and slightly brown around the edges. Don’t allow to brown very much, but make sure they’re cooked through. The tops will spring back when you touch them lightly. 

Carefully remove the cookies from the sheet with a spatula while they’re still hot and set on a wire rack to cool. The bottoms do stick to the sheet, so you’ll need to scrape off the stuck bits while the sheet is still warm, before reusing the sheet. When you’re finished, the sheets clean off easily under hot water.

Store the cookies in an air-tight container. They are fragile, so keep stacking to a minimum and place a sheet of wax paper between the layers.

Inspiration

 A Season for the Heart was inspired by my parents’ story. However, except for the setting, which I recreated as accurately as memory and research allowed, Ellie and Jude’s story varies considerably from theirs. Trying to actually write my parents’ story even in fictionalized form is not a task I aspire to. Nor do I imagine Mom and Dad would welcome my doing so if they were still living. No child could ever really comprehend the complexities of the individuals who gave birth to and raised them. Which might be a good thing, considering that we have our own complexities to deal with!

Alvin W. Hochstetler 8th Grade

I do know that I was greatly blessed in the parents the Lord gave me, something that’s impressed itself on me more and more deeply as I’ve gotten older and lived through the vicissitudes of my own story. They were extraordinary people. They’re the reason I’m the person I am, and I miss them every day.

Mom and Dad were both raised Amish, Mom on a farm near Greentown, Indiana. She attended Howard Township School, where I later attended. As customary among the Amish, she dropped out when she was 16 and went to work. Dad grew up on several different farms in southern Michigan as his folks moved around, finally ending up in Nottawa. His mother died when he was 15, during his final year in school. 

Lulu Bontrager early 1940s

Dad was 25 when he received his draft notice in November 1940. I don’t know why he went into the army instead of claiming conscientious objector status, which was allowed then, but he did. He was inducted in March 1941 and assigned to the 21st Ordinance Company (MM) for what was supposed to be a one-year enlistment. That changed nine months later when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

He and Mom met when he was on furlough home in the summer of 1942 shortly before his unit shipped out to the South Pacific. She was visiting in the Nottawa area and was having dinner with friends in a tavern when he walked in with a girl on his arm. She took one look at the handsome guy in uniform and made up her mind that she was going to get him. And she did!

They wrote to each other for the next three years while his company moved from New Zealand to Australia to Goodenough Island to New Guinea to Layte and throughout the Philippines. He finally arrived back at San Francisco on September 21, 1945. He was discharged at Fort Sheridan on October 6, and they married on Dad’s birthday, November 22.

Mom was a member of Howard-Miami Mennonite Church by then. Marrying a soldier wasn’t any more favorably looked upon by the Mennonites than by the Amish. In fact, she had to stand up in church and confess to marrying an unbeliever, an experience she never forgot! But at some point, either before I was born or while I was very small, Dad was baptized and joined the church. Because of the grace extended to him by Mom and others who took the gospel seriously and lived it, he became a faithful member. And so did I in my early teens for the same reason. With Ralph and Jude in A Season for the Heart, I echo: God is good!

November 22, 1945