December 19,
2007The last of my granma's seven cookies, this is probably not her recipe, but I did find it in her cookbook.
Nothing says Christmas like making paper ornaments and trees. Cannon has hundreds of free three-dimensional designs to print, cut and paste together, from the simple to the intricate. Pop-up book artist Robert Sabuda offers a couple dozen designs for do-it-yourself pop-up cards.
At Christmas, Granma's large orange tin was filled with seven of her favorite cookies. She made the same cookies each year, and I would eat one of each before snacking on my favorites. I would sit on the floor, between the sofa and the coffee table, before returning to play with or read my latest Christmas present. By the time Christmas arrived, the cookies would be a little stale, which I really liked.
She made German specialties from her childhood: Springerle, Ausstecherle, Anisplätzchen, Spritz and Macaroons. She included two American cookies: chocolate chip and forgotten cookies. Every year, she made the same four cookies, although I learned later she had made others previously, but I'd never tasted them at her house.
I'd stare at the pictures on the Springerle. My favorites were the castle and the pyramidal beehive; I had a strong princess complex and loved all things medieval and ancient. That mold belonged to her mother and is one of my most treasured possessions. It's splitting now, so I make only a few cookies with the mold before retiring it for another year.
The Anisplätzchen would bake up with a "magical" icing that I would carefully nibble first before eating the rest of the cookie. Her Ausstecherle (cut-outs) were thick and soft (from cake flour and egg yolks), and had a lovely shiny glaze I haven't reproduced.
Her Spritz shapes were as unvarying as my own: trees with multi-colored non-pariels and silver dragees, hearts with red sugar, diamonds with cinnamon sugar, doggies, Christmas wreathes. The wreathes were best stale. The macaroons were crisp and browned on the outside, and fluffy and coconutty on the inside.
Only the American cookies had any chocolate. She added walnuts to the chocolate cookies; it was a dilemma, pass over some chocolate, or eat the dreaded walnuts? My favorites were the forgotten cookies, which I would pop whole into my mouth. Hers were always perfectly formed, looking like chocolate drops themselves. Mine are blobs with multiple points. The sugar meringue would melt leaving a mouthful of chips. These days I swear I can feel my blood sugar skyrocket after just one.
Every year, I make at least two or three of those cookies. They aren't (and never will be) quite as good hers were. But I'll bake, and enjoy it, and think of her living room, and kitchen, and garden, and of her.
Copyright 2007 Susan J. Talbutt; all rights reserved.
Last updated December 2007