Making Pfeffernusse cookies with the ‘rents

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Good husband Bryan and I were talking about the potentially depressing topic of Being Adults the other day, in the context of Christmas and Christmas vacation. I was observing that I still have this tingly, shivery anticipation as we draw closer and closer to Christmas Day. Just like when I was a little girl.

I’m still looking forward to waking up suddenly during the night before Christmas to hear the jingle bells on the roof! You know, on Santa’s sleigh! I’m primed and ready to feel the joy I always felt after our Christmas Eve service at the little country church where we attended, (even though I never got to play Mary, as I wished, but was always a shepherd–always!–wearing my big brother’s plaid bathrobe) when my Sunday School teacher would give me a hug–wait a minute, probably not a hug, but a warm back-pat, since we were Lutherans–and a big bag of peanuts and candy, and a small wrapped gift. That would have been enough to put me over the moon, but the best was yet to come: afterwards, I’d go home with my rambunctious siblings and we would have hot chocolate and Christmas cookies, and we’d be allowed to open one (smallish) gift from under the tree. After that, it was pajamas-time and setting out cookies and milk for Santa, next to the fireplace.

Christmas Eve. It was always blessedly the same. Same sparkly routine, same shivery feelings of anticipation, same feelings of surprise and delight.

Here are three of us, anyway: me on the left, then Anne (in our matching flannel nightgowns!) and an uncharacteristically sober Mark. You can see in this little photo the proof that Mark got the blessing of the long curly eyelashes. Life can be So Unfair.

Then we all grew up.

I’m on the other side of the fence now, being the parent to create these memories for my children, but the childish anticipation that I still feel is a long time staying. I still feel a hope and expectation of a break, several weeks long, filled with long days sledding and snowball fights and dropping my sodden snow clothes just inside the door, and then drinking big mugs of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream (no ten-year-old cares about fat content) and eating Mom’s sugar cookies, dunked happily into the hot chocolate (no ten-year-old cares about calories, or whether or not they should be eating all that sugar) and collapsing in front of the t.v. to watch an episode of Big Valley or Bonanza with my sibs (no ten-year-old cares about t.v. being a brain drain).

Okay, I’ll admit it: this time of year, I want to be ten years old again.

Who’s with me??

When I told Bryan all this the other day, he looked at me through his solemn, blue, adult eyes and shook his head, smiling sadly. He didn’t say it, but his eyes communicated it clearly enough: We’re adults now, Ame. Wake up. You’re not a kid any more.

My head knows that this is true. Apparently my heart has never gotten the memo.

My heart still rules most days. You might have already guessed this about me, Gentle Reader, and you might have guessed correctly.

Every year, a week or two before Christmas, I realize with a stark, gray dawning of reality, that I’m no longer ten years old. There are some perks associated with being a Responsible Adult, but Christmas vacation is not one of them. If anything, I just have more to do during those days that used to be filled with sledding parties and cookie-eating and hot-chocolate-slurping. There are presents to be purchased, wrapped and stashed, a goodly supply of treats that need to be prepared, the cooking and the baking, which generally is at a pretty high level around here, gets kicked up a notch. I have to plan very carefully, and I’m not good at it. (It’s true. I’m not. I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-type of person, and that’s not a helpful trait, this time of year.) There are more lovely people around to feed, and of course I’m the one responsible for sweeping up the snow and the mud that gets tracked in.

Well, not exactly. I’m responsible for tracking down the one who did track in the snow and the mud that gets tracked in and making sure that they know how to clean it up. Of course, that’s sometimes more trouble than just cleaning it up myself, but it’s gotta be done.

To wit: “Mack!!”

I’m not complaining, Gentle Reader. Oh wait. Yes, I am. Or, perhaps I’m just whining. Gently whining. I think that’s what I’m doing. Anyway. There is a place that I can go where I feel ten again, and that is my parents’ house. I am blessed utterly by the fact that my parents are still healthy and active and generous and living right here in town with me. And they even seem to like spending time with me, now and then, more’s the wonder. So when my Dad called me the other day and said that he was getting ready to make peppernuts (or pfeffernusse) with Mom, I said I’d be there.

I wanted pictures of this annual event. I wanted a recipe. And of course, I wanted some peppernuts (I knew they’d send a bag home with me, if I came and helped).

And maybe I just wanted to feel like a ten-year-old girl again.

My dad’s mom, my Grandma Young, without the aid of an electric mixer, mind you, used to mix up bowl after bowl of these little cookies every year in the weeks preceding Christmas. Now that woman could have had reason to whine gently, or even complain vigorously, but I very much doubt she ever did. She was a tough farm woman who didn’t complain about the time it took her to feed her family, even though she cooked over a wood fire for years in her little cramped farm kitchen, and stirred up her stiff peppernut dough by hand. She was strong. Uncomplaining. Tough. And still she made the time to make fabulous treats for her family. I think she was just too busy to indulge in self-pity.

Here’s my Grandma Young.

Dad tells the story about how when he was a kid, he’d always fill his jacket pockets with these little cookies when he headed out to do his chores. Then, as he did his work, he’d pause now and then and pull out a handful of peppernuts, blow the chaff or the bits of fuzz out of them, and crunch them down. He said that his mom always had a very large jar of these handy in the kitchen, just for snacking.

What a great mom.

You probably know what peppernuts are (or pfeffernusse, if you like the traditional spelling) but maybe you’ve never made them yourself. The ones in the store, frankly, just don’t cut it, Gentle Reader. If you’ve never have homemade ones, you really owe it to yourself to make a batch. They are so tasty and a perfect treat this time of year! Spicy, crunchy, and quite portable and shareable!

I’ll share the recipe with you, but first a few notes about how to make those tiny, crunchy little cookies without taking up every bit of spare time before Christmas. My folks have done it two different ways.

Well, first, here’s my dad, with a ball of dough. He makes peppernuts nearly every year in big quantities and then teases me with frequent ‘phone calls. “Hey Ame, I’ve got three (or thirteen, or thirty) pans of peppernuts dough on the sun porch. . . ” Or “Hey Ame, guess what I just pulled out of the oven? If you hurry over right now they might still be warm when you get here . . .”

Here’s my cute dad, with a ball of dough.

One way to take the dough into the cookie stage, is the “rolling the snake” method. It’s not hard, but a bit time-consuming. You roll the dough into a long snake . . .

The snake-rolling method.

And then you cut the snake up into small pieces . . .

Dad’s knives are always sharp!

. . . And you place them very close together on a cookie sheet, and then bake them!

Baked pfeffernusse in the background, and unbaked ones in the front.

There’s another way, too, and that’s what Mom and Dad usually do these days, because it’s faster. Dad mixes up the dough and packs it into a greased bread pan. Then he dumps out the “loaf” of dough on a cutting board, and carefully cuts it into slices, and then cubes, like this:

The sharp knife works great for slicing the block of dough–it’s quite dense!–and the pizza cutter works for slicing the slabs into little squares. Cool, huh?

Then it’s a simple enough process of placing those little spicy cubes of dough onto the cookie sheets and baking them. It’s a bit dull, but if you put on Christmas music, and pull in some helpers, it’s time that you can spend making a memory.

It’s more fun if you have somebody to help you. Here Mom places the dough cubes on the cookie sheet.

Here’s my cute Mom: taking a break to get her picture taken (reluctantly).

“Oh, Ame, not in this old sweater . . . “

After the tiny cookies are baked, they are dumped into a big bowl, so the cookie sheet can be filled again and again . . . Mom and Dad have 30 or more noisy, hungry, happy revelers coming to their house for Christmas, so they can’t have too many of these on hand (hint, hint, Dad).

Sophie waits patiently for one of us to drop a crumb, or a cookie, or a handful of cookies.

What??! It’s my job to clean up the floor!

“C’mon . . . drop one! Drop lots! Please-please-please-please. . .”

Finally! There goes one!

So, are you ready to make your own batch of peppernuts? Here’s my Dad’s recipe, which was his mom’s recipe, and it is the very best one of all. So you don’t need to check any other source! Here it is:  the very best recipe for Pfeffernusse!

Enjoy, Gentle Readers! And I do hope you have the merriest of Christmases!

*hugs*

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