Cook Stove Chemistry 101 Peanut Cookies Number One

Hello and welcome, my name is Ranger Ryan O’Connell and I work here at George WashingtonCarver National Monument in Diamond, Missouri.
Here we preserve the two hundred and fortyacre farm that the famous scientist was born
and raised on. We’re here in our laboratorywhich is found in our Discovery area in our
Visitor Center to talk about something calledCook-Stove Chemistry. When Carver was working
at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, one of thethings that he created was called the bulletins
and these bulletins were informational brochures thatwere distributed to the poor farmers of Macon
County, Alabama, both black and white, inorder to teach them something and help improve
their lives on a number of different topics.Often these would include recipes, so we’ll
be making a recipe from one of these bulletinstoday. We’re going to be making one of the
recipes found in this bulletin, number thirtyone “How to grow the peanut and one hundred
and five ways of preparing it for human consumption”our recipe today is going to be number seventeen,
peanut cookies number one. When we refer toCook-Stove Chemistry, we’re referring to the
practical application of science to the artof cooking. Today’s ingredients will be “three
cups of flour, two eggs, one cup sugar, oneand one half cups ground peanuts, one half
cup butter, one cup sweet milk or regularmilk, one teaspoon baking powder. The instructions:
Cream butter and sugar, add eggs well beaten,now add the milk and flour, flavor to taste
with vanilla, and the peanuts last, drop onespoonful to the cookie in well greased pans,
bake quickly.” The first thing that you’regoing to do is set the oven to three hundred
seventy five degrees. The ingredients forthis recipe number seventeen, peanut cookies
number one, you’ll need three cups of flour,and half of a cup of butter and extra for
greasing or something to grease your cookiesheets, two eggs, now the primary audience
for the bulletins were farmers and the eggsthat they had likely would have already been
at room temperature so make sure your eggsare too. One cup of sweet milk, now by sweet
milk he means regular whole milk, basicallynot sour milk or buttermilk. One cup of sugar,
one teaspoon of baking powder, and one andone half cups of ground peanuts. Now when
he says peanuts I believe he is referringto them being raw; and raw peanuts can be
hard to come by because the commercially availablepeanuts are roasted, and honestly taste better
for snacking. So today, in the spirit of science,were going to do an experiment. We’re going
to split the recipe in half and bake halfwith raw and the other half with roasted and
see how they turn out. My guess is that theroasted will probably taste a little burnt
but you never know, it could surprise us.The last thing that the instructions have
is vanilla to taste but it’s not includedin the ingredient list so we’re going to include
that here. We’re going to cream the butterand the sugar together. And I’m going to use
an electric mixer. Next, we’re going to beatthe eggs and add them to our butter and sugar
mixture. Next, we’re going to add the milkand the flour. Next, we’re going to add the
baking powder and the vanilla. Now I’m goingto give it a mix and get it ready for the
peanuts. Now what we’re going to do is thatwe’re going to divide our recipe in two. As
you can see, it is really thick and sticky,so I had to switch out to manual methods rather
than using an electric motor; not risk burningout a motor. It’s very thick. And one more
scoop will do. And from here, we’re goingto add our peanuts. In here, we’re going to
put the raw. And this one we’re going to putthe roasted. Now we’re going to mix. Now when
the instructions says to scoop out by thespoonful onto a well greased pan, it doesn’t
say what size spoon so we’re just going touse table spoons. It’s my recommendation when
we, if you do this at home, when you kneadit or mix up the peanut into the batter, I
would recommend using your hands, becauseit was very difficult to use with the spatula.
So something to do with your hands, that’sfine. Next we’ll get started on the roasted.
The roasted style peanuts. I think we’ll dosomething a little different with them. I
think we’ll do a shape or maybe the classic’peanut butter cookie cross-hatching’ with
forks. Carver’s last instructions are to bakequickly, now baking quickly means that you’re
going to run your oven a little hotter thanwhat you are used to for baking. These days
we use about three hundred fifty degrees forbaking purposes so that’s why its set for
three-seventy-five but you could also go ashigh as four hundred. Back in Carver’s day,
these oven were wood fired and so they didn’thave the ability to regulate their heat so
that’s why it says to bake quickly ratherthan at a specific temperature. What he also
doesn’t tell us is how long we need to bakethese. So we’re going to put them in for eight
minutes or so and take them out, and rotatethem, get an idea how long it’s going to take
to get them to get brown around the edges,which is what we want. And since we don’t
know how long its going to take, once I getback to the lab I’ll let you know how long
it took me to get it to that point. Well,we made it back to the lab, the cookies smell
amazing, they look great. We can take a lookat this one here, golden brown on the bottom.
This cookie recipe yielded about twenty-eightor so cookies and you can see how large these
are, you can definitely make these smallerbecause it is a very thick batter and so we
ended up baking these for about fifteen orso minutes in the oven. When Carver was in
front of the House Ways and Means Committee,he brought a number of food articles with
him to show them the different products thatcan be made from the peanut and he brought
food articles and he told them, “Unfortunately,I’m sorry that I cannot let you taste them
but I will taste them for you.” So, I’m verysorry that you cannot taste them, I will taste
them for you, so we’ll give these a shot.This was the raw peanut cookie. It’s pretty
good. And this one is the roasted peanut.Okay. I was a little concerned about using
the roasted peanuts; they might be a littleover or bitter or burnt and they really aren’t,
so I think in this recipe you can substitutethe, the roasted peanuts for the – in place
of the raw and I don’t think they’re goingto lose an awful lot of quality difference.
This has a much more subtle flavor to it,this is definitely much more of a roasted
flavor and its very tasty actually. So I gotsome peanut milk with me, and going to have
some peanut cookie with my peanut milk. That’svery good. Carver’s recipe that like the one
we finished making for you, show the widevariety that the peanut can be used for. But
his concern is not so much about the peanutas it is about the farmer’s soil. Because
you see, peanuts are a legumes and a legumereturns the nitrogen back into the soil. But
unlike the cotton, peanuts are edible andso that was one way that they were beneficial
to the farmer but also because it had an amazingmix of fats and carbohydrates, proteins, and
minerals that vastly improved their diet.However, these farmers grew so many of these
peanuts that they didn’t really know whatto do with them besides just eat them raw
and roasted. So Carver goes into his laboratoryand creates this bulletin to show a hundred
and five ways that these peanuts can be usedand its not just for snacks and desserts like
we just made but also sides, breads, soups,and even entrees made from the peanut to show
off its versatility as a food. Well, I hopethat you’ve enjoyed watching this video, it
certainly was a whole lot of fun to make.I hope that you’ve learned a little bit about
George Washington Carver and the peanut. Iwant to take the time to invite you to George
Washington Carver National Monument locatedin Diamond, Missouri. It’s Interstate close
to Interstates forty four and forty nine.The park is open every day with the exception
of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s,daily from nine am to five pm. However, if
Missouri is a bit far for you, you’re welcometo visit our website which is www.nps.gov/gwca
or you could visit us on Facebook. I hopethat you take the time to visit sometime.
Goodbye.