Keeping Traditions Alive

This time of year is usually filled with lots of old family traditions. Maybe your family drives around to see the Christmas lights, or you always take a trip this month, or you visit a local holiday market. Whatever it is, there’s usually some kind of tradition you look forward to.

For my family, it’s baking cookies. We all spend about two weeks baking a variety of cookies, and then when we get together to celebrate, we bring what’s managed to survive that long to the holiday dinner. My mom likes to make lemon drops and snickerdoodles, my aunt makes Russian tea balls, and my uncle makes chocolate chip and peanut butter.

My grandmother used to make these butterscotch cookies, called Grandma’s Golden cookies. Without fail, every year, my cousins and I would devour these delicious treats first. They’d be scattered amongst all the cookie platters, and we would hunt them down until there were none left.

Sadly, my grandmother hasn’t been able to make them for several years now, and she passed on the recipe to my mom.

It’s a simple no-bake recipe. Butterscotch chips are melted in the microwave and combined with peanut butter, then mixed with cereal and scooped out onto trays to harden. But even though it’s simple, my mom and I have run into an issue.

Maybe you’ve noticed this with other family recipes of your own, but some of the ingredients our grandparents used simply aren’t the same anymore or have been discontinued, making it a challenge to recreate those recipes the way we remembered them and keep our traditions alive.

Our Grandma’s Golden Cookies were made with Kellogg’s Special K Product 19 cereal, which was officially discontinued in 2016. And ever since, my mom and I have hunted for a suitable replacement. It’s just not a holiday dinner without me and my cousins fighting over the last one!

We tried regular Special K, but the flakes were too big to properly hold together. Corn flakes didn’t have the right flavor. Grape Nuts Flakes were too small. We even started branching out and looking for non-cereal alternatives. Pretzels proved too salty and tortilla chips were an all-around failure (surprising none of us).

So far, the biggest success we’ve had is with Rice Krispies, though the flavor isn’t quite there. It’s the only cereal we’ve found that holds together when we scoop it onto the trays. We’re still on the hunt for that perfect alternative to recreate the flavor we remember, and maybe this year we’ll find it.

Do you have cookies you make every year for the holidays? Are you looking for some new ones?

Check out these dessert cookbooks for some fresh ideas, or find an old one you never had the recipe for before!