The Cookie Diet: My Chocolate Snaps

What woman hasn’t flirted with a wacky, nonsensical diet? I started at age five, by eating nothing but the little chocolate cookies called Snaps for a week. I may not have lost weight. But I did feel a lot calmer.

In 1955, my nerves were on high alert the moment I heard my mother’s plans to ship me from the Bronx all the way to Queens for a week. She was having her gallbladder removed, and, back then, hospitalizations were longer. Paid babysitting by a stranger was out of the question, at least in my family. As for my father staying home and taking care of the kids — forget about it. This was the 1950s.

I was a shy, skinny little girl, whose nerves revved at about 150 mph. Mom called me “high strung.” The sheer terror of possibly never seeing my mother again took over the minute I got to my aunt and uncle’s apartment in Queens (wherever that was). Their home was so different from mine that it felt like going to the moon or to New Jersey to stay with the Sopranos. The Solomons gobbled up daily life like it was grand opera. Their overstuffed four-room apartment looked like a painting by Bruegel — complete with a Klezmer soundtrack.

The Solomons screamed, they fought, they laughed, they cried, they wrestled and they dined on vast quantities of rich Jewish food every night. My cousins chased each other around the apartment until all the tchotchkes came crashing down. They never worried about the punishment that was sure to come. To top off the freewheeling madness, I learned that my uncle was running a counterfeit Chanel No. 5 Perfume operation out of his over-decorated bathroom. Clearly, bathing was not going to be a priority that week.

By day two of my stay, I retreated to a quiet corner, where I kept an eye on the action and prayed for my parents to swoop in. I stopped speaking and eating, sending my Aunt Molly into a crazed tailspin. Even her fragrant roasted meats would not pass my lips. This renowned cook and balabusta wasn’t used to refusal.

Finally, she broke down and called my mom. “Your daughter hasn’t eaten in two days,” she kvetched. “What is her favorite food? I’ll give her anything.” “Chocolate Snaps,” mom responded. “You know, those little round cookies that come in a small box from Nabisco. Call me back if she doesn’t give in.”

Voila! Like Peanuts’ Linus carrying around his blanket, I clutched a box of my beloved Snaps everywhere for the rest of the week. I munched on the crunchy little snacks, glass of milk in hand, until my mom picked me up to go home. Aunt Molly may have seen this as a nutritional failure, but for me, the week was a triumph of the will.Over sixty years later, I’ve learned that I am not the only recovered Chocolate Snaps addict. For sale at this moment on Etsy is a vintage Chocolate Snaps box in both needlepoint and refrigerator magnet replicas. Other oldies continue to ask, “Why did Nabisco drop them?” After all, they continued to make Oreos, Lorna Doones and Fig Newtons. Pourquoi? 

We may never know the answer to that question, but I knew that when I started baking with my grandchildren, I needed to pass along my beloved Snaps. This is a long way of saying that these cookies elicit a similar emotional vibration. Like French sablé or shortbreads, they are an easy butter cookie with a sandy texture that melts in the mouth. In France, bakeries often pile the disks in baskets on the counter and sell them by weight. Or they hand them out to hungry children after school.

In our Pastry Session, my granddaughter Piper and I had fun rolling and cutting with cookie cutters. For additional fun, once the cookies are baked, you can sandwich a layer of simple confectioners’ frosting between two cookies to make faux Oreos. I also love making little ice cream cookie sandwiches by spreading a layer of softened ice cream between two wafers, and then placing in the freezer to set. Great for sleepovers!

(Speaking of sleepovers, among my friends, grandparents are happy to take the grandkids for a week, or longer if possible. Sure, it’s exhausting, but it’s also exhilarating to tuck them in at night and then see them first thing in the morning. All the hugs more than make up for achy backs.)

Back to Snaps, this recipe is better than the original cookie since the chocolate taste is deeper and purer. As I explained to Piper, that little dash of salt is the perfect contrast to the sugar. Snaps are a quintessential kids’ cookie since there are no odd combinations or weird nuts. And they fit in a pocket. As Piper succinctly put it, “They are very good. Finn stuffed a few in his mouth.” Encore, un triomphe pour grand-mère!

RECIPE

CHOCOLATE SNAPS

2 sticks softened butter
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 ½ cups cake flour
½ cup Dutch cocoa
¼ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F.

Beat butter at low speed with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Add sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth.

In another bowl, combine flour, cocoa and salt. Toss and stir with a fork. Add to the butter mixture and mix until just combined. “The less you handle the dough, the better the cookies will be,” I told Piper.

Turn out onto a well-floured board and lightly roll with a floured pin to form a ¼-inch thick circle.

Cut into 2-inch circles, or smaller (shot glass-sized) circles. Cookie cutters are also perfect. Transfer to ungreased cookie sheets. Bake just until set, 18 to 20 minutes. Carefully transfer to racks to cool.

Reroll remaining dough scraps, handling as lightly as possible, and repeat until no dough remains. (You also can press remaining dough into bottoms and sides of small tart tins for chocolate tart shells. Bake a few minutes longer.)

Los Angeles food writer Helene Siegel is the author of 40 cookbooks, including the “Totally Cookbook” series and “Pure Chocolate.” She runs the Pastry Session blog. During COVID-19, she shared Sunday morning baking lessons over Zoom with her granddaughter, eight-year-old Piper of Austin, Texas.