Vintage Recipe Roulette: 1960s Ketchup Gumdrop Jumbo Cookies

Happy Mother's Day to everyone but Betty Crocker. Also, I have some really weird news about some of the candy you just gave your poor unsuspecting mom.

A friend asked recently if I had ever made “the ketchup cookies.”

No, no I had not, nor ever even heard of the ketchup cookies despite owning a copy of the Heinz Red Magic Recipes cookbook, from whence sprang the ketchup-laden but surprisingly edible Rosy Apple Crumble. After actually (mostly) enjoying that one, I thought maybe ketchup cookies would surprise me.

Well, they certainly have. I can’t find the recipe in print anywhere, even though I own a decades-old copy of The Betty Crocker Cookbook. That’s actually a great resource — I use it for several different pie crusts, and even rely on their chili recipe as a starting place for chili mac. Somehow the ketchup cookies didn’t make the cut, even though they reportedly have 3 1/2 c (!!!) of gumdrops in them. What could go wrong?

Here is the recipe according to Mid-Century Menu:

Gumdrop Jumbos

• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

• 1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)

• 2 eggs

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 1/4 cup catsup

• 2 3/4 cups flour

• 1/2 tsp soda

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 3 1/2 cups mini gumdrops

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Cream butter, sugars, eggs, vanilla and catsup thoroughly.

3. Stir in flour, soda and salt. Fold in gumdrops.

4. Drop dough by can 1/4 cupfuls 2 inches apart on greased and floured baking sheet (or you can line with parchment paper).

5. Bake 15-17 mins or until golden brown. Makes 1 1/2 to 2 doz cookies.

Even MCM balked at this one, noting that they only used 2 cups of gumdrops. I can imagine why — it’s hard to see how using a recipe that calls for more gumdrops than flour would come out at all. Surely this is some kind of malicious typo. And what are mini gumdrops? I can’t find any mention of them at all in any of my secret candy lore library. The modern Betty Crocker recipe for gumdrop cookies calls for a lot less gumdrop, and instructs cutting the regular-sized ones into quarters, so it may be a bygone candy offering of yesteryear.

Fortunately, earlier this year I saw a ragingly cute viral video with a little girl telling her dad that she loves him “lots and lots like jelly tots”, and I was so curious to know what they were that I ordered some.

@jolvideographyThe Grooms daughter leaves him a beautiful message before she and her mummy walk down the aisle! 🥹✨ • Venue; @Hawkstone Hall • #groomreaction #ukweddingvideographer #hawkstonehallwedding #weddinginspiration #jolvideography

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They are mini gumdrops, minus the sugar coating. Alas, I don’t have 3 1/2 cups of them.

The famous Jelly Tots, even though the random eyes in the "O” make it look like “Jelly Toots”.

I’m secretly relieved. I definitely don’t want 2 dozen ketchup cookies.

What I do have is enough for 1/7th of the recipe. It’s easy enough to work out if you use grams — 33 g butter, 14 g each sugar and brown sugar, 14 g of egg, 8 g ketchup, 48 g flour, a couple of drops of vanilla, a pinch of baking soda, and a few grains of salt, plus 1/2 c of Jelly Tots. Here it is all measured out (I’m using egg in a carton for ease of measuring, but here’s the whole egg for visual reference).

Egg, brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter, mini gumdrops, flour (with baking soda and salt), and ketchup with a few drops of vanilla.

It’s a straightforward cookie recipe — cream the butter with sugar, add any other liquids no matter how unfortunate, and then mix in the dry stuff.

Stirring in the ketchup looks like a crime scene, while stirring in the gumdrops is one.

Then, “Fold in the gumdrops,” it says. Fold, sure. Given that the relative volumes are reversed, it might be more accurate to say, “Lightly coat the gumdrops with cookie dough.” But, I am determined to use the full amount called for in the original recipe, just out of morbid curiosity.

It doesn’t say to chill or anything, which I am very worried about, but I’m going to proceed as instructed and just drop 1/4 c of dough onto the parchment far apart, and just hope they don’t spread across my entire oven and out onto the floor. Maybe the structure comes from all that gumdrop. It’s not widely known, but gumdrops have a rugged exoskeleton composed of insect secretions and pencil shavings.* (I’m kidding, right? Surely I’m kidding. No need to scroll down to look for that little asterisk note. Don’t worry! Just put it out of your mind.)

Much to my surprise, they seem to have worked just fine, although even the short end of the baking time (15 minutes) was too long. Since the tops were clearly not done when I checked them at 12 minutes, I think the baking temperature is too hot, especially because they are so puffy and need time for the inside to cook without burning the outside — I guess that’s why they got the name “Jumbo”. It would make more sense to use the standard cookie temp of 350 and let them go for 17-18 minutes, or to add a chilling step. Still, I’m shocked that they aren’t puddles of goo.

I’m also shocked by the smell.

It’s not ketchup exactly? But it’s not not ketchup. Hand to heaven, it smells most like one of those mid-century, savory-adjacent Jell-O “salads” I so often harangue you with, one of the ones that starts with lemon gelatin and ends with a mayonnaise garnish..and a heaping side of regret.

Here they are pictured in the harsh light of an angry sun, which is the only appropriate way to serve.

If you insist on making these, and you shouldn’t, alter the baking temp, and consider using spiced gumdrops instead of fruit flavored if you can find them. This was reportedly originally a Christmas recipe, so that would make sense anyway. Also, remember that the gumdrop part is almost all sugar, which holds heat for a long time. Let them cool lest you add injury to insult by burning your tongue. Also, if you put them on the plate when still even a tad warm, the gumdrops beneath will adhere to the surface with roughly the adhesion power of 10,000 geckos on a Velcro wall in the Gorilla Glue factory. (Ask me how I know.) Let them cool completely on a rack. And then throw the rack away.

Should you leave out the ketchup? I mean…it doesn’t ruin the recipe, but it doesn’t save it, either. Much to my surprise, I think the main problem with this recipe is not the ketchup, but the gumdrops. I tried to pull out a piece of cookie so I could quantify the dough’s RKI (relative ketchup index) without the interference of gumdrops, and it was nearly impossible. They’re just unavoidable. They also give the cookie, which is otherwise soft and pleasantly crumbly, a weird, springy texture. It’s like trying to have high tea in a bouncy castle.

With a very scary clown.

*Surely it’s obvious, but ever since I had to tell you that grape flavoring was initially developed as a bird repellent, I figure I have to spell out that I am actually just kidding. Gumdrops, especially Rowntree’s vegan Jelly Tots gumdrops, definitely do not contain insect by-products or pencil shavings.** That’s probably all there is to it, right? No need to read about the technicalities.

**Although I’m kidding about the gumdrops, a lot of other candies actually DO contain something labeled as “confectioner’s glaze”, which is, I deeply regret to inform you, insect varnish, namely shellac. Shellac is a secretion of the lac bug, Kerria lacca, of Southeast Asia. It’s affectionately named, and I swear I am not making this up, “beetlejuice”. You can read about it in Scientific American here, if you dare. There’re no pencil shavings in candy, though.***

***I mean, not technically. But, although they are not in these Jelly Tots or most other gumdrops, a LOT of foods contain a generally-recognized-as-safe ingredient called cellulose. It’s just a powder made of fibrous cell walls of plants and is not dangerous, but it’s also not nutritious. In addition to foods, it’s also sometimes added to things like cardboard and electrical insulation. Even when it is manufactured for use in food, it’s typically made either from cotton fibers, or literal sawdust, just like your friend the #2 pencil.

Need food-first, picky eater-friendly, non-judgmental help with nutrition? You can schedule an appointment with me through Nourish here. I promise I will not suggest you eat ketchup cookies or Jell-O salad. I see lots of diabetes, neurodivergence, allergies and GI conditions, autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, and weight management whether for increase or decrease — adults, teens, and kids. We take most insurance, and most often, the copay is $0.

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