Nutmeg Bars #Christmas #Recipe by Maya Corrigan

 

Nutmeg bars were one of my family’s annual holiday sweets. I can still picture my father doing the hard job of grating the nutmeg. When my daughter and I recently made the bars, I suggested using ground nutmeg from the spice rack. But she insisted on grating whole nutmegs because that’s what Poppy had always done while Nanny mixed the other ingredients. Tradition!

These 5-ingredient cookies are quick to make and they travel well. The original recipe called for margarine, which my mother always preferred to butter.

                     Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg, separated

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp ground or grated nutmeg 

Directions

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg yolk and beat well. Stir in the flour and the nutmeg.

Spread the mixture evenly in an ungreased 15” by 10” by 1” pan. We use our fingertips to spread out the mixture in the pan. 

Beat the egg white slightly and brush it over the top.

Bake in the oven until golden brown (50 minutes to an hour).

Remove the pan from the oven and slice into bars while the still hot.

The original recipe calls for 2” by 3/4” bars, but I don’t remember my mother being precise about the size and neither am I, as you can see in the photo.   

Move the bars to a rack and serve them after they've cooled. They can be stored in an airtight container. 

 

READERS: Do you enjoy any holiday treats from the past?  

Speaking of treats, how about a holiday mystery from a Mystery Lovers' Kitchen author for yourself and/or for a friend? 

Here's a description of my holiday book, Gingerdead Man.

"A wonderfully seasonal cozy mystery"

--Criminal Element

Gingerdead Man: Five-Ingredient Mystery #7 features cafe manager Val and her energetic grandfather solving murders in their Chesapeake Bay town.

During Bayport's Dickens of a Holiday festival, Val is hosting a private tea party for the volunteers dressed as Dickens characters including Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past. A Santa who's more naughty than nice also comes to tea. An unexpected guest arrives, "shrouded in a deep black garment" like the eeriest Dickens ghost, and hands out gingerbread men with white icing skeleton bones. Though the creepy treat called a gingerdead man looks like a Halloween leftover, cookie addict Santa can't resist it. When the man in red turns blue, Val and Granddad have a cookie-cutter killer to catch.

"If you are looking to settle in with a well plotted cozy this Christmas, Gingerdead Man is for you. Grab a gingerbread man and some hot chocolate and enjoy." -- Mark Baker, Carstairs Considers

"Plenty of red herrings, mixed motives, and recipes for foodies make for a spirited holiday cozy." -- Kirkus Review of Gingerdead Man

"Maya Corrigan is skillfully able to take elements from several of my favorite Golden Age mysteries and weave them together....Gingerdead Man is a superb mix of cozy Christmas mystery shenanigans and hair-raising thrills." -- Miranda Owen, Fresh Fiction

 Purchase Links and Sample Chapter

Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring café manger Val and her live-wire grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Maya lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Before writing crime fiction, she taught American literature, writing, and detective fiction at Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords. Visit her website for book news, easy recipes, and mystery trivia.

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