Poppy Seed Cookies

This recipe is adapted from a cookbook called Second Helpings, Please!, which belonged to the Engineer’s Bubbie. There are handwritten notes in the margins of some recipes and food splatters in others; you can tell this book has been well-used (I’m now the third generation to make a recipe from it), and that makes it even more charming to me.

3 eggs, beaten
½ cup canola oil
¼ cup fresh orange juice (about half an orange)
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup poppy seeds
3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

Preheat oven at 350 °F.

Blend eggs, oil, juice and sugar. Add poppy seeds. Sift dry ingredients together and add to batter. The dough should be fairly stiff.



Then, the original recipe calls for you to flour a work surface and roll out the dough to ¼” thickness, then use a cookie cutter to make shapes. I did one batch like that, and for the rest, I simply shaped them into discs. It’s less messy, and I think the dough could also be rolled into a log, refrigerated and then sliced into cookies. Bake for about 12 minutes, until the edges are golden. Makes about 4 to 5 dozen cookies.