#pfeffernusse

It turns out I did digitize it and it was on my hard drive after all. Without further ado, my German heritage Christmas present to y'all:

Great-Grandma Alma's (Public Recipe) Pfeffernusse

Unlike most pfeffernusse recipes I've found, these are smaller (acorn-sized rather than walnut or larger), maybe less sweet, and crunchier, neither chewy nor crumbly. They're fantastic with a cup of coffee, or so the coffee drinkers in my life have informed me with due enthusiasm. Sorghum syrup is available at health food stores and online (probably) and I have never tried making these with anything else.

½ cup sorghum

5/8 cup molasses (just measure out a generous half cup if you're struggling, but you can also just measure a half cup + 2 tbsp. if you feel the impulse to be exact.)

½ cup brown sugar

¼ cup butter

½ tbsp. cardamom

½ tbsp. cloves

1 tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. nutmeg

1/8 tsp. pepper

¾ tsp. salt

½ heaping tbsp. baking soda (1 1/2 tsp. if you don't have the rare half-tablespoon measure)

2-ish tbsp. milk

2 eggs, well-beaten

5 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Cook sorghum, molasses, brown sugar, butter, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper and salt together on low heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture makes a thick syrup. Cool to room temperature.

Dissolve baking soda in milk. Beat in the eggs and syrup. Add the flour until it makes a stiff dough. Let rest overnight in the refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll dough into long snakes about ½ to ¾ of an inch thick and cut ½ to ¾ pieces from the ropes. Bake on greased cookie sheets for 30 minutes.

Backstory

I am putting the Lore below the recipe to be a Rebel. Great-Grandma Alma, as the story goes, made pfeffernusse dough to sell. When people asked for a recipe to make her pfeffernusse, she gave them this recipe. However, Great-Grandma Alma was a shrewd businesswoman. This recipe (the only version that was ever recorded) is incomplete. There is at least one ingredient Great-Grandma Alma kept secret and only recorded in her own head. "No one makes it like Alma," her customers would say, and continue to buy Great-Grandma's pfeffernusse dough. Perhaps one day I will do a deep dive into research on German Christmas cookies and speculoos in search of the missing secret ingredient, but right now I have a full time job.

December 23:

National Christmas Movie Marathon Day

Festivus

Forefathers’ Day

HumanLight

National Pfeffernusse Day

National Roots Day

December Day 23: Pfeffernusse 🍪

#KimickaPhotoADay

Happy National Pfeffernusse Day!!! Also Merry Christmas Eve Eve! Happy Festivus! Merry Christmas Adam! (😂)

We really love these cookies. We get them every year.

In a word, No.

We looked up a few Pfeffernüsse recipes in cookbooks and on-line, and from the look of things (a) their dough would be too stiff for a cookie press AND (b) since Pfeffernüsse start as solid little balls, a cookie press (ours, anyway) can’t make that shape.

Funny thing, we had these tucked away in the biscuit-tin.

They’re a Polish version, and whether the original recipe varies from the German original or commercial versions are just more lightly spiced anyway, they’re a little bland. Also, I discovered, a little stale, so with the assistance of a cup of tea they’re now history.

Your sister could always look for one of these:

It’s a little cheese-slicer (standard Tabasco bottle for scale) whose wire might make cutting the dough rolls a bit easier. Besides cheese we’ve used it for well-chilled herb butters and it works just fine for that as well. (It’s also a bit unusual, which might Encourage Others To Help...) ;->

*****

For people interested in Pfeffernüsse:

Here’s a recipe that uses the “make dough and chill then make rolls and slice” method.

Here’s a recipe that leaves out the chilling, rolling and slicing yet creates almost the same end result.

Finally: use a “make dough and chill” recipe, roll it out quite thick, take out rounds with a cookie cutter then proceed as usual - though this doesn’t seem much less work than slicing rounds off cylinders.