I am going into Christmas cookie baking mode. Each year I try to find the most interesting cookies to make up baskets for the people we care about. We have some amazing friends. My husband and I struggle with disabilities – he is in a wheelchair due to a combination of work injuries and post polio syndrome, and I have a lot of difficulty standing or walking due to my knees.
Anyway, our
neighbors and friends help us out by mowing our lawn all summer,
raking and bagging our leaves in fall and snow-blowing and shoveling us
out in
winter. Judy often helps out when we have bad days by bringing dinner
over, and when we go away, she has a warm meal waiting for us upon our
return. I don’t
think you find too many friends like this these days! Even our 76 year
old
neighbor buys us subs when the church in town has a fund raiser –all we
are
able to do for her is take out her garbage and pick up or mail things;
as I
said amazing friends who all help each other when they can. I
used to have dreams of opening my own store
with handmade soaps, scrubs and bath bombes, but after taking a business
course
realized I was too out of the way for it to fly. Then I became allergic
to the
scents, and the dream went down the drain. I still like to make soap
occasionally, so one day in the future I will probably blog about that.
I am a dreamer by nature – have you ever seen
the movie with Michael Keaton and Henry Winkler about two guys who work in a
morgue? It's called Night Shift. Michael Keaton is hysterical in it – he calls himself an idea man and
keeps a little cassette recorder with him at all times to record his ideas when
they pop into his head – I am a little like that – only I get my ideas when I
am supposed to be sleeping and end up with insomnia trying to figure out if I
can do these things or not!
Anyway, now that you know a little about me, on
with the cookies! A big thank you, by the way, to Judith Hannemann, the Midnight Baker http://bakeatmidnite.com/ for taking this beautiful photo.
Pfefferneuse
So I’m thinking the best cookie to make first for Christmas
is Pfefferneuse.; my great grandmother and grandmother used to make this every
Christmas and I remember taking a few of them with their powdery sugar and just
delighting in them. The ones you buy in the store are a sad replacement. The big secret if you are a novice to this is
that Pfefferneuse needs a few weeks to become soft, so if you are thinking of
making them around the 20th of December, you are in for a big
disappointment, because they will be hard as a rock and not delectable at all!
I have a big problem with letting things grab my attention
and more than once have made a dish only to find after it’s in the oven for a
bit, that I forgot an important ingredient – does that happen to you? So this
year I have been keeping a pencil with my recipes and marking off the
ingredients as I add them. Hopefully that will keep me from frustrating
mistakes. I am not a novice baker, but I am a scattered person at best.
Pefferneuse needs quite a bit of time in the fridge before
you bake it, so making it in the evening and baking it next day is really
handy. My plan is to make several refrigerator friendly recipes, leave them
overnight and bake them the next day while I am making my next batches of
cookies. In theory, this should work….time will tell. Make sure you take out
all the things that need to soften like butter and cream cheese well before you
start your baking spree.
Honey and molasses make one part of the flavor and a bunch
of ground spices make up the other. If you find other recipes for this on the
web, make sure they have cardamom in them. Cardamom is used in a lot of German
and Scandinavian cooking and has a very distinct flavor. The tough thing is
finding a store that sells it. I went to my local price chopper, shop rite and
Wal-Mart. All I found was one of those 3-4 ounce bottles for over $11.00.
Really? Trust me, unless you are making Scandinavian breads every other day, you
are never going to use this up! Then I thought about our local health food
store and decided to try that – sure enough, they had some – Cardamon is $42 a
pound, so I was grateful to only have to put a teaspoon in my little baggie –
cost 83 cents – much better than buying that bottle.
In a non- reactive pot, combine the molasses, honey and butter stir over low heat until the butter has melted.
When you melt the butter in the molasses and honey, make
sure it doesn’t come to a boil, it will taste burned!
The mixture will become thin, just be patient.
Remove from heat, transfer it to a large bowl, and let it cool until it is lukewarm.
While
it is cooling, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, spices
and salt. Once the honey mixture is lukewarm, beat in beaten egg and
anise extract. Mix well, then gradually stir in dry ingredients to make a
stiff dough.
Make a log and wrap it in saran wrap and leave in fridge at least 5 hours, or as i did, overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, line baking sheets.
Let
the dough warm up just a little, and dust your hands with flour. Then
make balls about 1 inch in diameter and place on baking sheet about 1
inch apart. Bake for 11-14 minutes, cool thoroughly and roll in
confectioner's sugar.
Store
in an airtight container, separating layers with wax paper. Like
fruitcake, these cookies get better and softer as they age. If desired,
before serving, they may be rolled once again in confectioner's sugar - I
always liked them double rolled -part of the fun as a kind, was liking
off the sugar!!!
Recipe for Pfefferneuse
1/4 cup molasses
1 1/4 cups honey
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cut in pieces
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 TBSP unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cardamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
Scant 1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
pinch of salt
1 large egg, slightly beaten
1/4 tsp. pure anise extract
confectioner's sugar for dusting
In a non- reactive pot, combine the molasses, honey and butter stir over low heat until the butter has melted.
When you melt the butter in the molasses and honey, make
sure it doesn’t come to a boil, it will taste burned!
The mixture will become thin, just be patient.
Remove from heat, transfer it to a large bowl, and let it cool until it is lukewarm.
While
it is cooling, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, spices
and salt. Once the honey mixture is lukewarm, beat in beaten egg and
anise extract. Mix well, then gradually stir in dry ingredients to make a
stiff dough
Make a log and wrap it in saran wrap and leave in fridge at least 5 hours, or as i did, overnight.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, line baking sheets.
Store
in an airtight container, separating layers with wax paper. Like
fruitcake, these cookies get better and softer as they age. If desired,
before serving, they may be rolled once again in confectioner's sugar
Let
the dough warm up just a little, and dust your hands with flour. Then
make balls about 1 inch in diameter and place on baking sheet about 1
inch apart. Bake for 11-14 minutes, cool thoroughly and roll in
confectioner's sugar.