meridian_rose

"I made him cookies. Sand tarts."

source: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=midnight-texas-2017&episode=s01e01


In the first episode of "Midnight, Texas", Manfred gets a plate of welcome to the neighbourhood sand tarts from Fiji. They're also magical cookies, since Fiji is a witch, and if he had any bad intentions toward the town's inhabitants, Manfred would, Fiji tells her friend, "be tossing those cookies".


Source: https://karamelmikaelsons.tumblr.com/post/163407460887/dont-worry-i-made-him-cookies

I'd not heard of sand tarts before and some googling gives some interesting information about the Pennsylvanian Dutch settlers who brought them to America, Amish families, and the Christmas tradition of making them.
Sand tarts are dusted with sugar (I guess giving the "sand" texture), powered sugar, and/or have nuts, pecans or almonds most often, as decorations.

I've wanted to make sand tarts since seeing the episode, being a fan of the show, enjoying occasional new forays into the world of cake/biscuit making, and an eclectic pagan :)
So I looked at several recipes of the many available online and chose this one:
Grandma's Sand Tart Cookies

The problem was that American recipes use cups (why don't you weigh things?! Also why does butter come in sticks?! Why are even your tablespoons bigger than ours?! Why Fahrenheit?!) so I had to do a bit of converting via some websites.
Then I came to make the dough and…I'm not feeding an entire village! So I halved the mixture and I probably should have rolled a bit thinner (I had to increase the cooking time) and still got 40 cookies. For comparison I tend to make about 15-20 biscuits/cookies from a UK recipe.
They are much approved of by the family though so a few more were welcome, and I might make them again :)

I made rounds, stars, a couple of reindeers, and a few Christmas tree shapes.
Here is a photo:



This is also an entry for the gameofcards fandom food challenge.