Bubbler Talk listener Brian O’Connor recently received a cookbook as a gift: "The Book of Great Cookies" by Maida Heatter.
Published in 1977, its author New York City native Maida Heatter was known as the "Queen of Cake."
What interested O’Connor was the recipe on page 58.
“[It's] called blind date cookies," O'Connor says. "And I’m going to read a little bit from here: 'Although these came to me from a friend in New York, I’m told that the recipe originated over 100 years ago with a famous pastry shop in Milwaukee.'"
Brian wondered which famous pastry shop that might be.
Milwaukee's first major bakeries
The sweet in question is a soft cookie with a walnut-stuffed date inside (the 'blind date') and a thin glaze on top.
To trace the origins of the blind date cookie, we met food historian Christina Ward in her Cudahy kitchen. It’s brimming with cookbooks.
Ward says in the 1800s, Milwaukee boasted two major bakeries. One was started by Oswald Jaeger, who came to Milwaukee by way of Austria in 1872.
"Jaeger came from a German tradition and that cookie wasn’t quite German," Ward says — so it's unlikely the blind date cookie was sold there. "They were doing big bread production."
Ward says Alanson Follansbee came on the scene 25 years earlier, from outside of Boston. But it's his ancestry that is key to the story of the cookie.
"This blind date cookie has a long history coming from the north of England, which is originally where the Follansbee family was from," she says.
Ward pulls a book from her shelf called "The Art of Cookery."
"This was published in 1770," Ward says. "And this is considered the first American cookbook. There is a version of this recipe."
Here in Milwaukee, Follansbee’s bakery opened in 1847. It was initially called Wisconsin Street Bakery and later A Follansbee Bakery.
"He’s (Follansbee) advertising Boston and sugar crackers. So, sugar crackers being a term for sweets — for a lot of the sweets and cookies. So, putting those two things together, I’m 99% sure this cookie came from Follansbee," Ward says.
Follansbee baked and sold his goods in several downtown locations. One, according to an 1850 advertisement was opposite Engine House No.1.
Today, his legacy remains in the form of one handsome four-story brick building, "His retail outlet on Wisconsin and Broadway," Ward says.
Follansbee commissioned the building in 1867. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to see it in full operation. During its construction he fell ill and then was bedridden until his death.
Today a trucking company and a restaurant are among the building’s occupants.
Baking the blind dates
In Follansbee’s honor, Ward graciously whips up a batch of blind dates.
"The core ingredients of it are the stuffed dates — so walnuts in a date — and sour cream batter that is very thin," Ward explains. "So, it says four tablespoons of unsalted butter. So that would be like a knob in the old recipe language — that would be a knob of butter."
Ward twists and cracks the stick of butter in two.
"I'm going to add the sugar and this one calls for powdered sugar," she says.
The batter consistency has been achieved, and Ward preps the dates.
"We’re going to slit the date. I’m going to remove — unless you get them pre-seeded — they do have a seed inside. And then I’m going to take a nice half a walnut and kind of hide it in there," she says. "Which again, now we have our blind date."
After dropping stuffed dates in the batter, "I’ve got two forks and this is how you do it. You coat it like that. I’m going to let it drip and I’m going to set it down. Now we’re going to do that to the rest of these really quick," Ward says.
Before you know it, we’re sinking our teeth into the still warm concoctions.
A few days later, I share one of the blind date cookies with Bubbler Talk question-asker Brian O’Connor.
"Mmm — I’m liking the date flavor," O'Connor says. "I like the walnut. I like them together. The dough is really, I think, the selling point. That’s amazing."
As for the building still standing where the 19th century Follansbee blind date cookies were once sold?
"That’s really cool," O'Connor says. "I had no idea. I’ve driven by that building like a million, million times. Holy man. I had no idea it was a bakery."
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