Tillie Anderson’s Brown Cookie Recipe

Matilda “Tillie” Fobian Valentine Anderson (1865-1936)

Tillie Valentine is best remembered as an Ephraim innkeeper. She opened Stonewall Cottage in 1899, the second “dedicated lodging establishment” in Ephraim, the Evergreen Beach Hotel being the first in 1897.

Valentine built a larger hotel behind Stonewall Cottage around 1906 and named it the Anderson Hotel. The Anderson Condominiums stand there today, along Moravia Street between the Moravian and Bethany Lutheran churches.

Source: “Some Women of Early Ephraim” by Paul Burton and Thea Sophia Thompson 2011, 2017.

A Distinctive Ingredient

Scan the recipe, below, and see if you can guess the ingredient that marks the recipe as classic Scandinavian. If you answered “cardamom” you ar correct!

What ingredient in Tillie Valentine’s recipe for , marks it as classic Scandinavian? If you answered “cardamom” you’re right! Cardamom, a zesty spice related botanically to ginger, allegedly arrived in Germany about 1,000 years ago thanks to the Moors, a Muslim population with Arab, Spanish, and Berber roots that had established a presence is southwestern Europe. Five hundred years later during the Middle Ages, a Danish monk first listed the spice in a cookbook titled Libellus De Arte Coquinaria. Today, cardamom is a staple in the Scandinavian baker’s pantry. Tillie’s mother was German, but her father was Scandinavian (Danish). It’s possible her cookie recipe came from his side of the family.

Green and black cardamom pods and seeds are used differently. Ground seeds of green cardamom are used in Scandinavian baking and to flavor sweet dishes. Black cardamom, with it’s smokey, menthol flavor, is used in rice dishes and stews. 

Cardamom is a plant native to the Himalayas, a mountain range in Asia, though now it is grown in places like Costa Rica, India, and even Florida and Hawaii. Historians claim Egyptians used it for bad breath and it is still considered a medicinal for oral hygiene.

Then as now, cardamom can be pricey, and availability of fresh fruit like oranges and lemons in Tillie’s day were a bit of a luxury, so this despite this cookie recipe’s dull title it may have been made for special occasions.

Brown Cookie Recipe

as written by Tillie Valentine

1 cup molasses. 1 cup honey. 1 cup brown sugar. ½ cup soft butter. ½ cup shortening (lard). Grated rind and juice of ½ orange. Grated rind and juice of ½ lemon. 1 ½ tsp baking soda in ¼ cup hot water. ½ tsp cloves. 1 tsp cinnamon. ½ tsp cardamom. 2 eggs. 6 ½ cup flour.

Mix ingredients well and chill in refrigerator overnight. Roll into balls and bake at 375° until tops crackle.

Married to Great Lakes schooner captain, widowed, married at 40 to Anderson Store merchant and dockmaster Adolph Anderson, this business woman’s biography reads like 20th century Hollywood film. The mother of three sons (one who died in infancy) and a devoted member of the Ladies Aide of the Ephraim Moravian Church, Tillie Valentine seems to have been a force to be reckoned with. Discover her story in the EHF bookle Some Women of Early Ephraim (2011 and 2017), a popular booklet available at the EHF or in Ephraim Stories (1999) by Paul and Frances Burton. Her “Brown Cookies” can be found on page 300 of the EHF’s classic cookbook Amazing Grazing (2003).

Source: https://www.ozy.com/around-the-world/the-hidden-history-of-scandinavias-love-of-cardamom/82046/

Submitted in 2020 by Kathleen Harris, EHF Educator. Revised with photos added in 2024.