This 76-Year-Old Refrigerator Cookie Recipe From the Inventor of the Chocolate Chip Cookie Proves She Wasn't a One-Hit Wonder

Nut Tea Wafers

The subreddit r/Old_recipes is a treasure trove for the home chef who also loves a good dose of nostalgia. The posts are sweet, homey and sometimes downright hilarious and/or horrifying (ham banana rolls, anyone?).

Thanks to the avid home cooks that make up this online forum, at the end of the day, I always uncover a new vintage recipe. My latest find? This 76-year-old recipe for Nut Tea Wafers (also referred to as Refrigerator Cookies). Created by Ruth Wakefield, the inventor of the original chocolate chip cookie, the recipe is simple and easy, which seems like her signature style. I was intrigued to see if this recipe would be as iconic as her chocolate chip ones, so I headed to the kitchen to give it a try.

Get the recipe: Ruth Wakefield's Nut Tea Wafers (Refrigerator Cookies)

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Ingredients for Nut Tea Wafers

For this recipe, you'll need the following ingredients: butter, brown sugar, an egg, flour, salt, baking soda, vanilla extract and walnuts.

Related: Martha Stewart's Famous Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies Will Ruin You For All Others

How to Make Nut Tea Wafers

Start by creaming the butter and sugar together (I did this by hand, but you could use a hand or a stand mixer). Add the egg and beat well. Sift your flour, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, followed by the vanilla and chopped walnuts.

Wakefield's original recipe says to "pack in greased individual bread tins, lined with heavy paraffin paper and leave in refrigerator overnight," but there is an alternative in the notes: "The dough may be formed into a long roll if a round cookie is desired instead of the oblong shape." I chose this option and rolled it into a log before wrapping in plastic wrap since I didn't have individual bread tins.

After refrigerating overnight, slice the dough as thinly as possible and bake at 375° or 400° for 7-12 minutes. (I sliced mine about a quarter inch thick and baked them at 375° for exactly 7 minutes and let cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before removing to a wire rack and they were perfect.)

What I Thought of Nut Tea Wafers

I tried these straight out of the oven and then again after completely cooling (because, you know, research). I already knew that the original Toll House cookie recipe created by Wakefield was a winner, but I wasn't prepared for such a simple cookie to be so good—and I'm not a huge walnut fan, either. The nuts tasted of caramel from the brown sugar and the cookies had crispy edges with soft, chewy middles that were dotted with bits of chopped walnuts. Clearly the woman knew her way around a good cookie.

I think they're fit for a cookie jar, after-school snack or even an ice cream sandwich. And Redditors agree, with commenters geeking out over the original, signed copy of the book from 1938 that was in the original post, along with numerous tried-and-true Wakefield recipes.

Related: The Simple 1,300-Year-Old Ancient Tomb Cookie Recipe That Blew Me Away

Tips for Making Nut Tea Wafers

1. Refrigerate your dough. Some Redditors report skipping this step and while I love a good bowl-to-oven recipe, for this recipe, chilling the dough for as long as possible really helps them bake up nicely. I chilled my cookie dough for about 14 hours and was really happy with the consistency of the dough and the cookies.

2. Slice and bake. If you want your cookies to be a bit more rounded, turn the dough log a quarter turn after each thin slice. This ensures that you'll end up with a more even cookie all the way around instead of a squished one. (Rest assured that even the squished ones taste great, though.)

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