Category: Spice Cookies

Include an array of spices

JOE FROGGERS, Americana From The Age Of Sail

A revolutionary war cookie from coastal Massachusetts.

Imagine an arm around your shoulders and friendly voice saying, “Hi. I’m a cookie.” Then add in this quote from one of our tasters: “That’s the biggest, softest, easiest going ginger snap I ever tasted! Or is it gingerbread?” And then triangulate with sailors on a clipper ship singing in the sunlight, “Ho, ho, ho and a bottle of rum!” Somewhere in that intersection you’ll find Joe Froggers, a cookie created right after the Revolutionary War at a Marblehead Island inn outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

Click Here To Go Directly To The Recipe

The Cookie On Its Own

Joe Froggers are a soft, gently spiced molasses cookie with a nice finish from a tot of dark rum in the dough. The cookies were designed and intended for grownups, but they’re also as kid friendly as a cookie can be. The texture is plush and easy; the flavor simple, familiar, and a bit raisiny from the molasses; and they’re about the width of a small child’s face (4″-6″ across), which guarantees the ‘eyes light up with delight‘ reaction.

The earliest versions were made with lard. Most modern recipes call for shortening. Butter tastes best of all, of course, but you give up a bit in the way of texture. We make them with a 50/50 mix of butter unless there’s a special reason to be historically accurate.

NOTE FROM KATE: I felt a need to be historically accurate, so Scott made the first batch with lard. This beautiful cookie is friendly and cheerful, but I felt like I had to work against the unfamiliar flavor of lard after the third bite. This particular fat’s texture sticks to the mouth a bit more than butter or shortening. Not a familiar sensation. Next time I’d go with half lard and half butter. Despite its undeniable culinary advantages, I don’t particularly like shortening, as it’s an ultra-processed food, but YMMV. I can see this one becoming a family favorite!

That’s about all you need to know. It’s a big old, friendly, arm around your shoulders cookie.

“Joe Froggers?” A Taste Of History

The general outline of the story is well known and documented, with its own page at the Marblehead Museum website. The story goes like this.

Once upon a time there was a Revolutionary War veteran named Joseph Brown, son of an enslaved, African-American mother and a Wampanoag father. He and his wife Lucretia opened an inn on Marblehead Island after the war, right next to a local frog pond.

Photo, credited to the Smithsonian Institution, found at MarbleheadMuseum.org.

Lucretia invented the cookie, and it became something of a sensation. They’re not only delicious, but they also have enough molasses to keep for a very long time. The revolutionary era Massachusetts economy centered on fishing, trade, and other maritime activities. Marblehead was a major seaport and shipbuilding center, so much so that it’s also known to history as “the birthplace of the American navy.” That fame would only grow as the young nation built its vast fleet of clipper ships.

Joe Froggers (and Hermits) quickly became the treats of choice to send off on long voyages around the Atlantic, and later around the world. Small, tasty, long lasting, and relatively inexpensive because much of the nation’s molasses and rum trade came through Massachusetts ports.

The name itself is more debatable, with every source we’ve found claiming to have the one true answer. It’s certainly related in some way to the pond out back. And the “Joe” part certainly comes from Joe Brown. Others note that Lucretia Brown (“Aunt Creese”) originally made these on a skillet, like extra chewy pancakes, and everyone who’s done such things will know how often the neat, round shapes you’re after come out looking vaguely like a frog. Others argue for the lily pad idea.

Decide as you like. This is me hoppity hop hopping away from all such debates. It’s probably some combination of them all, plus the fact that the name itself is so fun.

Moving on, Brown’s Inn grew into an immensely popular community center for celebrations of all kinds. Joe became the town fiddler, with his own set of local legends. And Lucretia’s breads, buns, cookies, and cakes were the best one could find. The couple eventually grew into local legends in their later years, and then expanded into lore and myth after their deaths, with the details ebbing and flowing with whoever told the tale.

For our purposes the bottom line is this: “Black Joe” and “Aunt Creese” were real people, who owned a real inn, and really were well known and loved across the island of Marblehead, Massachusetts. Lucretia Brown really did invent and popularize the cookie now known as Joe Froggers. Joe Froggers really did become a “thing” both during and after their lives, traveling around the world on the Bay State and American Navy fleets. And they remain a “thing” across eastern Massachusetts even now, in the 2020s.

Many cities around the country have “their” cookie. This is the one belonging to Boston – complete with the inevitable carping about how Boston undeservingly managed to absorb all of maritime New England under its umbrella. You’ll make a friend if you acknowledge that injustice to a native of Marblehood, Lynn, Gloucester, or the other seafaring centers of the era. Just acknowledging their claim will make a difference. And Bostonians won’t care in the slightest. It’s all Greater Boston from their point of view. They’re city folk.

An Aside (Sort Of) – The Great Molasses Flood Of 1919

I spent a few hours walking Pittsburgh’s Strip District in search of enough testers to keep us from devouring dozens of these huge cookies on our own. It was a real danger! We each accounted for at least half a dozen when the other wasn’t looking because they are heartbreakingly moreish. The molasses flood must have come up in conversation close to ten times.

It has no direct connection to Joe Froggers beyond “Massachusetts” and “Molasses,” but it’s one of those fascinating events that everyone’s heard about but never remembers until prompted. And then they remember how much they love the story in a guilty kind of way. 20 people drowned in molasses?! The smell lingering on summer days for decades?! Massive and enduring changes to building codes across the nation? Baking ingredients shutting down a city?! Wow.

This goes to a link from the city website Boston.gov if you want to refresh your memory. Here is a fun Wikipedia link that tells the story better, albeit with less authority.

Notes For Fellow Bakers

  • The rum adds an interesting note you don’t really taste unless you know it’s there. But it does matter. First, because it’s a part of the history, and that’s part of what makes this cookie so fun. But also because the rum rounds out the spices to create a whole that isn’t quite gingerbread, and isn’t quite ginger snap, but something unique within the family.
  • Rum extract should work just fine, though we haven’t tried it. We used Gosling’s Black Seal Bermuda Dark Rum because we also keep around the house just for drinking. Good stuff!
  • The fat makes a difference because you can taste it in the final product. Lard and shortening add something to the texture, however, which is why we recommend a 50/50 mix of butter to other. But it’s truly up to you.
  • Purely by chance, I happened to use up my old jar of molasses while making a test recipe. That jar became the perfect vehicle for combining the (topped off) cup of molasses with the hot water and rum. Put it all in the jar, screw down the lid, and shake until it’s all smooth and liquid.
  • This is a really, really sticky dough that’s just over the line from being a batter AFTER it cools and sets in the fridge. Account for that as you get the dough mixed. You want just enough flour to reach that point. Any more will start to toughen the cookies. Remember: you can always mix in more, but cannot take any out.
  • Some recipes will merely sprinkle the pre-baked balls with sugar, but we ended up rolling them simply to make the sticky dough balls easier to handle. This is why we removed 1-2 tablespoons of sugar (⅓ oz = 10 g) from full 1 cup usually listed for the dough.
  • You want to press the balls down to keep them from rolling, but there’s no need to really squish them. The dough will spread all on its own.
  • Speaking of which, a golf ball sized sphere is really big compared to what you probably make with other recipes. That is the minimum size for true Joe Froggers. They’re supposed to be big enough that children will gape in awe at the wealth. Skimp if you must, but please do it on purpose because regular sized cookies don’t leave the same emotions in their wake. We fit only four cookies per standard baking tray, with six slightly smaller ones on the final tray because that’s what was left in the bowl.
  • Adding the flour and liquid in stages works best. Everything gets smoothly and evenly incorporated. But it isn’t essential unless you’re working by hand.
  • This is a no-eggs recipe. That isn’t a typo. It’s a feature, not a flaw.

Enjoy!

LEBANESE ANISE (“YANSOON”) COOKIES, Crispy Tea Biscuits No One Can Resist

A delightful, aromatic, not-too-sweet cookie adored across the entire Middle East

This classic, crispy Middle Eastern tea cookie appears all over the levant, but those from Lebanon are acknowledged to as the best even in this famously competitive part of the baking world. So we set out with a question: what features make them so special, and how do they differ from all the other anise cookies that dominate the Mediterranean shores?

Click here if you only want the recipe without the lessons learned

We’ve recently discovered a whole category of Mediterranean cookies that:

  1. Rely on Hartshorn a/k/a baker’s ammonia as the leavening agent;
  2. Have oil or clarified butter in the dough rather than plain butter; and
  3. Have a dry, crispy, but well spiced flavor that pairs up perfectly with a cup of potent tea or coffee.

Ladokouloura are the Greek version. They feature olive oil, sesame, and orange. These Yansoon Cookies are all about the anise (“yansoon” = anise in Arabic) with sesame as the supporting note and a mysterious other lurking behind. Kate remains torn, but I like this one better.

NOTE FROM KATE: I love anise. My grandma used to make a low-butter type shortbread that had to age well before being served, and those were possibly my most favorite Christmas cookies. They never caught on with Scott. He fell in love with richer fare, so I never bothered making the “anyzky” just for myself. But maybe I should’ve, because this recipe has reminded me what I’ve been missing! These, too, are leaner than your standard butter cookies, but you won’t miss the fat because of their crispy texture. If anise is your jam, definitely give these a try!

What Do You Need For A Great Yansoon Cookie?

My research uncovered three main points:

  • Hartshorn a/k/a baker’s ammonia makes a major difference because it creates a unique texture that particularly suits cookies in this category (tea- and coffee biscuits intended for dunking.

Yes, there are online recipes that use baking powder instead, but the authors almost always say that with regret because it just isn’t the same. The baking powder versions lack that characteristic, next-level crispiness.

See that crisp, honeycomb inside? The magic of hartshorn
  • Vast amounts of anise, and a generous amount of sesame seeds.

Multiple tablespoons seemed like a lot, but testing proved they achieved a nice, balanced flavor – particularly with the mix both ground and whole anise.

NOTE FROM KATE: I believe the amount of air inside this cookie tends to dilute the flavor, which explains why even this level of spice won’t feel excessive.

  • Variation rules more than consistency after the sesame and anise, but every recipe includes a gentle touch of some aromatic extras to create roundness and nuance.

Which “extras” work best? Sorry folks, but that is the sort of question that generates outright feuds among proud grandmas across the region. I’ve been married for long enough to keep my nose faaaaar away from that kind of debate! Besides, it doesn’t seem to really matter so long as they amount to just an evocative murmur in the background.

Our recipe includes 10 separate ideas for mixing-and-matching, but in the end it’s the sort of thing you should customize to taste.

NOTE FROM KATE: Don’t be afraid of “weird” spices. When I was making my test batch, I opted for a slightly savory take on this cookie: All the anise and lemon oil, but also black caraway (nigella) and cumin. The latter two gave the cookie an earthier, slightly savory vibe. It’s my favorite combination so far. Who knows what you will discover?

Any Shape Will Do

In the end we liked the simpler shapes best. The sticks were amazingly snackable. The rings are just so classic. And others work too if you want to get fancy.

An early test with complicated shapes (and no nigella seed)

The Testing

This recipe involved a huge amount of online research, but our initial recipe was almost dead on point. Testing provoked only one real change: my first effort split the leavening agent 50/50 between hartshorn and baking powder. It was good – very good! – but Kate and I agreed that hartshorn alone worked even better because it creates a more pleasant and crispier texture.

FWIW, the Extra Touch Flavors in that first effort were ⅛ tsp. of orange oil, ⅛ tsp. of lemon oil, and ½ tsp. each of almond and vanilla extract. Why those? I had no citrus on hand for zesting (hence the oils), and no mahlab on hand for roundness (hence the extracts). Native testers confirmed both authenticity and delectability… though Grandma’s were of course said to be better.

Kate went savory with our next batch by adding a 1 tablespoon of nigella seed and ½ tsp. of cumin. The cookies tasted good, but were far too savory, and the main flavors got buried. The updated recipe reduces those amounts to 1 tsp. and ⅛ tsp. respectively. Remember: background hints and murmurs.

The Sugar Level

Read the recipe carefully and you will note a surprisingly low amount of sugar. It’s not a typo, and in fact it is typical of the region. Sweetness gradually increases as you travel from Lebanon up to Greece, increases more as you go west over to southern Italy, and then goes up yet again as you enter into the Italian mountains. It’s a matter of regional taste as much as anything else.

But there’s an added factor for Yansoon Cookies. Think about it: doesn’t anise have a sweet note to go along with its aromatics? Just like citrus flavors, almond flavors, and vanilla? Lebanese bakers acknowledge this by cutting back on the sugar in favor of those more ephemeral equivalents. Trust me on this one. Lebanese Yansoon Cookies are supposed to have relatively little sugar compared to other treats. Don’t mess with this aspect until you have made them as intended. After that it’s baker’s choice.

Brown on top, or brown on the bottom, there must be brown
Crispy, toasty, anise & sesame goodness

Bake Until Brown

The cookie crisps up nicely in 15 minutes, but we liked them better with a bit of browning on top. That meant 17-20, which left them a little too dark on the bottoms. We plan to bake future batches on a silicone mat instead of parchment, or with doubled sheet pans to provide some insulation.

Spinning the trays halfway through helps to prevent distinctive differences between top and bottom, and from side to side. We don’t usually bother, but this time it makes a difference.

A PHOTOGRAPHIC NOTE FROM KATE: One rule of food photography is to never look for the faces. Once you see a face in your photo, you cannot unsee it, and this will force you to change your whole setup. It can add hours of work. However, once you get done shooting your cookies, and just a few are left, and there’s a round, wooden plate, sometimes the cookies just insist. How could I not use this golden opportunity to have some fun? If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.

FUN FACT: Poor Scott expected me to AirDrop him a batch of cookbook-worthy Yansoon Cookie photos. I sent him a batch of cookie emojis first! (No worries, the more appropriate images soon followed.)

Conclusion

Kate and I both like anise in general, but neither of us would qualify as special enthusiasts. I feel the same about sesame (Kate is a bigger fan). And yet we couldn’t be any happier with this new recipe despite the copious use of both. Yansoon Cookies will feature prominently if we’re ever asked to cater a tea party, and won’t be rare in the household cookie jar at any time of the year.

Enjoy!

POLISH HARTSHORN COOKIES (“AMONIACZKI”), An Edible Hug

Hartshorn (baker’s ammonia) creates a crisp, sugary crust around a pillowy heart

Click here if you only want the recipe without the discussion

Hartshorn a/k/a baker’s ammonia a/k/a ammonium carbonate a/k/a smelling salts is an old frenemy we recently studied in more detail. This was the chemical leavening agent from antiquity through medieval times and on into the 19th century, when it got replaced in most recipes by baking soda and powder. Why? Because it’s also known as “smelling salts,” and smells so foul that you can’t even nibble on dough samples before they bake. Not that I would ever do such a thing, but rumor has reached my ears… [Ahem]. The smell disappears during baking, but still. Who wants a product like that in their pantry where a spill can make your cat box seem friendly?

NOTE FROM KATE: You will only taste-test this dough once. At which point you will also spit the dough into the sink and reach for a glass of water. Yuck! The baked cookies, though, are as lovely and welcoming as they are versatile. Even better, they hold a basic shape and provide a lily-white canvas for any decorating ambitions.

In today’s age hartshorn has become a specialty leavener. And yet it is still around because it produces a different kind of rise than baking soda/powder; a lighter, crispier, more even texture that’s essential to recipes like Springerle, Swedish Drömmar, fine-featured molded gingerbreads, and texture-first specialties like Hungarian Kvircedli and Ammonia Crackers. Hartshorn has its flaws, but the upside can be spectacular.

Enter this cookie: Polish Ammonia Cookies (“Ciasteczka Amoniaczki”), which I hereby rechristen as Vanilla Puffs to reflect the remarkable effect of their magic ingredient. Plus variations like Peppermint Puffs, Anise Puffs, Lemon Puffs, etc. “Puffs” being the key word because that’s the closest I can come to describing the texture: a shatteringly crisp, sugary crust around an inside so pillowy and puffy that they have a universal appeal. Most cookies will have a few, recalcitrant protesters who just don’t get it. Everybody likes Ammonia Cookies. They may only be your third-favorite on the tray, but I can 100% guarantee they’ll be gone at least as fast as the ones you would choose for yourself.

Try this cookie and you will never again wonder why serious bakers remain willing to put up with hartshorn’s challenges. The cost is worth the payoff.

The Dough is Rough-Puff Pastry (A Flaky Cookie) In Disguise!

Want a laugh? I went through the whole recipe testing process on these with the niggling feeling that I knew the recipe from somewhere, even though I’ve never made anything like it. The penny dropped around five minutes ago.

The niggling finally got bad enough for me to run back to Volume I for a scan of the ratio tables at the start of each chapter. And sure enough, there it was. The proportions of flour, butter, sour cream, and sugar are an all but perfect match to flaky cookies made from our Faux Puff Pastry recipe (a/k/a “rough puff”). The only real differences are the handling and the addition of a massive amount of hartshorn.

You make rough-puff dough by cutting butter into a combination of flour and a small amount of sugar, in order to achieve the “pebbly” texture of a piecrust with extra-large butter chunks. Then, instead of cutting it finer, as you would for that piecrust, you roll the dough out in a few “envelope turns” before finally rolling-and-cutting your cookie shapes. It’s a minor P.I.T.A., yes, but much easier than the major P.I.T.A. of traditional puff pastry.

This dough? Just cut the butter down to piecrust-texture in a food processor, include a generous amount of hartshorn, and presto! Something that tastes like puff pastry, and has a crispy outside, but has the pillowy interior you can only achieve with baker’s ammonia.

Peppermint trees. See the contrast of crispy crust to center puff?

The Sugar Crust

Stark white from the sugar crust, and just as good as they are pretty

There’s a pretty well established pattern for flaky cookies of all types:

  • Palmiers a/k/a Elephant Ears? Roll out some puff pastry (or other flaky-cookie dough), coat it generously with cinnamon sugar, roll it back into a tube like a jelly roll a/k/a roulade, and then slice-and-bake.
  • Dutch Krakelingen? Cut off strips of that same dough, roll in cinnamon sugar, and then shape them into pretzels before baking.
  • Rugelach? Do the jelly roll thing with a layer inside made from a fruit-and-nut filling, and then coat with cinnamon sugar before baking.
  • Goose Feet a/k/a “Gusine Tlapki”? Roll, sprinkle with spice-sugar (not necessarily cinnamon), and then cut out large circles which you fold into quarters.
  • Kolache? Roll, cut out squares, dab with fruit filling, fold up two corners, and then sprinkle with plain sugar.

Get it? Ammonia Cookies aren’t any different except you (a) can readily flavor the dough, and (b) can roll-and-cut any shape of cookie, and (c) should, not just can, coat the outside in sugar alone. The snowy, extra-crunchy outer crust is part of the experience.

We did test cinnamon sugar in case you’re wondering, and it works perfectly well, but it also standardizes the whole experience. Both Kate and I preferred these with sugar alone.

The Baking and Fumigation Times

The flaky cookies listed above typically bake at 350° F (175° C) for about 15 minutes, give or take according to thickness. Ammonia Cookies work a little better if you cook them at the same temperature for only 12-13 minutes. The shorter baking time helps to preserve that pillowy interior, whereas the flaky cookies want to emphasize their crispness.

The combination of a moist dough and a shorter baking time can cause a problem, however: a residual whiff of ammonia left over in the baked cookies, even after they cool. It usually isn’t all that strong, and it only happens about 75% of the time, but that’s still an issue you need to keep in mind.

The solution couldn’t be easier. Leave the baked cookies out for an hour or two. That should be all it takes for the dissolved ammonia gas to dissipate into the air. If they were really bad? Still simple. Wait a little longer.

Hartshorn giveth, and hartshorn taketh away.

The Cut Outs

Ammonia cookies work with almost any basic shape, but expand too much for anything with features. I tested stars, hearts, circles, a mushroom shape, fluted ovals, snowmen, and a Christmas ornament shape. Everything worked except the ornaments, snowman, and the fluted ovals. Those could still be recognized by someone who knew what they were supposed to be, but they lost the outside details that make them more than just shapes.

Anise hearts and peppermint trees. “High note” flavors show particularly well in this cookie.

Feel Free To Customize!

Do some research on cookies made with hartshorn and these basic proportions. You will quickly find several much loved variations. These include:

  • Peppermint Ammonia Cookies (add in peppermint oil), which are very popular in the American Midwest, and generally attributed to German immigrants;
  • Anise Ammonia Cookies (add in anise oil), same thing with what seems to be inspiration as much as tradition;
  • Ginger Ammonia Cookies (add in a generous amount of dried ginger), with some optional extras for those who want to try a popular Slovak variation.

We tested all of the above, and they all worked just as well as the standard vanilla version. I’ve no reason to believe other spices wouldn’t be just as good. These may be my new favorite when it comes to featuring one particular flavor.

FWIW, our 2024 Christmas tray is going to include the Peppermint version because we have nothing else even close to that flavor profile, and I may throw in a few vanilla ones too. Not that a spice version will find any protesters. Hmmm…

Can You Simply Put The Sugar In The Dough?

We tried it, and the answer is “Yes.” The cookie works fine. But we really like the showy, snowy white crust that comes from following the recipe, and it enhances that wonderful contrast between the inside and outside. The most I would actually recommend is the addition of something to show an inside flavor. Perhaps some anise seeds, or some bits of peppermint-green sugar.

Those flavored versions carry a significant odor, but who wants to eat the cookie I just sniffed and then put back on the tray?

Sour Cream? Is That Traditional?

Is it fair to answer that with a “Yes, but…?” Sour cream per se has been around for most of human history. After all, the root definition is nothing more than fermented cream. Some say it traces back to the Mongol hordes that made kumiss from mare’s milk, but I personally find that hard to believe. Not because the Mongols didn’t do just that, and helped to spread the idea. I just doubt that no one in human history came up with such an obvious idea before that. It certainly predates the arrival of Europeans in the new world.

I won’t speculate about the reasons, but research shows that sour cream has always been more common in central and Eastern Europe than over by the Atlantic. This enters into the history with the great migrations of Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Germans, etc. into the U.S. from the mid 1800’s on. They brought sour cream with them, where it met the rising force of the Industrial Revolution and morphed.

What had been a hand crafted, fairly regional staple became an industrially produced, properly pasteurized dairy product sold in every market across the land. Dips made with sour cream became a capital-T Thing. Baked potatoes began to look naked without it. Mexicans used it every bit as much. And it became a common, if relatively minor ingredient in the baking repertoire of the North American continent. At which point it traveled back to Europe, and began to expand in the old world too.

You will note that we call this a Polish cookie (“amoniaczki”), because that seems to be ground central for where it is enjoyed in Europe, and was such a major part of the immigrant population that filled the American midwest, where this cookie centers in North America. So… did the original European version use sour cream, or was it a case of American ingenuity improving on the original, which then made its way back to Poland along with industrial production?

I cannot answer that. I can only confirm that European variants using eggs instead of sour cream are easy to find; that we tested them; and that sour cream is definitely the way to go. It just works better.

Can I use Baking Powder or Soda For Convenience?

We liked this cookie so much that I felt compelled to test this, and the answer is, “Only if you must.” Texture is major part of this cookie’s appeal. The baking powder ones looked okay, and tasted fine, but they simply weren’t the same. The almost-crispy crust diminished down to a mere sugar-crust, and the exciting fluff-honeycomb interior became a standard, soft one.

Would we make them in a pinch using baking powder or soda? Hmmm. I suppose we might. Particularly if we wanted a softer cookie with a distinctly clear peppermint or anise note. But to be honest, we would only do it as a giveaway cookie because now that we’ve had the real thing, they would be too disappointing for either of us to really enjoy.

Conclusion

This is a fun cookie. Kate got a bit old grin on her face at the first bite, and said “It tastes like a hug!” I had to agree. But it’s not a hug from your Grandma, or spouse, or parent, or child. Nor anyone else you deeply love. Those have too much emotional freight. Ammonia Cookies are a hug from that friend you’re meeting for lunch, or one of your daughter’s little playmates.

Simple, companionable, and yet somehow special at the same time – from both a baker’s perspective, and a human one. And that’s just the vanilla version. The cookie’s flexibility as a base for other and custom creations only makes it that much better.

Enjoy!

CANADIAN ARMY MOLASSES COOKIES, A Classic WWII Recipe

The Canadian soldier’s secret trading weapon

Who’da thunk it? Soldiers like to trade amongst themselves, particularly when different groups have different supplies. In World War II the U.S. GI’s were the source for chocolate and smokes. The English always had tea. And the Canadians? They marched into the trading wars armed with cookies that no one else could match – the ones you’ll see below.

Click Here if you only want the recipe without the discussion

The basic recipe comes from the 1946 Canadian Army Cook’s Manual, as published in the Canadian Government website. All we did was test it, which turned out to matter because the volume-to-weight ratios on that page are a little bit off. Following the weights yields a thick drop cookie dough, while the volume measurements (cups) give you a very soft slice-and-bake result. We went with the second one because the instructions specifically mention slicing off pieces before baking. Our version below has corrected weights according to our tried and true conversion tables. Please note, however, that some ingredients (particularly flour) can vary a lot depending on both grind and protein content.

NOTE FROM KATE: When I tested this recipe, I used the scale with an expectation of tidy, slice-and-bake logs. I got a goopy mess of a drop cookie dough, and a discussion ensued along the lines of “You know, this cookie has a HUGE proportion of molasses!” Scott did some recalculating, et voila! The next try yielded slice and bake logs. The cookies bake and taste the same, but I prefer the tidy handling of the logs. It makes for an easier cleanup.

We made only two changes aside from that tweak. (1) The original recipe calls for sour milk, which we successfully replaced with both buttermilk and with fresh milk soured in the kitchen by adding some vinegar/lemon (a standard workaround). Yogurt ought to work too, though we haven’t tested it. And (2) We added raisins and extra spices as optional ingredients. Those might be too expensive for army-level production, but they do yield a tastier result for home cooks making dozens instead of thousands.

So what does it taste like? We found a few dozen tasters for this recipe and got a pretty standard reaction: “Entirely inoffensive with a finger on the scale toward good.” Call it a universal 6 out of 10, with no one going higher than an 8 or lower than a 4. They’d also be a 6 if you had a 1-10 scale from savory to sweet. Add the optional raisins and both scores go up by a notch. Extra spices push it up another.

NOTE FROM KATE: I admit to being spoiled by molasses cookies that bite back. You know, the memorable ones, loaded with spices from the obvious cinnamon to the expensive cardamom, with pepper and ginger for good measure. This is not that kind of a cookie. This is like a mild dish from a famously spicy cuisine. It’s still delicious but it defies your expectations.

People who like spicy cookies will notice a certain lack in this one, while mild food eaters should be thrilled to have a cookie that goes well with both coffee and tea. The restraint on the spice end of things was likely a result of not only preference, but also economy. Spices are expensive, and that matters once you multiply their cost by making enough for the entire Canadian army!

Soft or crunchy?

It’s entirely a matter of baking time and personal taste. Kate prefers these with a bit of residual chew. Scott likes them better when crispy. Choose for yourself. 15-20 minutes gives you one or the other, with all the stages in between.

NOTE FROM KATE: Despite my chew preference, I find that even dry cookies, which sat out for a few days, tasted good! Surprisingly, they didn’t go stale, and they had a nice crisp. Even though the low spice level took me aback at first, this eminently practical cookie grew on me and has now become a part of my “easy and travels well” repertoire!

Enjoy!

SPICED CHOCOLATE DROP COOKIES – A Master Recipe For Infinite Delights

Turn your favorite chocolate-and-spice bars into exquisite cookies

“Infinite Temptation” may make more sense in the title than “Infinite Delights.” The testing began with a Chocolate Black Pepper cookie, and the batch looked good as it came out of the oven. Thirteen nice, hefty, 2½” pieces. I tasted one, and liked it. A lot! So I duly brought them out to my beloved, and left them there on a plate so she could try one too. Then I went off do some work on another project.

I strolled back in about 30 minutes later. There were 4 cookies left on the plate. Our pup had been with me in the office. Kate had been left alone with the plate, parked on the sofa with her laptop.

13-1 = 12. 12-4 = the sort of math that wise old husbands forgot how to do a great many years ago. Make that wise and generous husbands, since I immediately ate three more and was kind enough to leave her the last.

Batch #2 got made when we hosted a dinner for our daughter and niece. Miranda had the will power to resist, thanks to a bit too much spice for her taste. Amanda? Amanda ate so many that I don’t have the heart to rat her out in public. Let’s just say that we now have testimony to how well the cookies go with a glass of wine, and with a glass of water, straight out of hand when no one seems to be looking, and with coffee too.

Get it? Got it? Good. These really are all of that; as simple as can be, absurdly rich, and with just enough of a twist to always be unique.

NOTE FROM KATE: One whole pound of chocolate, divided into only four dozen cookies. That’s a lot of antioxidants per cookie! So these aren’t just delicious, they are a regular health food! [Yay! That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!]

As always, skip to the bottom if you only want the recipe without the process.

The Cookie Part

This is a fairly standard drop cookie, so there’s no need to bore you with the chemistry. Go look at a regular Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. Subtract ¼ cup (1¾ oz = 50 g) of flour, and replace it with half a pound (8 oz = 225 g) of melted chocolate. Bing, bang, boom, you’ve got it. The chocolate adds back the structure you lost by removing that bit of flour.

Add another half pound of chopped chocolate (or really good chips), the spice du jour, and you’re done. The only tricky part comes with the baking time. It’s easy to overbake a cookie this dark, and doing means sharing chocolate essence with the air, so we limited the baking time just to be on the safe side. 10-11 minutes instead of the more normal 10-12.

Just make sure to use a good chocolate. There is a full pound of chocolate in every batch. The flavor comes through, and cheap chocolate will show.

NOTE FROM KATE – ABOUT CHOCOLATE: Some of you might’ve seen articles about chocolate with elevated heavy metal levels. Long story short: which risk factor do you want to go with on a given occasion: chocolate or chardonnay?

Development

Chocolate is great. Chocolate is awesome. But the special part here comes from the spice.

Please note that I didn’t actually create this cookie. We publish heritage cookies not mind numbingly good original creations. That said, the accusation has been made and so I feel the need to defend my process.

I began the project looking to highlight a black pepper cookie. Think about it: all those spice snaps, with flavors ranging from across the map, and yet almost no one remembers to try the one spice that’s in basically every kitchen across the breadth of Western civilization. It couldn’t be right… and it wasn’t. Examples abound. And I may get back to them idea later on. But the thought of chocolate black pepper cookies could not be resisted, and thus I went a little sideways.

A Google search for the term “chocolate spice cookies” comes back with a bit more than 68 million results! Italian recipes lead the way, but U.S. versions (like this one) aren’t far behind. There’s one from South Africa with just black pepper… there are a few based on Mexican chocolate… Viennese chocolate pepper cookies (a roll out)… It doesn’t end. This isn’t an original idea, just my version of one that every baker across the world has thought about from time to time.

So what did I do? (A) I elected to go with a U.S.-style drop cookie, and (B) I made it so good that all the other 67,999,999 are stuck with trying to come in second.

NOTE FROM KATE – ON FLOUR: We had a batch where we ran out of AP flour (11.7% gluten) and ended up using pizza flour (14% gluten) for about a quarter of the required amount. Those cookies didn’t spread. They had so much more structural integrity that if you made a little pyramid, it would probably look like a little mountain upon baking. The cookies in the photos are made with regular AP flour, and they did spread some but not very much. This begs the question, would a softer flour yield a more traditional cookie with more spread? Would substituting some starch for 10% of the flour do the trick? If you try it, let us know on our eponymous FaceBook group.

FYI, there was nothing wrong with the pyramidal cookies went came to taste. Their centers remained soft and may even have held on to moisture better. High levels of either cocoa or chocolate will suck moisture out of any baked good, and this is a great example of the phenomenon.

The Spice Part

The first test batch stuck with black pepper. Four teaspoons of it! The result was superb, but it did push right up against that line between “right” and “too much.” The recipe accordingly says 3-4 now. But the big Aha! moment came when we realized that black pepper was just the tip of this particular iceberg.

Go out to your favorite chocolate shop and you’ll find a whole shelf of well spiced options. Chocolate flavored with cinnamon. Chocolate flavored with cinnamon and chili (the Mexican chocolate profile). Chocolate flavored with cayenne, garam masala, ginger, nutmeg, star anise, cloves, gingerbread mix… It’s endless! I mentioned this to Kate and her eyes lit up with an evil gleam.

Every single one of those would work in this recipe. Just compare the potency of your chosen spice to the designated 3-4 tsp. of black pepper in this master recipe, and keep notes so that Version B will be perfect. Bing, bang, boom.

NOTE FROM KATE: I prefer more spice. The cookie doesn’t have to bite back, but higher spice level helps the flavor linger. The pepper version is warming and makes you raise an eyebrow in surprise (use fresh-ground for best effect.) The cinnamon-chipotle one is familiar, with a long and warm finish. Cardamom alone didn’t have the same bite, but the high floral notes carried beautifully, and I plan to see how that spice would play well with black or spicy pepper or to attain an extended note.

One whole recipe gives you approximately 1,200 grams of dough. I divided it into four bowls with 300 grams each, rounding them off to get even weights. (The exact amount of each batch will vary depending how much dough you use for “quality control,” how hard you pack your brown sugar, the size of your eggs, etc.). Then I added proportionate amounts of spices, getting 15 cookies of each per cookie sheet. Label your baking parchment so you know which is which. These are mystery cookies. They all look the same, the first bite keeps you guessing, but by the second bite you know.

NOTE FROM SCOTT: That might even be a fun game. Make several versions with different spices, and then let the party figure out what’s what...

Let us know your favorites so we can give them a try. I might even get to try a few myself before the invisible cookie gremlins get hold of the dozen I left on the plate. Deaf, dumb and blind, thy name is husband of 30+ years.

Enjoy!

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POPPY SEED FILLING – with a few examples of cookies and other desserts

“Caviar!” chorus Kate and Daughter #1. “How nice,” say Scott and Daughter #2.

Part 1 of this extra long article addressed Poppy Seed Drop Cookies and Roll-Outs. This article covers our work on a Heritage Poppy Seed Filling worthy of the name, and a number of other heritage treats that don’t quite make it as “cookies.”

As always, skip to the bottom if you only want the recipe. Or to the middle if you want a couple of great cookie recipes to use as a vehicle.

POPPY SEED FILLING

NOTE FROM KATE: We took a while ironing the kinks out of this one because I have some serious opinions about poppy seed. It’s fabulous! In fact, I started eating poppy young. My paternal grandparents had a summer farm house well outside of Prague. The crops grown around it varied every year, depending on what the state farm’s agronomer decided to grow. One year we had peas (which the kids plundered, using the dry peas in spit guns to devastating effect.) The field next to it grew poppies. The frothy sea of white blossoms faded into blue-green marbles, which soon turned into poppy heads. We kids liked to pick them. We would take our poppy heads into the hay loft, pull out our pocket knives, dig out the white seeds in their slightly bitter white sap, and eat it.

When our grandparents found out, they just shook their heads. Grandma Stoy said, “Don’t eat that. It will make you sleepy, and if you eat too much you’ll grow stupid.”

“That’s how opium is made,” Grandpa Stoy said. “And morphine, for surgeries.” We got a whole lecture on the pharmacological importance of poppies. We were also warned not to make opium (addictive, illegal) while Grandma let it slip that she had seen it used to pacify teething babies. “They used to simmer green poppy heads in milk,” she said. “Then they’d wrap soft bread in a linen handkerchief, tie it off, and soak it in the poppy milk. The baby would suck on it, and go to sleep.”

And here you thought I wouldn’t share any heritage information. This is first-hand research!

The drop cookies came together quickly even though I (we’re back to Scott) had to start with some creative baking. This Poppy Seed Filling? Not so much.

You’d think otherwise, because it is incredibly popular and used in inumerable ways. This is the stuff that goes inside Poppy Seed Hamantaschen, Poppy Seed Kolache, Hungarian Poppy Seed Rolls, the swirls inside of Poppy Seed Cakes and Poppy Seed Breads… and on, and on, and on. There should be recipes out there by the dozen. And there are. But in the end it took both experience, failure, and some understanding of the basic chemistry before we could get it capital-R Right.

  • Problem #1: Poppy Seeds have a bitter edge that’s part of their appeal. But old poppy seeds get bitter in an unpleasant way, and the bitter edge becomes a stabbing blade if you go from “ground” to “pulverized.” I now believe this happens because the seeds, like many other seeds and nuts, are full of oil. Let the oil age, and it goes rancid; i.e., becomes unpleasant. Pulverize the seeds too far in a blender, and the increased surface area of the particles gives the oil a greater opportunity to oxidize, turning harsh in the same way you see with extra virgin olive oil.

Solution 1a: Buy your poppy seeds fresh, and store them in the freezer until you’re ready to use them. This goes double for ground poppy seeds, where the oils are no longer protected by the hulls. [NOTE FROM KATE: A week at room temperature is enough to render ground poppy seeds “less than fresh.” Double that and they will turn bitter. Grandma Kandler always ground them fresh right before use. If you buy them ground to order, as we do, I suggest you make your filling right away, label it, and freeze it.]

Solution 1b: Keep the blender problem in mind, and don’t blithely turn it on for a minute or two. There is “not enough,” but there is also “too much.” The baker’s job is to find the perfect compromise. Mixing whole and ground can also help. [See below].

Solution 1c: If poppy seed flavor lies in the oils, then one should be able to extract those oils into either dairy products or alcohol. And you can! Include some cooking/soaking-in-milk time as part of the recipe. This will even out the flavor, prevent it from going rancid anywhere near as fast, and will also hydrate the whole seeds [see below].

Caviar for Kate
  • Problem #2: Many sources argue that whole poppy seeds provide some desirable pop in a filling. On the other hand, they can get annoying very fast when you end up with a mouthful of grit; and they get extra gritty when a little dried out. Turning it around, ground poppy seeds release more flavor and also smooth things out, but can make the filling a little too dense, shorten its shelf life, and remove all the pop instead of just some. [NOTE FROM KATE: YMMV on cooking them whole, and I have been as open-minded about it as I could be. Yes, they do soften over time, but even the 50/50 ground:whole compromise left me irritated about the whole seeds’ texture. Let your preference be your guide.]

Solution 2a: Start from a mix of ground and whole. Fact is, blenders are not the best tool for grinding poppy seeds. There are actual mills you can buy for just that specialized purpose.

Photo from Happy-Mills.com

We buy our poppy seeds in bulk from our inestimably awesome local coffee roaster. They have just such a tool, and will grind on site as requested. Thus it takes us exactly zero effort to order two half bags instead of one big one, with the first half ground and the second half whole. Highly recommended.

The founder, Mr. John Prestogeorge. A gentleman through and through.

Solution 2b: In theory, poppy seeds swell as you cook them in a liquid, and eventually will swell enough to burst. Think of rice, or some other grain like quinoa. They do just the same. Cooking a little longer will make them swell that much more. The technical challenge here is not allowing the mixture go above the barest of a simmer for more than a few minutes. Boiling will turn them bitter for sure. And with a mixture as viscous as a poppy seed filling, reaching a boil is almost a foregone conclusion. You could put the whole mix into a sous vide for a few hours, and that might work quite well, but we haven’t tried it.

Solution 2c: If you go through the whole process and the filling still feels gritty, swirl a pat or two of softened butter into the warm filling. It’s just like finishing a sauce. The butter adds mouthfeel way out of proportion to the amount you use.

Caviar for Miranda, the eldest daughter
  • Problem #3: Poppy seeds alone are… meh. They come into their own when mixed with some kind of fruit. This is why you almost always see lemon-poppy goods rather than poppy playing a solo tune.

Solution 3a: Include some concentrated fruit flavor (a/k/a honey, jam, preserves, and the like) as one of the sweeteners. This isn’t some secret trick! At least 90% of the recipes out there will include both honey and some kind of jam. The most common ones are povidla (prune butter/filling) and its apricot equivalent lekvar. [N.B. The names are from different languages, and actually mean the same thing: cooked, jam-like fruit filling used in baked goods. Thus the Czechs have both prune povidla and apricot povidla, just as the Hungarians have both apricot and prune lekvar. I use the one name for a prune version and the other for apricot for the sake of reader clarity despite the fact that I know it is linguistically misleading.] But any good fruit preserve will do if that’s the flavor you want to pair! Strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, grape… they’ll all work well and give you a customized “other” to claim as your own.

[NOTE FROM KATE: If you don’t have a jar of prune butter handy, soak two or three prunes with your liquid of choice. The flavor will spread and even out when you the blend the two into filling.]

Solution 3b: I know, I know. ‘But fruit preserves usually include undesirable seeds and/or lumpy bits of pulp! What do I do about those?’ Simple enough. Heat the “jam” until it’s thin, and then push it through a sieve by pressing down hard with a rubber spatula or spoon. The seeds and irredeemable pulp will be left behind, while the rest will get broken down to the point where it no longer matters.

Solution 3c: And yes, mixing sweeteners even more will only increase the complexity. Our recipe uses plain sugar (to ensure the poppy seeds stay front and center), honey (to round everything out), and also choice-of-jam to transform it from ordinary into special.

Solution 3d: Poppy seeds adore fruits of all kinds, but their One True Love is lemon. Don’t fight it. We add some zest into our filling just because it’s part of what everyone thinks of as “poppy seed flavor.” Vanilla also works but we consider that to be more of an optional extra touch.

“Poppy seeds? How nice. Couldn’t we do something with chocolate?” At least according to Scott and Lee (daughter #2)

Final problem: How do you use this wonderful filling now that it’s made and waiting?

THE LAST AND FINAL NOTE FROM KATE: My feelings run strong about this one! I view whole poppy seeds in my filling much like Scott’s opinion on coconut (remember how he called it “Demon Hair” in our Heritage Cookies Alfajores recipe?) Poppy seed filling should be smooth enough not to feel gritty, and should never leave dark seeds between your teeth. If you’re baking for me, use only ground seeds OR blend it after cooking. Remember that, as a rule of thumb, every 10 degrees Centigrade will double the rate of a chemical reaction. Oxidation of the popp yseed oil is just another chemical reaction. Thus, the bitterness will be directly proportional to the combination of time and temperature in the presence of oxygen. (Since the size of our kitchen excludes the installation of a temperature-controlled, nitrogen-atmosphere reaction kettle, we need to plod on like it was 1899.) ANYHOW, you can use fresh-ground poppy seed and gently simmer it, and freeze it. OR, you can pre-soak whole poppy seeds overnight in warm water, strain, gently simmer them, and then blend it till smooth; but only once it has cooled some. (Remember: every degree you shave off helps to slow down the oxidative process.)

And don’t forget the balance flavors? Yes about lemon zest and juice. And yes about some jam. But dry spices have a place too. Clove is lovely in moderation and, not coincidentally, rounds out the flavor in a way that keeps the bitter notes under control.

MY FAVORITE QUICK USE: Eat 3 spoonfuls in the morning while waiting for your coffee to brew. [Note From Scott: I support this. See above for Grandma’s wisdom about teething babies. It works just as well for other dispositions. And now I will run…]

FILLED POPPY SEED COOKIES

Start with a classic filled cookie from any nation starting with Turkey, Greece, and the Balkan states in the south, on up through Germany, Poland, and Scandinavia in the north. Poppy Seed Filling gets used every bit as often as fruit fillings, nut fillings, and sweet cheese fillings. Here are two examples from our original Heritage Cookies of the Old and new World collection.

Served at every Purim feast, Hamantaschen are even more common than
Queen Esther Cookies. They are actually named for Haman,
the villain of that holiday story.

That’s just two examples. Poppy Seed Filling has as much versatility as anything else in the repertoire.

OTHER POPPY SEED DESSERTS

But that isn’t the end of the story. Poppy-centric desserts abound, and several deserve some special mention. No, they aren’t “cookies,” nor even Not-Quite-A-Cookies. So why talk about them at all? Because the treats I’m about to describe are immensely popular, carry great cultural significance, and often fill the same role as a cookie on many a holiday table. No actual recipes, because that would be a step too far, but honorable and honored mention? Absolutely.

Hungarian Poppy Seed Rolls. These look a bit like jelly rolls or roulades, but those are made by rolling up filling inside a yellow cake or meringue layer. Poppy- and Nut Rolls start with a soft, well sweetened, yeast bread dough. After that it’s just the same. Roll the dough out into a rectangle, let it rise, then spread it all over with a thick layer of Poppy Seed (or Sweet Walnut) Filling, leaving only enough room on the sides to account for the filling that’s bound to squish out. Roll the dough up around the filling very, very gently to make a giant roll, and then bake. When it’s done, cut into slices for both easy eating and to display the spiral pattern on the inside.

Lithuanian Poppy-Bread Holiday Nuggets (“Kūčiukai”). There are websites out there that characterize Kūčiukai and its derivatives, as a “cookie”. It isn’t. Kūčiukai are a straightforward, moderately sweet yeast bread stuffed to the gills with whole and/or ground poppy seeds. Roll the dough out into a thin sausages maybe ½” (1-1½ cm) thick; cut them into ¾” (2 cm) pieces; bake until fully done and even a little crispy; and then serve them in a big bowl for the Christmas feast.

Ancient baltic tradition uses Kūčiukai in several ways, ranging from something like cereal floated in a bowl of sweet poppy seed milk, to croutons in a bowl of thickened fruit soup (the most common name is “Kissel”). And, of course, as the object of snitch-and-snack raids by both the young and the young at heart.

That’s why some people call this a “cookie” to begin with? Consider this:

  • Kūčiukai served in sweet poppy milk or Kissel serve as sweet endings to the feast… just like cookies in the more western nations.
  • Kūčiukai are bait for tiny hands… just like western “cookies.”
  • And Kūčiukai are all but mandatory for the holiday gathering… again, just like the things we’d all describe as “proper” cookies.
  • Plus there is no other category in which you could put Kūčiukai from the pure translation point of view, because other cultures have no equivalent.

So Kūčiukai may not be a “cookie” for our purposes, but they 100% deserve to be mentioned in the same breath.

Poppy Seed Cakes, like the Czech “Makovec”. This is an extremely popular dessert often served on a cookie tray during the holidays, but it’s actually a moderately dense cake cut into 3-bite pieces. Recipes vary from a Yellow Cake base, to a White Cake base, oftentimes a Pound Cake base, and sometimes even an Angel Cake base; but cake it is. Fill that batter with an absurd amount of poppy seeds (whole and/or ground), and you’re pretty much done except for gilding-the-lily touches like a sharp lemon icing.

CONCLUSION

There are two types of people in the world: those who adore poppy seeds, and those who barely give them a second thought. That’s a pretty good average. People all over the world make cookies out of them too. But if you are a true devotee, the filling is where it’s at. This is the recipe that hooks ’em in and keeps ’em coming back.

Enjoy!

ELISENLEBKUCHEN – Flourless honey gingerbread (a/k/a honeycakes) from Nuremberg

The Immortal Queen of Nuremberg Gingerbreads

Here’s a funny but true: we love our classic Lebkuchen recipe so much that we hesitated to work on this one out of pure loyalty. We’ve amassed a great number of honey gingerbread recipes (a/k/a “Honeycakes”), but Lebkuchen remains the a family favorite. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas if we left them off our tray.

It turned out to be a misplaced loyalty. Elisenlebkuchen bear very little resemblance to regular Lebkuchen when push comes to shove. Our old favorite is a classic built on a flour-based dough that’s jam packed with nuts, fruits, a bit of spice, and a whole lot of honey to act as the binder. Elisenlebkuchen have even more nuts, no flour at all, and instead rely on both honey and a full five (5!) eggs to act as the binder. They are two very different experiences.

On the Upper Left: chocolate glaze with sliced almonds.
On The Upper Right: vanilla glaze with sliced almonds.
On The Bottom: vanilla glaze only.
Use whichever you think is prettiest.

NOTE FROM KATE: These cookies are horribly deceptive in their overall “goodness.” That is, with the exception of the brown sugar, they are a “whole food,” so what could go wrong, right? I’ll have to do a caloric breakdown one of these days. Let’s just say, they contain more energy than meets the eye. If you were riding across the mountains and had to choose a fabulous, long-lasting food source for the extra space in your saddle bags, these would be it. They remind me of Panforte in their composition, but have eggs for eggstra protein. [Insert eye roll from Scott] The good news? With eggstra protein and the good-for-you fat from the nuts, the sugar in the brown sugar and honey won’t hit your bloodstream too fast. A cookie or two could hold you for hours.

Best of all? Of all our cookies and especially waybreads, these are the closest to the Lembas the elves made famous in the Lord of the Rings. Toss in an apple, and you got yourself a balanced diet for the day! (Shh…don’t tell Scott!)

The recipe explains itself, and includes an extensive Cookie Nerd Moment with extra background material, so I will only take the time to discuss a few of the decision points you’ll face when trying this out on your own:

  1. Should I use marzipan or ground nuts? It’s entirely up to you, and makes very little difference. Just remember that Marzipan has almost as much sugar as nuts (our recipe has a ratio of 4:5), and usually has some extra sweetness lurking in the background. If you make this substitution, do it by weight and assume the Marzipan is actually a 50/50 mix. You need to reduce the amount of both almonds and sugar accordingly.
  2. Can I play with the spices? Of course you can! But we do recommend that you (a) stick to the basic, quite generous amount of overall spice, and (b) think of the spices as an accent to bring the best out of your chosen nuts.
  3. Can I substitute in other nuts? Yes, but these are the classics used in Nuremberg. Be aware that you’ll be departing off road from the One True Tradition.
  4. Should I glaze the cookies? Yes. That was easy enough. The glaze definitely enhances the overall look, especially since the bottoms are not glazed.
  5. Should I use the vanilla glaze or the chocolate? Tradition allows for either one, so it’s entirely up to you. Both are thin enough to be only an accent flavor. This cookie is all about the nuts, and even I, a lifelong chocoholic, don’t want to mess with that purity.
  6. Should I add the nut garnish on top? As you wish. They are only there for the sake of appearance and fair warning to anyone who sees them lying there on your tray.
  7. Should I add the optional salt? And why specify “large grain” salt? This is a nontraditional option that we liked so much that we felt obliged to share. Both Kate and I have a strong preference for salted nuts over plain when we snack on them out of hand. The optional salt creates that effect in a light way. We recommend large grain salt sprinkled on top of the glaze because that is the best way to give a salty highlight. The base recipe also contains some salt, but that is more of a bare minimum that the cookie would suffer without.

That’s it folks. Enjoy!

Nuts, nuts, nuts, and fruit. The only other things inside this cookie are honey and eggs as the binder.

GEVULDE (FILLED) SPECULAAS – a holiday treat from the Netherlands

Speculaas filled with almond paste? Thank you Mom, can I have another?

Our published book, Heritage Cookies of the Old and New World, has a wonderful recipe for Nut Dough Speculaas, which offers up a soft, tender version of the famous Dutch spice cookie. This recent article is all about the ultra-authentic, thin-and-crispy version, featuring a recipe straight out of Belgium. Our research for that article accidentally revealed a third style that is immensely popular next door in Holland (a/k/a the Netherlands): Speculaas dough filled with almond paste.

The Nut Dough recipe makes an extra tender version. The 100% Authentic recipe comes out thin and crisp. This is the one in the middle; toothsome, gently spiced, and made with U.S. pantry ingredients. Take that and fill it with homemade almond paste? [Finger Kiss]

As always, you can skip to the bottom if you want the recipe alone. The discussion of our stumbles and revelations along the way is going to take some time.

A SIMPLE, PANTRY-FRIENDLY SPECULAAS DOUGH

Easy peasy, I promise. Yes, this is a top shelf American version of a very European cookie, but that doesn’t make it complicated. The approach couldn’t be more standard. Cream the butter and sugar, beat in an egg, and then mix in the flour, leavening, and spices. Cover and refrigerate overnight so the flour can hydrate and the spices even out. Form and bake however you wish.

The only potential complication lies in the hydration part. You are after a drier dough with only enough moisture to hold together when squeezed. (the Almond Paste filling will add any richness you think is missing). That means the base recipe is likely to be too dry outside of a humid environment. You solve that by adding extra water a tablespoon or two at a time until it holds when squeezed. One or two is usually enough, though it could take as many as six to eight.

Just go sparingly! It is much easier to add more water in than to take any out. I did one batch with the full eight tablespoons (½ cup), and had to double the batch in order to avoid throwing the whole thing out. Tripling would have worked even better. Fortunately, the recipe has enough flexibility to have saved me from that extreme.

THE ALMOND PASTE FILLING

No need to waste a lot of time on this piece either. Almond Paste is super easy to make, and we have a whole discussion of it in the article on Marzipan. The only difference for this purpose is the subtle addition of some citrus zest to help it meet and marry with the flavors of the dough.

We include instructions for the almond paste in the cookie recipe down below. I’ve added our recipe for Marzipan and Almond Paste too, as a free bonus. [NOTE FROM KATE: I love anything resembling marzipan, and the orange notes in this paste have a delicious more-ishness to it. So much so that Scott had to keep chasing me away as I tried to execute numerous rounds of diligent quality control.]

THE MANY DIFFERENT SHAPES

And now we get to the long part. But not because the shaping is hard! It isn’t. The dough is friendly, too, and the techniques are all straightforward. The length comes from the sheer number of options. This article lists a full dozen (12!) possibilities, and you don’t have to stop there. Jam and fruit fillings spread in the oven, searching for any crevice where they can leak out to create black and bitter disaster on your cookie sheet. Almond Paste does not. That feature opens up your options to basically any cookie shape you can imagine.

Bar Cookies? We Don’t Need No Stinking Bar Cookies!

Honesty compels me to admit that most people make Gevulde Speculaas as a bar cookie. You simply coat the bottom of the baking dish with one layer of cookie dough, spread a thick layer of almond paste on top (it should be noticeably thicker than the dough), and then cover that with a second layer of dough. Bake at 350° F (175° C) for about 18-25 minutes, or until the cookie part on top has set by the edges but is still a little soft in the center.

We, however, have a rule: no bar cookies! (Read the article on Chocolate Fudge Cookies if you insist on knowing why). That changes the focus to all those infinitely more interesting options, such as…

Sandwich Cookies!

Roll out the dough to 3/8″ thick. Cut out your choice of shape (we used larger rounds) and mark half of them with whatever you want for the top (we did a cutout for one, and a cookie stamp for a second.

Array the bottoms on a lined baking sheet (or two), keeping 1″ between each piece to account for spreading. Coat the bottom of the cookie with almond paste,* and then place the tops on top. Bake at 350° F (175° C) for about 12-15 minutes, or until the edges have set and the cookie has puffed up.

* Our favorite way to spread the almond paste goes like this:

  1. Roll up a ball of almond paste of the size you estimate you’ll need. Place this in the center of the bottom cookie, and then place a piece of parchment paper on top. You can dust it with some powdered sugar if there is an excessive amount of sticking.
  2. Press down with a rolling pin to evenly flatten the ball without spreading it all the way to the edges.
  3. Now stop, peel off the paper, and check where you are. (A) Was your estimate about right? Hooray! Replace the paper and use your pin to spread the paste out to the edges. (B) Were you a little short? Add a little more almond paste and repeat the process. Your new almond paste will meld right into the original piece. Or (C) did you add a little too much almond paste? If so, use dampened fingers or a dampened spoon to remove the excess and then proceed, giving thanks that you did not press down all the way when you started.
  4. Trim the edges with a dampened cookie cutter as needed. NOTE: You need it to be damp because the almond paste will stick like crazy if it isn’t. [NOTE FROM KATE: I was way too impatient, so I made a ball of almond paste and squished it with the bottom of a wet glass. It’s messier, I admit I had to sop up extra water off a cookie or two. It was fast though, even enough, and got the job done.]

Spiral a/k/a Pinwheel Cookies!

  1. Roll out the Speculaas dough into a 13” x 7” (33 cm x 18 cm) rectangle ≈ ¼” thick.
  2. Use the “balls of almond paste” trick described above in the sandwich cookie section to create an almond layer that is also ¼” thick on top of the dough layer. Making it as even as possible will yield the best patterns in the end.
  3. Roll the whole thing up “jelly roll” style, and then move to a refrigerator to firm up for at least 15 minutes.
  4. Use a thin thread, lightweight fishing line, or dental floss to cut off ⅜” cookies, and then array prettiest-side-up on your parchment lined sheet, leaving 1” between each to account for spreading. You should end up with 35-40 cookies. NOTE: This is a great trick if you do not know it! Shimmy the thread under the roll ⅜” from an edge. Bring up the sides so the thread crosses over at a spot ⅜” from the same edge, but on top of the roll. Pull on both threads so the loop shrinks down to cut off your piece. The thread has less surface area than even the thinnest knife, and will therefore leave a cleaner pattern. You can roll a sticky thread in flour or powdered sugar if you want to gild the lily, but we didn’t need to.
  5. Bake at 350° F (175° C) for ≈10 minutes, or until the edges are firm and the cookies have puffed. Let them set on the tray for ≈1 minute, and then move to a rack to cool completely. NOTE: The baked tops should show a distinct pattern, but the bottoms against the tray will turn into an almost uniform brown.
The ends are never as pretty, especially when you need to press down to flatten the odd shaped pieces out. This shows three end pieces surrounding one middle piece.

Bullseye Cookies! [NO PHOTOS]

  1. Roll out the Speculaas dough into a 13” x 7” (33 cm x 18 cm) rectangle ≈ ¼” thick on a sheet of parchment paper.
  2. Place a long, 1” diameter sausage of almond paste down the middle of each strip. Roll up lengthwise to encase that sausage in the dough.
  3. Use a thin thread, lightweight fishing line, or dental floss to cut off ⅜” cookies, and then array them prettiest-side-up on your parchment lined sheet, leaving 1” between each to account for spreading. You should end up with 35-40 cookies.
  4. Bake at 350° F (175° C) for ≈10 minutes, or until the edges are firm and the cookies have puffed. Let them set on the tray for ≈1 minute, and then move to a rack to cool completely.

Tubes and Lengthwise Lines!

  1. Roll out a thinner spiral and cut it into 2” lengths. Starting with a 13” x 6” (33 cm x 15 cm) rectangle should do it.
  2. For tubes, bake at 350° F (175° C) for ≈11-12 minutes, or until the outside is firm and the cookies have puffed. NOTE: The tubes will settle into being flat on the bottom. We haven’t figured a way around that.
  3. For Horizontal lines, use a thin paring knife or a long thread to cut through the top from end to end. Array these curved side down on the baking sheet. What would have been spirals when viewed from the edge in will appear as lines when the roll is cut lengthwise. NOTE: you can also use the paring knife to cut almost all the way through, leaving only a thin piece at the bottom to connect the two halves. Unfold this like an opening flower and you’ll have a double-width line cookie. Bake these at 350° F (175° C) for ≈9-11 minutes depending on thickness.
  4. Let the baked pieces set on the tray for a few minutes, and then move to a rack to cool completely.
Line cookies on the left, spirals on the right. It’s basically the same pattern, but in one case you cut across to reveal the spiral, and in the other you cut lengthwise to reveal straight lines.

NOTE: You can use the “Bullseye” method here as well, or make the final shape a little thinner and broader by creating a filled rectangle instead of a filled tube.

NOTE #2: For Tube Cookies it’s it’s often worth decorating the top of the tube/cake with slices almonds. See the photos of the “Bake And Slice” method down below.

Molded and Filled Speculaas (Works With Jam Too)!

Apricot jam for the filling worked great, but we lost the pattern on top because I forgot to chill before baking.
Filled and plain Speculaas using the 100% authentic, Belgian Brown Sugar dough instead of this U.S. Brown Sugar dough. That time I did chill before baking.
Our favorite mold for individual Filled Speculaas (and gingerbreads of all kinds). We bought it at an actual castle on a trip to visit family in the Czech Republic! It was actually called a “butter mold” rather than a cookie mold, not that it makes any difference.
This Ma’amoul mold would have also worked, but can you imagine the amount of almond paste in each cookie?
  1. Fill a bowl with with rice/corn/tapioca flour. Spoon this in to fill your mold, turn it over to pour the excess back into your bowl, and then rap the back firmly to knock off any excess. Voila! A perfectly dusted mold. (See the articles on the Speculaas Master Class and Filled Gingerbread cookies for more variations and details). FYI, we used this mold to make individual portions:
  2. Roll the dough out to ¼” thick (thicker for a larger mold, of course), and then cut out a piece of dough just large enough to fit inside the entire mold while leaving a thin rim of dough up and over the side of the mold. Use well-dusted to press it gently into the pattern. NOTE: Too much dough is better than too little since you can always trim. NOTE #2: Holes aren’t a disaster. Patch them by pressing in extra dough with your floured fingertips. It will subtract from the inside space by a smidgen, but no one should see it when the cookies are baked.
  3. Add a filling of your choice to a level that reaches level with the top of the mold. REMEMBER: That does NOT mean the top of your dough rim around the edge! Do that and you’ll have too much filling, which will lead to leaking, bursting, and other bad results.
  4. Roll and cut out a second piece of dough sufficient to cover the filled in mold. Place this on top and then run a rolling pin over the entire thing to join the seams. Tap the filled cookie out with the mold-side up, and then use a paring knife to clean up the edges.
  5. Array on a lined baking sheet, and then chill in the refrigerator for at least 15-30 minutes. This will help to keep the pattern a little sharper.
  6. Bake at 350° F (175° C) until the edges are firm. It took ≈11-12 minutes for our smaller mold, but will obviously vary according to the size and thickness of the one you choose to use.

NOTE: It’s a good idea to precook any jam filling before you use it (simply bring it to a boil in the microwave or a small pan). Raw jam tries very, very hard to find a crack it can seep out of. The precooked jam is much, much less runny and will only seep out if you’ve made a noticeable mistake in sealing things up.

Cookie “Dumplings” and “Ravioli”!

Note the extra thick amount of almond inside
Our handy dandy dumpling press, last used when we were working up the recipe for Croatian Rafioli

NOTE: This method uses a bit more almond paste per piece. It should also work with a pre-cooked fruit filling, but we haven’t tried it.

  1. Roll out the Speculaas dough to ⅜” thick, cut out a circle the right size to fit your handy dandy dumpling press, and then fill it with a football-shaped piece of almond paste. Squeeze gently to seal the edges.
  2. Array on a parchment lined baking sheet as you pop the piece out of the press. Leave 1” between each one to account for spreading.
  3. Bake at 350° F (175° C) until the edges are firm. It took ≈ 10 minutes for ours, but we anted to make sure they were baked all the way through.
  4. Leave the cookies on the tray for 10 minutes and then move to a rack to cool completely.

Thumbprints! [No Photo]

Duh. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this in time to get some done for the photo shoot. Bad baker. Bad, bad, bad. No biscuit for you.

  1. Roll the dough into balls ≈ 1¼” in diameter.
  2. Use the handle of a wooden spoon to poke a deep hole, and then fill that hole with almond paste.
  3. Array on a parchment lined baking sheet, and give each ball a gentle squish to make sure it will stay in position with the almond paste facing up. Keep 1-2” in between each piece to account for spreading.
  4. Bake at 350° F (175° C) for ≈ 10-12 minutes, or until the edges are firm.

Bake-And-Slice Rolls and Rectangles!

This began it’s life as a Spiral Cookie roll. It was baked before slicing, which allowed it to slump into a rectangle.
The flattened spiral from a baked-before-slicing roll.
  1. Make a roll as described above for Spiral or Bullseye cookies, but a little thicker. You achieve this by starting with a 13” x 8” (33 cm x 21 cm) rectangle.
  2. Bake at 350° F (175° C) for ≈20 minutes, or until the outside is firm, the tube has slumped down into a rectangular “cake”, and cookies have puffed.
  3. Let this set on the tray for ≈5 minute, and then move to a rack to cool completely. Slice with a thin, sharp, serrated knife after it’s completely cool. You will end up with elongated, almost-rectangular spirals.
A “Bullseye Cookie” bar decorated with almond slices. We tried to have this one start as a filled rectangle instead of a roll, but that only enhanced the slumping. Still tasty, and kind of nice if you want the sharper edges in the end.

Don’t Bother To Fill At All

Straight, unfilled Speculaas made from this dough. Not bad, are they?

The dough works fine as a plain old Speculaas cookie pressed into a mold. It doesn’t hold patterns quite as well as the 100% Authentic Speculaas, but it’s pretty darned close. Bake according to the instructions in that article using 350° F (175° C) instead of 375° F (190° C). The molasses in the U.S. brown sugar apparently makes them cook just that little bit faster.

NOTE: You may (may, not will) want to knead in a small amount of extra flour or starch if the dough is particularly soft and sticky. That’s a useful characteristic for the many methods described above, but can result in either sticking or unreliable patterns for straight-out molded cookies. Be judicious, as it won’t take much.

CONCLUSION

The dough is standard and easy. The almond paste is standard and easy. The shaping is fun and interesting once you pick a method (and get used to liking off almond paste from your fingers). And the flavor is just about perfect if you want the world’s friendliest, most accessible, spice cookie treat.

What’s not to love?

We urge you to give it a try. If you do, there’s basically no way it’s ever going to leave your repertoire. They are, as our English friends say, intensely “more-ish.”

Enjoy!

IMPORTANT:
You want to make Almond Paste for Gevulde (Filled) Speculaas, not marzipan

POPPY SEED COOKIES – An Array From Central and Eastern Europe

The first of two articles on Poppy Seed Cookies. This one contains a roll-and-cut cookie (Queen Esther Cookies) and a drop Cookie (Poppy Seed Sour Cream Cookies)

Admission: poppy seeds are not my thing. They don’t offend me or anything, but my world would be no worse if poppy seed desserts simply disappeared. Kate? For Kate that would be a disaster on the same level as a plague to destroy the worldwide apple crop. My beloved wife adores poppy seeds, to the point where that’s one of her favorite bagels. [Shakes head].

NOTE FROM KATE: Poppy seeds! Oh my, they are…well…strangely addictive. I’ve loved them since childhood.

It turns out she’s not alone. Poppy seeds are one of those flavors that some people put at the very top of the food pyramid. My guess would be somewhere between one in five or one in ten based on recent conversations. Calling them “devoted” barely scratches the surface! And you know what? Almost everyone else is like me. We don’t dislike the flavor, it’s just the sort of thing we’re happy to leave to those who care.

Common? Check. Beloved by a lot of people? Check. A significant part of the culture from the Baltic States down through Turkey? Absolutely.

Sounds like the sort of thing we need to discuss.

But here’s the thing: poppy seeds are an ingredient more than a concept. They’re used in almost endless ways. So this article is going to focus sharply on cookies where poppy seeds are the central theme. I count four basic categories, plus a few that fall outside our scope:

  1. Poppy seed roll-and-cut cookies, like the Queen Esther Cookies down below; and
  2. Poppy seed drop cookies, like Poppy-Lemon Cookies.

Those are the subject of this article. Then there’s

  1. Poppy Seed Filling;
  2. Cookies made with Poppy Seed Filling, like Hamantaschen and Kolachy; and
  3. Other beloved treats that cannot be called a “cookie”.

Those will get addressed in Part 2 of The Great Poppy Seed Adventure.

As always, skip to the bottom if you’re only after the recipes.

ROLL-AND-CUT-COOKIES

See that toasty bottom? It’s a secret key to getting these just…exactly…right. The bottoms add both texture and a flavor that neatly ties together the poppy seed and lemon elements.

I’m going to ignore the infinite versions that use poppy as an ingredient (Poppy Snaps, Lemon-Poppy Icings, etc.), and get to the meat of the question. What is the best fancy-looking cookie to make for friends and family who are [ahem] addicted to the flavor of poppy seeds?

The best answer we have found are Queen Esther Cookies, a treat from the Jewish tradition that’s often paired with Poppy Seed Hamantaschen.

It’s an easy cookie to make, and the development process was even easier because we started from a century-old family recipe. Not our family. This one comes from our online friend Carolyn, an estimable baker, who received it in turn from her grandmother. Here’s the original recipe for the sake of full disclosure and free giveaways:

Grandma made these for Purim, the Jewish early-spring holiday, and used margarine to avoid any potential issues with the kosher laws on a holiday. We have specified butter instead, and normalized the recipe to an even 2 sticks of butter. We also increased the amount of poppy seeds because, well, Kate. [NOTE: My beloved even wanted to try a full ½ cup! I put my foot down, but you might too if you fall in that camp.] (NOTE FROM KATE: It would’ve worked. While experimenting with a Lithuanian recipe, I baked up cookies the color of asphalt. Yum! Usually, we give away our trial runs. Not this time-these are bagged in the freezer for “emergencies.”)

Two flavor notes: First, we found over and over again that the best cookies were the ones with the browner bottoms. That little bit of toastiness enhanced both the lemon and the poppy seed flavors.

We also choose to go with baking powder instead of soda, because we enjoyed the bright hit of lemon as a counterpoint to the cookie. If you want it more restrained (and Carolyn did say the lemon flavor should be subtle), try using baking soda instead. It’s an easy 3:1 conversion; exchange ½ tsp. baking soda for the designated 1½ tsp. baking powder. That will remove some of the extra acid from the lemon juice? [N.B. You can make baking powder at home by using two parts cream of tartar to one part baking soda. Thus baking soda makes up one-third of the designated 1½ teaspoons of powder; or to put it another way, is 3x as strong]

As you might expect, the recipe was nigh unto perfect. We did play around a bit, and found that the standard creaming method in a mixer works as well as cutting the butter in with a food processor. Does it work as well as doing it by hand? Try it and let us know. We are children of the machine age.

We also tested ground poppy seeds versus whole. The first has slightly more flavor and is a lot less gritty, but makes for a gray cookie with darker specks. The whole seeds make a vastly more attractive cookie that’s black-on-pale, but you do end up with seeds between the teeth. I’d go with the whole because I’m not eating them anyway, but She Who Snarfs [Ow! That hurt!] thinks it is a much closer call. (NOTE FROM KATE: I won’t kick whole-poppy seed cookies out of bed, but I prefer the more developed bitter edge of ground seeds. They may look a bit modern and abstract, but the flavor is superb. Also, there’s no danger of getting seeds stuck between your teeth.)

So that’s the first. Queen Esther’s Roll and Cut Poppy Seed Cookies. Check.

POPPY SEED DROP COOKIES

For good or ill, this is a cookie where I had to get a bit creative. We had just finished developing our version of the roll-and-cut Queen Esther cookies, and wanted to do a parallel, poppy-heavy drop cookie. Online recipes are all over the place; cutting back on the amount of flour would have been too easy; and I wanted to use the basic Queen Esther flavor balance while creating something with a very different, more pillow-like texture. So I started by noodling around in the world of online drop cookie formulae until I happened across a recipe for Sour Cream Cookies. Aha!

We haven’t written that recipe up because they’re heartlessly plain, and aren’t common enough to demand a spot on the list. But I have baked them, and knew they would perfectly match the target texture. Besides that, the flavor of sour cream would enhance both the lemon and the poppy flavor, while shifting the focus just sideways enough to really distinguish them from the roll-and-bake recipe. So I set to work, did a sample batch, and [Insert Proud Daddy Preening].

It’s a similar lemon-poppy flavor profile, but with sour cream as well to broaden the edges. Note the toasty bottom. Same thing here as with the Queen Esther cookies. We liked them distinctly better when the bottoms were properly browned. Our dark cookie sheet worked significantly better than the lighter one in this regard.

Are you a married man? If so, you know that moment when your wife gets that look of surprised, big-eyed delight, and then looks at you with pride and admiration. It’s rare. It’s precious. And I got just such a look when my beloved gave the test run a sample. “OMG Scott. You’re goooood. [Munch, munch, reach].”

I don’t know what else to tell you. Is it a “heritage” recipe? Debatable. The two halves are, but the combination is original. But as they say in Paris, c’est la vie. And who cares? They’re goooood!

NOTE FROM KATE: Unlike the Queen Esther cookies, which soften in the tin, the drop cookies tend to harden overnight. Adding a slice of bread in the morning restored them by mid afternoon.

NOTE: We haven’t tried it, but this should be a cookie where you can replace the actual poppy seeds with a commercial poppy seed filling. Our homemade filling (see below) is somewhere close to 65% poppy seed, 20% milk, and 15% sweetener if you measure by volume. Assuming a comparable proportion in the canned versions… [click, click, click]… the math says one should get an almost identical product by replacing the ⅓ cup of poppy seeds with ½ cup of filling, and then reducing both the sour cream and the sugar by 2 tbsp. each. It won’t be perfect (experiments never are), but it should be close enough for the second batch to be just about right if you keep good notes.

CONCLUSION

So much for Part 1 of our poppy seed adventure. Part 2 will cover the tips, tricks, and secrets to making the world’s best Poppy Seed Filling, along with a couple of sample recipes for how to use it, and some discussion of the poppy desserts world beyond just cookies.

Enjoy!

GRIBOCHKY – Eastern European Molded Mushroom Cookies

Spectacular eastern European mushroom cookies made with a stove top mold

Kate and I are avid foragers who spend a lot of time in the woods hunting for local chanterelles, morels, boletes, maitake, and other species. We do okay.

Kate, the porcini hoard, and tonight’s risotto dinner-in-waiting
Down boy! Even edulis is better when cooked. This is the 4-5 gallons (15-20 liters) we draw down each year for gifts.

Every September the local mushroom club hosts a large foray that features a gigantic set of potluck meals supplied by the different members. What did we contribute for 2022? What do you think?

LEFT: poppy seed mushrooms. UPPER LEFT: scottish shortbread leaves. LEFT CENTER: caramel, raspberry, and butterscotch gribochky. CENTER: faux button mushroom caps. BOTTOM: roll and cut mushrooms. RIGHT: laskonky (walnut meringue) mushroom caps. UPPER RIGHT: The insane display made with structural gingerbread trees, poured sugar backdrop, Marshmallo Crispy treat landscape and gingerbread crumb dirt, and two large meringue Lepiotas (or Amanitas, as you wish). NOTE FROM KATE: Oh, definitely Lepiotas!

This article covers our experiments with Gribochky, those colorful little mushroom gems you can see scattered around the display and piled on the bright blue plate. Time permitting, we’ll do another on the other ways to create faux-mushroom illusion cookies. It takes a little fussing, but they’re great fun for baker and eater alike once you get them finished.

As always, skip to the bottom if you are only here for the recipe

We purchased this specialty mold online. It’s the same company that made our walnut (oreshki) molds
Put a small ball of dough in each hole, close, and then cook on the stovetop until done. Both sides of course.

Gribochky is a slavic word that means “mushrooms”, just as the very similar Oreshki means “nuts.” Both are made from a dough so soft that it could even be called a super-thick batter, and both use a unique stovetop mold as shown above. But where Oreshki come out as stamped halves waiting to be filled with a rich and milky caramel, Gribochky come out as solid, 3-dimensional pieces waiting to be decorated. That’s the point when they turn special.

Amp Up The Flavor. We know at least one excellent baker who tried to make Gribochky and came away disappointed. We can’t blame her. The online recipes, which are very similar, produce a cookie so plain that it isn’t worth eating. Boooooring. We solved that by treating the base recipe as a platform rather than an end point. It worked like a charm.

We made two versions for the foray and both came out great. The first had a 1.2 oz package of freeze dried raspberries (crushed into fine dust), with an extra tablespoon or two of butter/other fat for moisture. Delicious, and a perfect way to mimic the sour tang of candy apple boletes that grow under out local oaks. The second included a tablespoon of our Pardubice honey-gingerbread spice mix. Just as good in a totally different way. And it was obvious that any comparable ‘fix’ would have worked just as well. From “yawwwwwn” to “how interesting…” in one easy step! And it’s a step you can take in any direction that suits the spices in your cabinet, the extracts in your drawer, the freeze dried fruit in your local market, and the whims in your heart.

Trust In Tradition. Many will be surprised to see sour cream or mayonnaise listed as an ingredient. Don’t be. It’s quite common in Eastern European recipes, adds tenderness, and provides a certain complicated je ne sais quoi. I may well try some Greek yogurt for our next batch.

Shorten The Flour By A Lot. Those who know us may be surprised to see such a healthy amount of cornstarch. The reason comes down to simple physics. Gribochky would be amazingly thick if treated as a regular cookie, and the gluten from pure flour would make them prohibitively tough. The starch backs that down into plain old crunchy. Yes, we usually prefer to use rice, tapioca, or potato starch. They avoid the danger of a pasty aftertaste, which can happen when you use cornstarch in flat cookies because it breaks down at a higher temperature than the others. The internal temperature of Gribochky gets high enough to remove that fear. Use whatever starch is cheap and convenient.

Cooking Time Varies. The stove top time varies with burner size, flame height, how often you flip, how often you turn, the underlying color of the dough, and probably the moods of your local household gremlin. Heck, sometimes you want a better cooked specimen, and sometimes a blonder one, so the target changes too. The only universal guidelines I can provide are these:

  • We never got the cookies done in less than 4-5 minutes (2-2½ minutes per side), and usually wanted to add a little bit of time after peeking inside to check for doneness.
  • It helps to make regular turns to change the angle, which avoids hot spots caused by an uneven flame.
  • It also helps to flip them over as they cook in order to to equalize the cooking on both sides. Look closely at the photos and you’ll see one batch that looks a little odd because I cooked them first on Side A, and then on Side B. The first side cooked more, leaving a distinct stripe. No one will notice a thing like that in the decorated cookies unless you point it out, but we knew, and so it nettled.
  • NOTE FROM KATE: I found that preheating the mold gets too heat-dangerous and fussy for me. I made as many balls as we had holes to fill, and rolled them into a conical shape. I placed the wide part of the cone into the cap of the mold in each cavity (both sides, please!) The mold was warm but not too hot, so I could use my fingers to push the dough all the way in. I closed the mold and popped it over the flame. Time it, flip it, go again, and repeat until done. The lack of preheating doesn’t hurt the cookie (you can vary the time or the flame height) and it avoids “casualties.” Also, you don’t burn your fingertips!

DECORATIONS; a/k/a TURNING ON THE MAGIC

There are four parts you can pay attention to on each cookie: (1) the cap, (2) the base, (3) the stem, and (4) the pore/gill layer. The first two matter most, but you can certainly gild the lily by playing with #’s 3 and 4 as well.

Decorating The Caps: We’ve tested two basic techniques for the cap coating. Both worked, and playing with either approach yields a vast number of options. It’s a no lose situation.

The first method centers on melted chocolate. Dark, milk, white, food-dyed-white, and even commercial candy melts – each and every one of them will work. We like to thin them out with a bit of cream, but your mileage may vary.

The best approach is to hold each piece by the stem, dip it into the coating at an angle, and then roll the cookie to cover the entire surface of the cap. Remove, let the excess drip off, and then set them cap up in a place where they can dry without flattening one part of your coating. Egg cartons worked great, with ice cube trays a very close second.

Dark chocolate, textured by accident because I melted it without any cream, cocoa butter, or other fat to make it thinner and smoother. I love the contrast created by painting the “pores” bright yellow.

We also tested chocolate chips, but they didn’t work nearly as well. Chips are carefully designed to not melt, and overcoming that is like fighting the tide. First you must add cream to help them melt evenly. Then you find that they harden, curdle, and/or to harden in inconvenient ways despite the cream. And then they’ll suddenly discolor if you try to keep them warm on the stove top. I can’t recommend chips except for something odd like butterscotch chips, which do double duty as a coating and a unique flavor addition.

NOTE FROM KATE: instead of cream, I prefer using cocoa butter melts. They help your chips or chocolate melt, loosening the mix and helping with dipping properties, but they also yield in a nice and solid surface with none of the tackiness that cream can cause. We winged it with the chips here. For exact instructions, kindly refer to our “Chocolate coverture” recipes associated with chocolate-dipped marshmallow treats.

Butterscotch chips for the cap. It was a PITA but we made it work! White chocolate base, with poppy seed dirt. BTW… did you notice the stripe on the left hand cookie? That’s the one where I forgot to flip them as I cooked.
Butterscotch chips cooked into a dark caramel. Still usable and edible, but it came at the cost of frayed tempers and a few choice words that cannot be shared in public. They looked pretty good anyway, and could have been great if we had enough time and energy to paint the underside of the cap.

The other cap technique uses molten sugar. The prettiest of them all is a candy apple coating made from “hard crack” sugar syrup mixed with some bright red food dye. Your target is 300°-310° F (149°-154° C). Caramel works well for light and dark browns.

The problem here comes down to safety. 310° sugar syrup can burn you badly enough to leave obvious scars. No bueno. We came up with a workaround, but it requires three hands. Hand #1 steadies the pot. Hand #2 holds the cookie stem in a pair of tongs, dips it into the hot syrup, rolls it around to get even coverage, and then lets the excess drip back into the pot. Hand #3 then takes the cookie out of the tongs with a pair of chopsticks, inverts it, and lays it out in an ice cube tray (cap up) to dry. NOTE: The sugar is so hot and so sticky that it will melt a styrofoam egg carton, and pull off shreds of a cardboard one. Yes, the cardboard easily peels away from the cooled cookie, but better to avoid the issue in the first place. NOTE FROM KATE: peel cardboard bits off the sugar with fingers, then moisten a small brush and work the surface over a bit. When in doubt, remember that you are making the cookies healthier by incorporating an extra microdose of fiber!

The upside? Behold!

Candy Apple Gribochky
Gotcha! These aren’t cookies. They are the real life Candy Apple Bolete, Exsudoporus frostii. Nature’s pretty cool, isn’t it?

Decorating the Base: This step is easier because there aren’t many options, all of them are easy, and the shape can be handled with fingers alone. Did you know that mushrooms are actually the fruit of the fungus and not the main entity? The apple of the tree? ‘Struth! The main body is called “mycelium” and will be spread in a mat over a relatively vast area in and around the soil or the nearby wood. This is what you’re seeing at the bottom of mushrooms poked fresh out of the ground.

Mycelium is almost always some shade of white or pale yellow, and is easy to replicate with white chocolate or a tinted candy melt. Add poppy seeds or cookie crumbs for “dirt” and presto! Your illusion is complete on both top and bottom.

The Underside Of The Cap: Mushrooms with this shape will have either gills or pores on the underside of the cap. Adding this layer is a special touch that true mushroom geeks will appreciate, but it’s very hard to see unless you make it a bright, contrasting color like the yellow-on-dark specimen up above.

Gills can be any color of the rainbow, but most people will want to make them white, pink, or cocoa brown to imitate the best known species. Lilac will make the mushroom hunters happy. Mushroom pores will be white, yellow, pink, or red at this spot in the vast majority of cases, sometimes with blue or brown bruising on the surface.

Decorating the Stem. Stem features, ironically enough, are often the most useful part of a mushroom for field identification. For Gribochky? They’re an afterthought, because the features are impossibly subtle to duplicate. The only time it’s worth an effort is something along the lines of painting/dipping the stem to make it white, and that only makes sense when you’re trying to model an Amanita or Agaricus (see below). OTOH, adding berries or food dye to the actual dough can be a fantastic trick for species like the red Candy Apple Boletes. That, and cooking the Gribochky to a lighter or darker shade of brown, is almost always enough to complete a high quality illusion.

A Few Common Mushrooms To Mimic.

The so-called “toadstools” with white spots on top are in the genus Amanita. These can have caps ranging from bone white through basically any color, have white gills, almost always have a white stem with a ring of extra tissue about 2/3 of the way up.

Supermarket button mushrooms are in the genus Agaricus. They have white caps with white stems, and gills that start off pink before aging into brown. These will also have a ring on the stipe. Oh! And the answer is “yes.” Store bought mushrooms are all the same species, Agaricus bisporus. The little buttons are babies, cremini are teenagers, and portabellas are full sized grownups.

White chocolate “agaricus” with chocolate “gills.” This was our very first effort, and the illusion is as poor as any version you’ll ever made. And it doesn’t exactly suck even so, does it? Gribochky are show stoppers, plain and simple.

The pored mushrooms, a/k/a boletes, are my personal specialty and it pains me intensely to mention some but not others. You can find a list of every North American species at The Bolete Filter, written by yours truly under a different hat. The true “porcini,” a/k/a Boletus edulis and its close cousins, will have a yellow, orange, light red, or light brown cap with a white or yellow pore surface.

CONCLUSION

Gribochky are a perfectly acceptable eating cookie once you kick up the flavor with berries or spices, in the same way as Vanilla Snaps and the like, but their real glory lies in the illusion. There are other techniques one can use to create the illusion of a mushroom out of different kinds of cookies. They work too, particularly as part of a scene. But none allow for this level of absurd creativity, let alone the chance to customize things toward a copy of real life species. Fun, fun, fun!

Yes, the cookies require a special mold, and can definitely qualify as “fussy” on the decorations side if you try to copy real life. But the results can be shockingly beautiful, especially if you take the relatively easy step of dipping the bottom to mimic the mycelium, and then adding in poppy seeds or cookie crumbs to mimic the dirt. They start at “Cool!” and work their way up to “Spectacular.”

If pure, visual fun is your thing – or mushrooms! – this is a cookie that needs to be in your repertoire.

Raspberry candy apple, dark caramel-spice, and butterscotch-spice Gribochky