Pfeffernüsse!

A friend of mine gave me a small recipe book dedicated solely to these little spiced cookies. It was put out by a Mennonite group in the 70's, and collects many of the members' family variations. They even give their church's recipe, which is (was) made annually for a Winter fundraiser. It begins something like, "Take 279 pounds of flour.....". (I'll have to wait til King Arthurs goes on serious sale before trying that one.)

The book makes fascinating reading, as it includes anecdotes told by elder members. Some recount memories of their own grandparents who came over in Ye Olde Days, and pass along recipes recipes that have been handed down since the early 19th century. Also some interesting notes on ingredients and period cooking methods.

Being Italian and English, these neat little pepper cookies were never part of my holiday table growing up. But now that I've read through that book I'm looking forward to trying one or two of its recipes. Anyone here make them regularly as part of your heritage (or just because you love them)? I'm curious to hear if you have any personal little tweaks you make, to make it your own. With or without pepper? Do you age your dough? Do you have competitions to see who can make the smallest "button" cookies, like they did back then? Do tell!

Nope. I'm interested to follow the story so keep posting.

The only story I have about pfeffernusse isn't my story; it belongs to a friend, Doug Morgenstern. Right after WWII, there was some kind of initiative in the States to help German families put their lives back together. Somehow, a family was chosen and his folks sent them money to restart their lives.

That Xmas, a large heavily-decorated pressed-steel tin full of baked goods -- stollen, gingerbread, chocolate-dipped cookies, and pfeffernusse -- showed up on their doorstep. That event repeated every year for 50 years.

Someone knows how to say thank you.

Nope. I'm interested to follow the story so keep posting.

The only story I have about pfeffernusse isn't my story; it belongs to a friend, Doug Morgenstern. Right after WWII, there was some kind of initiative in the States to help German families put their lives back together. Somehow, a family was chosen and his folks sent them money to restart their lives.

That Xmas, a large heavily-decorated pressed-steel tin full of baked goods -- stollen, gingerbread, chocolate-dipped cookies, and pfeffernusse -- showed up on their doorstep. That event repeated every year for 50 years.

Someone knows how to say thank you.

What a great story! Very heartwarming - thanks for relating that. Sometimes sitting here reading nothing but gloom-and-doom news stories at work (as I am now) it's easy to forget that humanity actually has a good side. I needed that.

One thing I've gotta dog down is the sweetener many of the book's recipies call for: "white syrup". A number of stories mention sugar cane was commonly grown and processed, but the granulated form of sugar was a bit of a rarity. I'll assume "white syrup" is the pressed liquid, boiled down. I imagine our "simple syrup" will do as a substitute, but I want to research it a bit more. (A number of recipes also mention molasses was used when white syrup was scarce.

Oh, and "anise oil". I've never seen that, but easily half the recipes include it.

Thanks. I treasure that story for that very reason.

I just took a quick look around for White Syrup and good luck to ya. It would appear that corn syrup or simple syrup would suffice but I haven't found any historical references. It's also confusing that the Germans have a non-maple pancake syrup that is also called White Syrup.

As for anise oil, it appears you are really in the land of personal prefs. While looking for White Syrup I encountered a zillion pfeffernusse recipes - German, Danish, Swedish, etc. - and everybody's come out different: hard or soft, big or small, licorice or spicy, flat or puffy.... There is some agreement that they are better after sitting a few days. Good luck!

Anise oil is around. Distilled anise seed, rectified. Flavor extract/concentrate. Among the many simple "essential oils".Gourmet cookshops, herbal stores, or sometimes the beer-making supply stores will have many things like that on hand.

When I was a kid, my mother told me white syrup was non-colored corn syrup.

Anise oil is around. Distilled anise seed, rectified. Flavor extract/concentrate. Among the many simple "essential oils".

No doubt. The question is what strength is it now and what strength was it when Großmutter Hilda wrote the recipe?

When I was a kid, my mother told me white syrup was non-colored corn syrup.

I think of corn syrup as a modern thing, a spinoff from sweet corn varieties and wacky ag policy. How old is corn syrup really?

Yes and no on how recent it is,

Corn syrup has been around a long time...probably back to the Industrial revolution. Cane sugar syrup always had the problem of crystallization. Corn syrup didn't, so it was softer texture and better for baking; also had maltose component (starch sugars).

Now, high-fructose corn syrup, that's more recent. The process bumps up the fructose really high and makes it sweeter. That's the bad stuff.

My grandmother had molasses syrup (by-product of sugar cane production, brown sugar (unrefined cane sugar), white sugar (refined cane sugar), and dark, golden, and white corn syrup,depending on what she was cooking. Golden, I was told, was popular in Britain back in the 40s--50s, but not that well known here. Making a comeback here now though.

(The main reason I know this stuff is because of studying alcohol production, specifically rum. Also used to harvest cane and sorghum and make sugar and molasses on a cousin's farm when I was a kid..)

Oh, and pfeffernusse? Pfeffer in German actually means more of a spice mix rather than actual peppercorns. Started out as honey cake (lebkuchen), then became pfefferkuchen (spice cake), which was sorta gingerbread-ish, then came the little nusse (spice nuts) cookies.

Originally they used honey because refined cane sugar wasn't all that widespread in Europe. So honeycakes. Then they had access to the spice trade, so it became pfefferkuchen---honey cake with spices.

When in Milwaukee recently, we stopped in to a local German-ethnic hamburger joing and they had bieninstich (bee sting), shortbread cookies made with honey.

And when I lived in Germany, hell, each region and town had their own version of pastry. One of my favorites was Zwetchsenkuchen (sp.), made by a friend's Mom. It's like a sheet or pie round of soft shortbread-ish dough with fresh pitted plums pushed into the top of the dough, face up, before baking. She would also sprinkle holiday spices on top of the plums, mixed in with a little sugar. Good stuff.

Originally they used honey because refined cane sugar wasn't all that widespread in Europe.

And it was expensive.

One of my favorites was...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwetschgenkuchen

pfefferkuchen (spice cake), which was sorta gingerbread-ish...

Nice stuff. We had some of our son's friends and their families over to the house yesterday to bake holiday cookies, and pfefferkuchen was on the list. My wife's particular family recipe is dominated by the taste of molasses and the addition of blanched and peeled almonds on top. Although your description of placing plums on top sounds pretty darn delicious as well.

[Jenise]

It would appear that corn syrup or simple syrup would suffice but I haven't found any historical references.

The variation in viscosity would make quite a difference.

I've never made Pfeffernusse either, so don't have any reference whatsoever.

Cool story re the German family, Jeff.

Does anyone know what the deal is with the enormous powdered sugar versions you see in stores? Not to my taste at all.

My wife's family makes peppernuts (and has the same book, though their hand-me-down recipe isn't in it), with anise oil, that isn't that hard to find, though it's typically a candy item rather than baking.

My only innovation is in the rolling. It's laborious to roll out those tiny ropes of dough, but you can pipe it if you squeeze hard enough. As a middle ground, you can put a ball of dough into a ziploc bag, and form the rope along the bottom of the bag. Then invert to get it out; the dough should be oily enough that it won't stick to the bag.

The baked 'nuts (the smaller, the better) are put in a cookie jar. It's a lovely part of Christmas tradition.

Not seen the ones you're speaking of, Walt.

Have seen some imported stollen that were totally covered over in powdered sugar. Figured that was a sign of them being not very good, loaded with preservatives, and possibly going stale from age, so I have avoided them.

I do break down (for a touch of childhood memory) and buy those packs of oval disks of pfefferkuchen, the ones with the light glaze on them. Bahlsen, maybe? Theyre a little bland because not fresh, but once a year they do okay.

Interesting discussion -- I have asked Louise to buy me a couple of packs of Lebkuchen (originating as honey based gingerbread cookies, the forests around Nuremberg had lots of bees) for the last several Christmases. This year the conjunction of exam schedules and travel schedules left us with no time so we haven't done that yet. And I won't bore people again with the new Weight Watcher smart points, but cookies are a little harder to deal with now. Still I will probably either buy some Lebkuchen or Pfeffernüssen before the holiday is completely gone by.

I don't believe that a coating of confectioners sugar is necessarily a sign of low quality in a Stollen, I remember having some pretty good stollen that were "all white" on the outside. Nice and tender and flavorful. Once again, this isn't something we generally make or buy but friends have it sometimes.

When I want to shop for "real German stuff" I often go to European Provisions which is basically a Polish food store. With all of the bad blood between Germany and Poland it might be surprising that they take care to have really good imported German cookies etc. but I suppose it is like the fact that the easiest place for me to find Japanese foods and ingredients is H-Mart which is Korean. And of course you can get pretty good "Turkish Delight" at the Greek market in town but they don't CALL it that.