Brown Sugar Maple Walnut Cut-Outs

     Call me a sentimentalist. I love getting letters. The real ones, I mean, written on paper with a pencil or pen. Some of my favorite notes of recent have been painstakingly drawn with crayons on scraps of crumpled notebook paper. In these days of email and texts, a handwritten note carries with it an air of warmth and care.

     Handwritten recipes are like that too. I have a box full of recipes that my friends and family have shared with me, most of them handwritten on recipe cards, notebook paper, index cards- whatever was handy at the time. Going through my recipe box is like a trip down memory lane, recalling special people and special times.

     When this handwritten recipe card fluttered to the floor out of a book I was shelving at the thrift store where I volunteer, I knew at once that it had also been special to someone. Lovingly handwritten (by a Grandma, no less),worn and stained, it had all of the earmarks of a well loved  recipe- one that would feel right at home in my recipe box.

     I changed very little of the recipe, adding some maple flavoring and topping it off with a walnut half and a divine maple glaze. (I had to resist the temptation to eat it by the spoonful.) These brown sugar beauties were perfectly chewy with crisp edges and a rich, buttery maple flavor.  I'm pretty sure Stephanie's Grandma would approve.

Brown Sugar Maple Walnut Cut-Outs

"Receipt" adapted from Stephanie's Grandma

Cookies

2 2/3 cups brown sugar, lightly packed (sift to prevent lumps)

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 lb. soft butter or oleo

2 eggs, not too small

1/2 teaspoon maple flavoring

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour 

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Walnut halves or pieces (Toasting the walnuts slightly brings out their flavor.)

Maple Frosting ingredients

1/2 stick butter

2 cups confectioners sugar (sifted, to prevent lumps)

1/2 tsp. maple flavoring

1-2 Tblsp. brewed coffee, hot

Directions for making cookies:

• Cream together sugar, salt and butter. 
• Beat eggs, maple flavor and vanilla extract together. Add to sugar and butter mixture.
• Sift dry ingredients together and gradually blend into above mixture.
• Chill well. Roll out on floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness.
• Cut with cookie cutters (I used leaf shapes, but a circle would be just as nice) and bake on parchment for 8-10 minutes, or until cookies are brown around edges. (Actual baking time will depend on the thickness and diameter of your cookies.)
• Cool on wire rack. Yield depends on thickness of dough and size of your cookie cutters.
• Use frosting (recipe follows) to attach a walnut half to each cookie. Drizzle frosting over cookie and walnut. (Or frost cookies and scatter chopped walnuts on top.)

Maple frosting:

• Melt butter in skillet. Remove from heat.
• Whisk in flavoring and confectioners sugar.
• Thin with hot coffee. Whisk until smooth and of drizzling consistency. (Thin with more coffee if needed.)

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