When I was fairly young, about five or so, my mother and I still went grocery shopping together. It was December in Richmond, a bit chilly but not the sort of place that expected a white Christmas. We were walking past a holiday cookie display when I heard her exclaim, "Pfeffernusse!".
I would like to claim I said, "Excuse me!", but I wasn't that cool a kid.
They were small spheres which had been cut in half. Clearly brown underneath, dusted in powered sugar all over, with chocolate covering the bottom and criss-crossed across the top. I'd never seen anything like it and my mother proceeded to load a few of the boxes into our cart, with her face still lit up like a child's. When we returned home, one of the boxes was immediately opened and I was treated to a taste. It was the taste of Christmas, but an exotic, wintry Christmas with spices that brought to mind warm fires and rich hot chocolate.
Every year, we stocked up on pfeffernusse. When I was hosting a holiday party of my own this past December, they seemed a natural choice for something to serve. I couldn't stoop to buying them, of course, so I searched for a recipe. I found hundreds, calling for ingredients from citron to ground cloves. After thinking hard about the cookie I remembered from childhood, I picked one out of the whole bunch that contained the least extra fat and seemed like it might have the right spices to make Christmas come to mind. I picked right and the recipe I used, with my own directions is included below.
filoraene says: About pfeffernusse: In the Netherlands, they are called pepernoten, and eaten as a treat for the Sinterklaas festival. We don't have dusting on them, and chocolated pepernoten are rare.
Pfeffernusse - German "Pepper Nut" Cookies
- Sift the flour, salt, ground black pepper, crushed aniseed, ground cinnamon, baking soda, ground allspice, ground nutmeg and ground cloves into a medium mixing bowl.
- Beat together (with an electric mixer on medium, unless you've arms of steel) the butter, born sugar and molasses in a large mixing bowl for about four minutes, when the mixture should be light and fluffy.
- Beat the egg into the mixture in the large bowl.
- Beat the contents of the medium bowl into the large bowl, using the low setting on the electric mixer.
- Cover the resulting dough and leave it in the refrigerator for a few hours. This could likely be left in for a day without any ill consequences.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F, making sure one of the racks is located in the center of the oven.
- Grease two baking sheets with butter (or butter-flavored non-stick cooking spray if you're really worried about the calories). Make small balls of dough about 1.5 inches in diameter and place them 1-2 inches apart on the sheet. Note: You may want to try to make these flat on the bottom as they do not flatten out in the oven.
- Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time (unless they both fit on the middle rack), for about 14 minutes when they should be a nice golden brown color and are firm when touched.
- Move the cookies from the baking sheets to a cooling rack and let them cool until you can handle them with your bare hands.
- Put the confectioners' sugar in a bag, put a few cookies in the bag at a time and coat them with the sugar. This should be done while they're still warm.
- Put the cookies back on the rack and let them finish cooling.
- Optional: Decorate with chocolate.
- Either enjoy or store in an airtight container at room temperature for no longer than a week before enjoying.
Categories:
Regional Recipes: Europe: Central European Recipes: Desserts
Categorised Recipes: Bread, Sweet and Pastry Recipes: Cookie Recipes: Refrigerator Cookies
Sources:
Personal Experience
"Pfeffernusse (German "pepper nut" cookie)." RecipeZaar. 5 Jan 2005 <http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/getrecipe.zsp?id=79103>.