Nancy Holmes Watson of Atwater, Calif., fell in love with a butterscotch cookie and is requesting help in finding a recipe for it.

She wrote: "I lived in Baltimore in the 1940s, and at that time my mother purchased one of the first cookie presses on the market, which came with a card of recipes to make using it. One of these was for butterscotch cookies, which became my all-time favorite cookie. In the years since, I have moved several times and in the process have lost the recipe. These cookies are so good. Could you ask your readers if anyone knows this recipe?"

Ruth Baker of Baltimore responded with a recipe and hopes "this is what she is looking for."

Butterscotch Cookies

Makes 6 to 8 dozen cookies

2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar

2/3 cup soft butter or margarine

2 eggs

2/3 cup buttermilk (or regular milk soured with 1 teaspoon vinegar)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chopped nuts, optional

3 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Cream sugar and butter or margarine. Beat eggs, buttermilk and vanilla extract into mixture. Add nuts, if using. Sift remaining ingredients together and blend into mixture. Drop by teaspoonfuls on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven 8 to 12 minutes, or until lightly golden around edges. Cool on wire rack and store in airtight container.

Tester Laura Reiley's comments: "Nancy Holmes Watson was looking for a spritz-cookie recipe. This recipe can easily be loaded into a cookie press and piped into decorative shapes before baking. Do not refrigerate dough before working with it, or it is too firm to work with.

"If you choose to use a cookie press, the cooking time is approximately the same. This dough can also be refrigerated and rolled out between sheets of floured waxed paper and cut with cookie cutters. The flavor of these is like a slightly caramelized butter cookie."

Recipe requests

* Mrs. John Seber of Jeannette, Pa., would like to know if anyone knows how to make chicken-stuffed shells. She says her diet is limited and she thought some ground chicken or such in pasta shells would be good.

* Alice L. Friesen of Salem, Ore., wants a recipe for cream of spinach soup like the one she had at "the Rams Pub in Salem, which was fabulous."

She adds, "I know it had bacon in it. Could you get that recipe for me?"

If you are looking for a recipe or can answer a request for a hard-to-find recipe, write to Ellen Hawks, Recipe Finder, The Sun, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, MD 21278. If you send more than one recipe, please put each on a separate sheet of paper with your name, address and daytime phone number. Important: Please list the ingredients in order of use, and note the number of servings each recipe makes. Please type or print contributions. Letters may be edited for clarity.