0:00
- You know, everybody that comes to Savannah, Eddie,
0:04
they are familiar, they see Byrd Cookie Company's products
0:10
around in stores, and then they have
0:13
a wonderful store on Waters Avenue here.
0:16
And so, they get people coming
0:20
in there and shopping and you just sample,
0:24
go in and you can sample all the cookies.
0:26
Oh, my gosh, you can be full when you leave there
0:29
sampling, or at least I know I can.
0:31
But one of the number one favorite cookies
0:34
that they do is Benne Wafers, and they
0:38
really are so very good, so that's the recipe
0:43
that I'm gonna share with y'all today,
0:46
and we're gonna start by creaming three sticks of butter,
0:54
two eggs, and one box of light brown sugar.
1:06
And we're gonna cream that for about five minutes.
1:09
And, you know, I can't even see a benne seed
1:15
that I don't think about my friend, Nancy Mercer Gerard.
1:21
She was my neighbor when I lived in Turner's Cove.
1:30
And I just loved her to pieces.
1:31
And she was the niece of Johnny Mercer.
1:36
So she, too, was musically talented
1:39
as well as one of her sons.
1:42
I know he was very talented as well.
1:48
But in my "Just Desserts" book,
1:51
she came down and got in the kitchen with me
1:55
and showed me her Uncle Bubba's favorite candy,
2:00
and it was benne seed candy,
2:03
and it was in my "Just Desserts" cookbook.
2:06
So she was always so much fun to be with,
2:09
and I'm sad to say she's no longer with us,
2:13
but she was a wonderful person.
2:14
She just always had interesting stories to share with me,
2:18
and we'd spend a lot of time just laughing and talking.
2:22
All right, so I've got my three sticks of butter,
2:26
my one box of light brown sugar,
2:29
or if you have big larger bags of brown sugar,
2:35
it's like two-and-a-half cups of packed brown sugar.
2:41
All right, so I'm gonna get that going.
2:48
I think I'm gone have to lock this
2:49
'cause that butter's not real soft.
2:58
I'm gon' turn it up a little bit, and like I said,
3:00
we gon' mix this for about four minutes,
3:02
and while that's creamin' up, I'm gonna to.
3:13
I'm gonna toast my benne seeds.
3:18
(pan clanging) I'm gone get that pan hot.
3:22
And we want to, you wanna be so very careful,
3:26
y'all, not to burn these,
3:31
and it will take no more than two minutes.
3:34
So I'm gone let my skillet get hot.
3:37
Now, I'm gonna add my eggs now
3:39
that that's mixed up a little bit.
3:43
(mixer whirring) It's goin'.
3:52
You know, it's still kind of cool, cold, here in Savannah.
3:58
And even puttin' the butter out
3:59
on the counter, Teresa, it doesn't get.
4:03
- [Theresa] It doesn't?
4:05
- When it's cold outside, it doesn't get real soft.
4:09
All right, so let's come down here.
4:15
It would be that cup of benne seeds right there.
4:17
All right, so we're just gonna toast these.
4:22
Like I said, y'all, you cannot be cautious enough
4:26
when you're browning these to not burn them.
4:30
So there we go. - Smell good.
4:32
- Nice. And the smell is so good.
4:35
It's just smells so nutty and fragrant. Mm, mm, I love it.
4:42
All right, now I don't think we're gonna need
4:44
the mixer from here on out because.
4:49
- I'll come get you. - Oh, thank you, Teresa.
4:50
Because you just stir everything else in it now.
4:55
I've got my flour, and I've got salt
5:01
and baking powder or soda; I can't remember.
5:05
Baking powder. And it said to sift those together.
5:13
So I have found that a whisk works just as good
5:19
as running them through a sifter.
5:23
So that's what I'm gonna do.
5:32
Okay. So you can see our batter.
5:35
It's real thick and smells real good, too. All right.
5:44
Let's see. We had our salt; we had our baking powder.
5:49
We had two cups of all-purpose flour.
5:54
And now I'm gonna put in two teaspoons of vanilla extract.
6:14
So we just gonna stir in our flour
6:22
into our wet ingredients.
6:30
Like I said, this is going to be a stiff batter.
6:39
And it doesn't take, I don't know if y'all are familiar
6:42
with bird cookies, but all their cookies are
6:44
about this big around, whether they're a savory cookie
6:48
or a sweet cookie, you know, just a perfect mouthful.
6:54
And it doesn't take but a dab of this dough
6:59
but to make spread out, make you a small bite size cookie.
7:05
Okay, our benne seeds have cooled enough
7:10
that we can add 'em into our dough.
7:16
And you can see, I hope you can see, that these continued
7:24
to brown after I took 'em off the stove.
7:29
So, and I immediately transferred them to a cold sheet
7:34
and got 'em out of the hot skillet
7:37
because they will continue to cook on you.
7:48
Teresa had to come in and help me with a stir
7:50
of the batter, y'all, 'cause it's a very, very stiff batter.
7:57
So, needless to say, this is gonna make a lot
8:00
of benne seed cookies 'cause we just gonna put a dab down.
8:07
I'm trying to figure out my measuring tool
8:15
because, you know, I just really do just want a dab.
8:21
That's, I don't like the curve on that one.
8:37
It's been so long since I made these, y'all,
8:39
I can't remember how small I did make them.
8:49
Now these will turn, these will come out.
8:51
They will melt into a circle.
8:55
Okay, y'all, I did 'em
8:59
in about a half a teaspoon per cookie.
9:02
And I'm gonna put these in the oven.
9:05
And let's see, we got, we gonna bake these
9:11
at 300 degrees for about 14 to 15 minutes
9:17
until they're nice and brown, but not burnt.
9:28
Now these cookies are amazing.
9:33
It's hard to drop down a very small amount
9:39
of dough because the ones that we're used
9:44
to seeing in town are about that big around.
9:48
- [Theresa] Gee. - Uh huh, they're teeny.
9:56
If they run together like some of mine did,
10:00
you'll need to when they come out the oven, just cut 'em,
10:04
you know, before they get crisp
10:06
because this is a real crisp cookie.
10:10
When Michael Groover comes in, Katie, bar the door
10:16
because this is his favorite kind of cookie, extra crispy.
10:23
(cookie crunching) Mm.
10:26
Nancy, I'll think about you every time,
10:29
sister, when I eat a sesame seed.
10:34
Y'all must try this.
10:35
It's out of this world. So buttery and crispy.
10:41
So that's it for today. Love and best dishes, y'all.
