It is the most wonderful time of the year! The Great British Bake Off Season 13 is currently airing and the weather is finally cooling down here on FSU campus.
This will be our third year of celebrating all things baking, cooking, and mixing here in FSU Special Collections & Archives. This year we are exploring some of our collections from Heritage & University Archives, which focus on the history of Florida State University and its predecessor, Florida State College for Women.
Our signature bake this year will be a recipe for Ice Box Cookies, which were a popular dessert when FSCW was open in the 1930’s and 40’s. Icebox cookies and other recipes involving chilling the ingredients became popular as ice boxes (refrigerators) became more widespread in homes across America. Icebox cookies are the predecessor of the slice and bake cookie doughs that are still available in grocery stores today. With cookie dough ready to go, FSCW students were always ready to quickly bake some cookie and entertain friends.
How can you participate?
Bake: Pick a recipe from this post and give it a try. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t turn out as planned, we want to see your pictures!
Post: Post a picture to Twitter or Instagram, tag it with #grbbo @fsulibraries #fsuSpecialCollections
Like: Follow @fsulibraries on Twitter or Instagram to see all the posts!
Read: Follow along with The Great Rare Books Bake Off here the blog!
My Attempt at FSCW Ice Box Cookies
I gave the Ice Box cookie recipe a try and was surprised by how good they were. I had never made cookies like this before. The dough was thicker than I expected but it made rolling it into a log shape a bit easier. I put the foil-wrapped dough log into my freezer for 2 hours and then was able to easily slice it. The cookies have a wonderful cinnamon taste and a little crunch from the nuts. Now I have the rest of the dough left to slice and bake as needed.
Additional Recipes to Try
If cookies aren’t your thing, try one of the following recipes from the book Seminole Savorings: Recipes from Friends of Florida State University (1982) chosen by SCA intern Caroline Haight. Seminole Savorings is full of recipes gathered from Seminole Boosters and other friends of FSU.
Follow along as we share guest-posts and other book-related cooking fun throughout the month of November. You can always check out our archive of previous Great Rare Books Bake Off posts for more inspiration.
Illuminations 