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This Vintage cookie recipe comes from an RG&E recipe booklet put together by their Home Service Department. These light fluffy cookies Pineapple are a nice break from some of the richer Christmas cookies.

It may seem odd for a company like Rochester Gas & Electric to put out a cookbook today, but it was actually a very common practice before the internet.

If you’re from my neck of the woods you’re probably very familiar with Rochester Gas & Electric, they serve gas and electricity (obviously) to roughly 378,500 customers in the Rochester area.

Back in the day, it seems like every company had a home service department or home economist working for them, even department stores had Home Economists on staff! From what I can gather, the purpose of the home services and economist seemed to be two-fold;  to educate the consumer, and to also act as a marketing technique, to get homemakers excited about new services and products.

I’ve talked about my fondness for collecting old cookbooks about a million times here on the blog,  and occasionally perusing eBay for vintage local cookbooks is somewhat of a hobby, which was how I happened to stumble upon Everyone Likes Cookies by the Rochester Gas & Electric home service department.

The typewritten booklet doesn’t have any publication date on it, or any reference to a time frame at all actually, but based on the style and formatting of this booklet, it seems to be very similar to other Rochester Gas and Electric booklets I’ve been able to find on Ebay published around the 1970s. So I am going to go with that. 

If you have any ideas or thoughts, or even just want to drop your best guess at when this book was published drop them in the comments, I’d love to hear what you think! 

Once I had the cook booklet in my hands I begin flipping through it looking for a vintage cookie recipe that would be worth trying.  The pineapple cookies caught my eye instantly.  I’d never really seen a pineapple cookie recipe before and I liked the idea of a pineapple cookie the counterbalance some of the more rich and decadent cookies on my cookie platter.

Soft, fluffy and slightly tropical this cookie was love at first taste. I’ve made this cookie three times now since I got this cook booklet from eBay and I found a couple of small tweaks really perfected this vintage recipe for the modern cook.

Tips for making vintage pineapple cookies:

• Use real butter. All of the cookie recipes in Everyone Loves Cookies use shortening as the fat. Shortening isn’t something I typically bake with, so I just swapped out the shortening for the butter in equal amounts which worked perfectly.
• Bake at 350 F. The 375 F -degree oven temperature that the recipe originally calls for seemed a little hot for a cookie recipe, and I noticed the previous owner of the booklet had circled the shorter cooking duration when there was a range of cooking times listed. Baking at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes was the perfect baking time and temperature for these cookies.
• Dress them up with a little quick glaze. I adored these cookies without any additional toppings, but  I also wanted to be able to add some holiday sprinkles and give them a more finished appearance. Pineapple glaze with the perfect solution. Reserve the pineapple juice from the canned crushed pineapple when you’re making your cookies and set it aside, mix it with just enough powdered sugar to create a thick glaze and dip the cookie tops in the glaze once they are cool, if you are using sprinkles, sprinkle the tops of the cookies while the glaze is still wet if not let the glaze set before you add them to your cookie platter.

Pineapple Cookies

Yield: 30 Cookies

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 12 minutes

Additional Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 27 minutes

This Vintage cookie recipe comes from an RG&E recipe booklet put together by their Home Service Department. These light fluffy cookies Pineapple are a nice break from some of the richer Christmas cookies.

Print

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 /2 cup crushed pineapple, drained, reserve juice
• 1/2 cup crushed nuts, optional
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon reserved pineapple juice or lemon juice

Pineapple Glaze

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2-4 tablespoons reserved pineapple juice

Instructions

Cookies

1. Drain pineapple, reserving 3 tbsp juice.
2. Set pineapple and drained pineapple juice aside.
3. In a bowl, cream butter and sugar.
4. Add egg, mix well.
5. Add pineapple, 1 tablespoon pineapple juice, and vanilla, mix well.
6. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.
7. Stir sifted dry ingredients into creamed mixture.
8. Using a cookie scoop, drop cookie dough 2 inches apart on greased cookie sheet.
9. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes.
10. Remove cookie sheet from oven and let cool on wire racks 5 minutes before removing the cookies from the baking sheet to cool completlety on a wire rack.

Pineapple Glaze

1. Combine powdered sugar with just enough reserved juice to get a smooth glaze.
2. Frost cookies when cool.

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So, this is my first time seeing pineapple cookies but have you ever had them before?  Honestly, this might be one of my new favorite vintage cookie recipes. what are some of your favorite vintage cookie recipes?