Category: Dunkers

SOUTHERN TEA CAKES, The Most Genteel Of Cookies

The great cookie of the antebellum south

Kate and I recently put out a call to food writers and bloggers around the country for information about any cookie tied to the soul of their city or region. This was the first cookie we heard about, courtesy of Mr. Stacey Little of Southernbite.com. And a worthy cookie it proved to be!

Click Here For The Recipe without the discussion.

The Tea Cakes tradition goes back to the antebellum south, entrenched so deeply that even today it can be hard to find a church social, teatime, or other gathering that lacks some plates for guests to enjoy. The flavor matches up to that history. Kate and I agreed on “genteel” as the right adjective to describe how these feel when you eat them. They’re at the heart of that tradition called genteel Southern hospitality.

I am a northerner and Kate an immigrant, so neither of us had ever heard of or experienced this cookie. That sent me to Dr. Internet for second-hand experience to start the process.

Recipes abound, with virtually every one describing their version as “just like Grandma’s.” As in 90-95%. Anyone who hasn’t done such research may not appreciate how amazing that consistency is. I found 20 recipes to start with, all of them written independently by people striving to be different while caring enough to honor their heritage as well as they could. What does it take for 20 different people to end up focused on that single image of Grandma proudly presenting the treat she’d learned from her own? It shows how deep the cultural roots really are.

Me being me, I compiled a table of ingredients normalized to two sticks of butter. Then I stepped back to look for an underlying formula.

Choices to Make: Roll or Cut

A few patterns leapt right off the page. First, the writers split more or less evenly on whether to do a drop cookie or a cut out. We chose the roll-and-cut method for our initial version, driven by two reasons. First, most of the recipes call for extra large cookies, as do the array of photos that popped up in my search. Cookies of that size either spread uncontrollably – which conflicted with the possibility of cutting the dough out – or else need some help to stay under control. Second, the idea of large, buttery dough in the American South immediately sent my imagination spinning toward the famous tradition of southern biscuits. How much more “heritage” could you get? And wouldn’t a cookie version of biscuits make sense?

I couldn’t say yes or no either way, but it was a good place to start.

Then I went back to fill in details. Did you know that typical drinking glasses have a diameter of 3″, which not coincidentally pairs exactly to a standard biscuit cutter? Many of the roll-and-cut writers said to use “a round cutter or drinking glass” for the job. The same instruction appears in biscuit recipes. Fair enough. That would be our starting point.

NOTE: Testing proved that I agonized far too much over this choice. Tea Cake dough will ball-and-squish just as well as it rolls-and-cuts. That’s what I did with the leftover scraps, and we found it hard to distinguish the two outside of size and regularity.

Choices to Make: Buttermilk?

Second question: Many writers add in buttermilk. It’s a readily available ingredient, if one we don’t keep in the house as a staple. Was it worth a trip to the market? You bet it was! Remember that analogy to southern biscuits? Southern buttermilk biscuits? This was a gimme. Besides, some buttermilk tang would help to distinguish this recipe from all the other butter cookies we’ve researched over the years.

It proved to be the right choice. That flavor really does matter.

Catching the Vibe: Variations That Really Aren’t

Everyone agrees that Southern Tea Cakes are, first and foremost, all about the texture. They’re supposed to straddle the line between cake and cookie. The universal instruction to bake until the edges start to brown supports that. It shows there’s also a required contrast between the cookie rim and center. So that was a mandatory target. But what about the flavor?

How many variations are there? Buttermilk, which I’d already decided to try. Then there’s lemon; brown sugar instead of white; nutmeg (but no other spices); and… Wait a second! Those aren’t true variations!

You can make faux buttermilk by mixing lemon into whole milk or half-and-half, often with a fleeting hint of nutmeg. (Nutmeg and dairy love each other, as shown by classic examples such as béchamel sauce). For that matter, many dairy-centric baking recipes also use brown sugar, because a very gentle molasses flavor helps to enhance the base flavor. These recipes weren’t showing different targets. They were just different methods to home in on the same target: a cookie with a profound taste of old fashioned, intensely flavored, aged or mildly fermented butter.

Suddenly it all made perfect sense. And the simple fact that everything aims to the same goal shows yet again how much the culture cares about getting this particular cookie right. We tested all of those tricks and came to the following conclusions:

  • Buttermilk: Oh my, yes. It helps in endless ways, and makes the cookie different. We settled on ⅓ cup, right in between the ¼ cup of many examples, and the ½ cup of many more. Modify at will, making up for the extra (or missing) liquid by adjusting the amount of flour.
  • Brown Sugar: An extremely subtle difference in flavor. Someone who cared could argue us into liking it better. Someone who cared the other way could argue us back.
  • Lemon Zest: Disappointing if you use enough to taste it, because it comes across as a failure from both directions. You could convert this to a proper lemon cookie by using 2-3 lemons worth of zest with a sharp glaze made from the juice. Anything short of that left us feeling cheated, until the level drops down low enough to satisfy the anchovy rule: anchovies make food taste better until you can taste them. Then they work in reverse.
  • Nutmeg: See the anchovy rule yet again. A barely discernible hint – no more than ⅛ teaspoon – kicks the whole thing up. Any more than that yields a nutmeg cookie. Really good nutmeg cookies, yes; but a different product when all is said and done. We’ve included the larger amount as a true variation worth trying on its own merits.
  • Other Extract: Do as you like. We prefer to stay true to the original target and intent.
Lemon Molasses
Nutmeg Plain

Vanilla Is Mandatory

Go back and look at that table. Every recipe – 100 % – includes an extremely generous amount of vanilla. We settled on three teaspoons of extract (a/k/a one tablespoon), but this is a case where your taste matters more. Try the recipe as written, take notes, and then adapt it as you wish. Or not.

Roll With Flour, Which Can Be Plain All Purpose

Liquid buttermilk makes this a sticky dough. Like biscuits yet again! Rolling the cookies out on a floured board solved the problem. Just don’t work it over and over, because that could make the cookies tough. Remember: good Tea Cakes have that on-the-line texture, and bad Tea Cakes got too tough.

DIGRESSION: We worried needlessly about whether the texture challenge would require a different flour. It’s a big deal for buttermilk biscuits. Would it matter for Tea Cakes too? I hit the e-books again and found that some people actually tested this. The answer is “No, the flour doesn’t make a difference.” We can also tell you that our cookies came out with the perfect texture using King Arthur all-purpose flour; a brand notorious for its high protein content.

Testing The Cookie: We Have a Winner!

So… I baked the cookies in four batches to cover all the variations. They had a nice flavor. They weren’t just another butter cookie. The texture fit all those descriptions. So they were capital-g Good. But were they capital-r Right?

I took a tin of samples and headed for a soul food restaurant on the North Side. Those owners would know for sure!

Closed. And not just for the day. Grr.

But I wasn’t going to give up! I stopped a pair of local street people on my way back to the car, and asked if they could direct me to some other local spot where I could find someone who grew up in the south. “Somewhere like Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, or the like.”

Instant suspicion! “Why do you want to know?”

After all these years I’ve got that answer down to an art form. You wouldn’t believe how many people think I’m peddling hash brownies or the like. Free cookies = ulterior motives. So I come prepared with both evidence and explanations. Show book; explain that I’m the author; explain about research; explain about the cookie; show the recipe; and then explain that “I can tell if it’s good. That’s easy. But I need native testers to tell me if I’ve got it Right.”

They reacted the same as everyone else, with that head cocked, ‘I guess that makes sense’ look. The one in heavy dreadlocks mumbled something. His friend translated. “He wants you to know that he’s from Alabama.”

I looked at the man and asked, “Do you know Tea Cakes? The cookie? That’s what I’m working on.”

His eyes lit up before he turned to look at the street. He mumbled something to acknowledge a small experience or two.

“Would you mind tasting one of these, and telling me if I’ve got it Right?”

He took the cookie, gave it a good nibble, and got a bit misty eyed. Then he turned his back. Nibble. Grab with both hands instead of one. Nibble more. Munch. Followed by munch, munch, and more munch, grabbing up crumbs until the cookie was gone. Then he gave me a thumbs-up, still turned away.

“That means you got it right,” his friend said.

“Do you want one? Take your pick. There’s another for him too if he’d like.” Another turned-away thumbs up. Then they vanished up an alley to who knows where or what, heads together and talking.

But I still had some cookies to dispose of. Kate would not approve if I returned to the house with dietary sin still in hand. Besides, one tester – however enthusiastic – is still just one.

We’d been standing outside the local public library, so why not? I made my way in, found the young man at the desk, and went through the story again. “Did anyone here grow up in the south? Somewhere like Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee?”

“No, I’m afraid not. I grew up in North Carolina, and that’s as close as you’re going to get.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s too bad. But… would you happen to know a cookie called Tea Cakes?” His face lit up.

“Of course I do!”

“Care to test one for me?” Book up; recipe shown; explanation made; etc.

“Sure, I’d love to.” One bite and he came close to misting up too. “Y’know, it’s weird how tasting something from your childhood can bring up so many emotions. I didn’t expect that.”

What could I say except to agree? Cookies have a magic, and that’s a big part.

The last cookie went to his fellow librarian at the end of the counter. She was from somewhere just outside the city. “These are really good! I never heard of them before.”

I left as he began to enthuse about growing up in Tea Cake Land. That’s another part of the magic.

Conclusion

Southern Tea Cakes fit every category of “heritage” you could ever imagine. Right down to embodying a proud part of the culture itself. They really are genteel Southern hospitality incarnate. Homey and a little sweet, with nothing strange except an oddly familiar tang to the dairy flavor, and a remarkable texture right on the line between cake and cookie.

We wholeheartedly approve.

And now I’m off to confirm those findings. Again. I am a loyal husband, after all, and protecting my wife from regret comes with the job. If that means I must throw myself on the fork, so be it.

Enjoy!

NOTE FROM KATE: I agree that Southern Tea Cakes came as a happy surprise. They are pleasantly soft on the day of baking, but harden a bit on the second day. I expressed my mild disappointment with the lemon zest ones, so we talked it over. Yes, it’s there for butter support. No, this is not meant to be a lemon cookie. We have plenty of lemon cookie recipes, and this one isn’t one of them. Scott pretty much said what needed to be said. As for his valiant defense of my waistline, all I can say is, there are risks that come with being around cookies – especially when photographing them. Even though I enjoy some as part of the creative process, it really helps to get them out of the house!

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!

SUSUMELLE, A Honey Cookie From The Toe Of Italy

Honey, orange, cinnamon, and clove in an ancient waybread cookie

After researching a few recipes from the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean, our attention turned toward an interesting Spanish/Portuguese cookie… only to be diverted again by this much loved Italian cookie from Calabria, the “toe” of Italy right across the straits from Sicily. It’s a fun recipe, in part because there really is no single recipe. Nor any two. Nor any three. It’s basically a fill-in-the-blank name for any cookie made with the classic, southern Italian flavor profile of honey, orange, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg-or-mace, offset by a bitter element, which can be cocoa powder, a bitter chocolate coating, or some molasses in the dough (a “difference” that typically changes the name from Susumelle to Mostaccioli di Napoli).

Click Here If You Want The Recipe Without The Insight

Can Anyone Define The Term?

Susumelle vary much more than most cookies, ranging from dense and chewy, to light and crispy, and topped with either chocolate or a powdered sugar glaze. But there are a few constants that ought to catch your attention as much as they did ours:

  1. This is an ancient cookie with roots going back well into medieval times, and it seems to have some connection back to the culture of Greece. I don’t think anyone would be surprised if ancient Roman recipes turned up.
  2. The main sweetener is honey, which means they have a very, very long shelf life, and did not require the boost from Age of Exploration sugar crops that caused so many new cookies to be born from the 1500’s on.
  3. Most versions include neither eggs nor fat, which makes them much less tender than other cookies. We’re told that some versions are crunchy enough to use as teething biscuits for babies! [See the safety note at the bottom of this article] But this isn’t a rule. Some recipes do include eggs, and others have oil, though we’ve yet to find any with butter.
  4. Almost every version includes some orange in the dough; zest for sure and often juice, but this can vary off to liqueurs, water, or even wine. Orange and honey! That’s a winning combination every time! Especially when paired with…
  5. A healthy amount of cinnamon, a small touch of clove, and usually an equally small touch of nutmeg or mace. This combination is everywhere in what used to be called the Kingdom of Naples from the 1200’s into the 1800’s. Think “Italy south of Rome and the papal states.”
  6. A bitter counterpart to offset the sweet honey. Cocoa powder is extremely common, and the one used in this recipe. Regions nearer to Naples tend to use molasses instead, with a name change to “Mostaccioli.”
  7. Finally, Susumelle always get coated in something, but that can range from dark chocolate (the most common), to white chocolate, to a powdered sugar glaze, to simple powdered sugar (especially for unleavened versions).

After that you get to the endless variations. And I do mean endless. Hundreds of years of variation yield more differences than consistency. It gets even more confusing as you go back in time! According to this tourist website, back in the old days natives acknowledged three separate categories of Susumelle based on the type of flour: white flour for the wealthy, poverty flours like whole wheat and acorn for the commoners, and “a third called ‘del buon cammino,’ made with good ingredients and destined for priest and friars.”

Does The Name “Susumelle” Provide Any Clues?

Well… not really. First, the word itself means multiple things in modern Italy. If you say “un Susumelle,” you almost can’t be wrong. It means anything that fits the broad category of a dessert made with honey, cinnamon, and clove. If you say “real/proper/etc. Susumelle,” or just “Susumelle” with no adjective, it means either (a) the cookie that Grandma made, with yours and everyone else’s being an abomination, or (b) a commercial version totally unlike Grandma’s but nevertheless real because you can see it in a store.

That same tourist website offers two potential name origins. The first is a combination of the Greek words sesamum (sesame) and mel (honey), which makes more sense than you might think because Calabria is right on the ancient trade routes, and there is are extremely common Levantine and Greek cookie/biscuit recipes with that profile. The other theory also traces to Greek, but is based on the word “susumeda,” meaning food that had gone bad that was given to the poor as charity. It is a Christmas cookie after all…

But that’s not all. Another theory says the name has to do with a local word for ‘una carezz’ (a caress). And I’ve even seen websites and videos claiming the name comes from the often-traditional “S” shape.

Then there’s the eternal category, “all of the above.” When many names work, people love to make puns that can work from multiple directions. And then they love to argue about it even more… but that’s a whole other story.

Does that sound vague, maddening, and designed to make researchers “wrong” no matter what they do? Welcome to my world, friends. Welcome to my world.

Wait A Second… Isn’t This A Waybread?

Frustrated? Me? Heck yeah. But then I realized that this particular kind of frustration rang some bells.

Isn’t exactly the same thing true for Lebkuchen recipes in German-speaking countries? Indeed it is! And for Molasses Gingerbread recipes across Northern Europe? Y’know, that’s true too. Honeycakes/Honey-Gingerbreads in Central and Eastern Europe? A pattern emerges.

And aren’t all those cookies remarkably similar in the big picture, being ancient recipes made with lots of honey, a spice mix, and often a healthy portion of dried fruits and/or nuts? Aha! The penny drops. This is the Southern Italian honey based waybread cookie, with every bit as much variation as its northern cousins.

Time To Treat It As A Master Recipe

After breaking my brain with no less than seven (7!) test versions, I finally realized the problem. I was trying to use one name for at least four different cookies. For our purposes we can break them up into the following variations:

  1. Super hard, use-your-molars crispy examples. These typically have no additions to the basic dough except ground nuts, which only appear on occasion anyway. Molars-hard Susumelle usually include a moderate amount of the ancient leavening agent Hartshorn a/k/a Baker’s Ammonia, and are almost always (a) coated with chocolate, (b) shaped into “S” cookies, or (c) left uncoated for baby to teethe on.
  2. Hard, light, and crispy eating cookies formed into ropes for an “S” shape, or rolled to normal (around ¼”) thickness and then cut. This version has a lot of hartshorn, but baking powder works too because they cook until fully hardened. Nuts are almost required (powdered, chopped, or coarsely chopped), but may be replaced with sesame seed. Light-and-crispy Susumelle always get a chocolate coat, usually dark but also ranging through milk and down to white.
  3. A hard and crispy biscotti version. Take #2 and form it into a single rectangle. Bake for a long time (25 minutes is typical), and then slice into biscotti-shaped pieces. The pieces can be baked a second time, but many don’t bother.
  4. Moderately crispy eating cookies, which can be either hand formed or treated as an extra-thick (around ½”) roll-and-cut. The same as #2 yet again, but with something added to interrupt the texture. That ‘something’ usually includes (a) baking powder rather than hartshorn, supplemented by (b) chopped, candied fruit, (c) chopped, dried fruit, (d) coarsely chopped nuts, and/or (e) eggs or oil added into the dough. This version also requires a coating, but it can vary from any kind of chocolate all the way through any kind of powdered sugar glaze.
  5. Chewy waybread cookies comparable to Siennese Cavallucci. This version usually has little to no leavening, and is loaded with chopped fruit (candied or dried) and/or nuts. They’re also at least ½” thick, and large enough to be 3-4 bites each. Look for (a) large, roll-and-cut ovals, (b) hand formed egg shapes that settle into ovals inside the oven, or (c) thick ropes formed into an “S” shape. All three shapes are always served with powdered sugar on top.
Option 2 – Light and crispy, with walnuts
Option 5 – Unleavened, with nuts and candied fruit

A Rose By Any Other Name

We published a basic version of a cookie called Mostaccioli in Heritage Cookies of the Old and New World Volume 1. It’s a straightforward combination of chocolate and clove.

The research for this cookie shows that Mostaccioli is actually a broader category than we thought, and amounts to the slightly-more-northern version of Susumelle common in Campania (the shin) and Apulia (the heel) rather than Calabria (the toe) or Sicily (the stone being kicked). You can convert Susumelle to Mostaccioli by reducing the amount of honey, increasing the amount of sugar to compensate, and adding a significant portion of molasses and/or chocolate into the dough as a bitter counter-element. After that it’s the same orange/cinnamon/clove/nutmeg core, with infinite variations. [NOTE FROM SCOTT: I should probably work on a revised version of that recipe…]

Then there’s a third cookie, or more properly a Not Quite A Cookie, called Rame di Napoli; an extra-thick chocolate cake batter with the same basic flavor profile. These get baked in egg-sized mounds, coated in dark chocolate, and sprinkled with chopped pistachios. It’s a specialty of the city itself (Naples), and baked for Italy’s version of Halloween. If you’re interested, the word “rame” means “copper,” and the “cookie” is supposed to resemble an old Neapolitan copper coin. The pistachios represent green oxidation.

NOTE FROM KATE: when Scott develops a recipe, we can generally agree the point at which I can reserve cookies for the photo shoot. This time, the cookies kept arriving. I did enrobe a few of them in chocolate, but I never took photos. Too many variations, and too many baking variables, kept tripping up our decision-making process and every time Scott consulted either blogs or people, more local variations came out of the woodwork!

Now that he has his several varieties sussed out, it’s time to set up a project chart. Variety names, leavening status, textural additions, spice combinations, textures, glazes, shapes. Phylogenetically speaking, it’s as though Sussumelle was a cookie genus, and all these varieties were separate species. I care about the shapes and the glazes more than he does. As our mycologist friends like to insist, species concepts really work better when they are morphologically distinct.

CONCLUSION

Our recipes tend to focus on cookies with a story. Susumelle turned out to be a saga. Batch, after batch, after batch, trying to find the essence beneath all the recipes. We’ve rarely worked on a more frustrating project, until the penny finally dropped and we realized that something close to half a dozen different cookies all go by the same name, with only the main ingredients (honey, cocoa, cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg) as the unifying principle. That may sound mad at first, but only until you realize that much the same holds true for the similarly ancient honey-and-spice waybreads in Central and Northern Europe. Time and popularity equal endless variations.

Which is our personal favorite? Kate can vote for herself, and none are bad, but mine would be the one with no leavening at all, and all those beautiful bits and bobs inside. It’s a Lebkuchen or Honeycake done Southern Style, with a delicious flavor palate unique to these particular regions.

Of course, that opinion might change if we still had teething babies around!

A NOTE ON FEEDING HONEY TO BABIES: The bottom line is this: don’t. Honey harbors a bacteria called “Clostridium” that can on rare occasions cause infant botulism. Bad juju! The risk diminishes as the infant grows, becoming less dangerous around 6 months, safer still after 9 months, and more or less safe after 12; at least according to Doctor Internet. Babies usually start to teeth around 6 months, though some start earlier.

Susumelle recipes cook the honey and the sugar, which you’d think would reduce the risk, but it doesn’t eliminate it. So tradition be damned. Follow your doctor’s advice. The fact that people with no concept of germ theory almost always got away with the risks does not make it the smart thing to do. Do you really want to be the exception?

NOTE FROM KATE: look up the USDA guidelines for killing Clostridium botulinum, compare the temperature and time requirements, and let your comfort level be your guide. Now look up sugar, carb, and oral health guidelines for young children. Seriously dude, teething on hard biscuits is a dentist’s nightmare! The whole idea reminds me of a “teething remedy” my grandmothers used to employ: unripe poppy seeds simmered in sweetened milk, and then used as a soaking liquid for soft bread wrapped in a handkerchief and tied off with string. “It helps the babies slept better,” they both said, “but don’t use it all the time. Poppy makes kids stupid, so it’s a last-resort option.”

CENTRAL AMERICAN CORN DONUT COOKIES (“Rosquillas de Maiz”)

A staple cookie from Nicaragua and Honduras that acts like a Central American equivalent to Italian Biscotti.

Some countries use more corn than wheat flour as their staff of life, and in those lands you have to expect corn based desserts. Enter Rosquillas de Maiz, a crunchy, mildly sweet cookie meant to accompany a cup of coffee, tea, a drink, or even a fruity dessert soup.

A word to the wise: the word “rosquillas” describes the shape, not the dish, and can include a variety of recipes that can range from our common fried donuts, through ring-shaped breads, tender shortbreads, and in this case, barely-sweet cookies. A native speaker is bound to complain if you use that word alone, just as Norteamericanos would complain if you handed over a bowl of ring shaped breads and called them donuts. Use the adjective, though, and you’re fine. Rosquillas de Maiz means “corn donuts,” and Rosquillas de Nicaragua/Honduras means “donuts from this country.”

NOTE FROM KATE: If this pattern continues, we will never be done testing cookies! What a terrible fate, right? Every time we think our short list got trimmed down to “just a few more,” this happens. Every. Single. Time. However, I have no regrets. This little cookie is easy to make, fun to shape, and expands the repertoire in an entirely unexpected direction! One note of caution: If you toast your corn flour, make sure the flour is cold before you add your leavening agents, especially if you are using hartshorn. (I poured my toasted corn flour into a steel bowl and let it cool in the freezer, for patient I am not.)

Click here if you only want the recipe without its context

An Origin Story For Cookie Sleuths Everywhere

We often get asked “Where do you find all these?!” My best answer is, “They are there waiting to be found if you just take the time to look, and to ask.” This cookie is a case in point.

Kate and I are in the final month of intensive recipe testing before attention turns to getting Volume 2 ready for publication. Sweet Wine Cookies, a ring-shaped treat common from Portugal, Spain, and Italy has been high on our list for some time now. I mean, come on: everybody cooks with wine in their soups and sauces, so it makes total sense that wine growing regions would use their excess wine in baking too. Wine based desserts aren’t exactly rare. Nor are wine based flavors in cakes. Haven’t you come across some version of Champagne Buttercream Frosting for cakes, cupcakes, Macarons, or eclairs? If you haven’t, you’re welcome; that’s good stuff!

I looked around and, sure enough, the wine growing regions in Southern Europe have just such a treat. So I worked up a test recipe, got to where we liked it, and then went searching for native Spaniards to tell me what I needed to tweak. But there I ran into a problem. Our fallback testers include several native Italians (who gave it a big thumbs up), but Spaniards are thin on the ground in Pittsburgh and our Portuguese friend has retired. Thus I wandered into Reyna Foods, a Latin-products grocery store in the Strip District that we have patronized loyally for decades. There’s a lady there who also likes to supply her friends and neighbors with holiday cookies; Latin America was part of the Spanish Empire; and so I hoped that Rosquillas de Vino might have found a sideways path into her repertoire.

No such luck. But there was a lady from Nicaragua in the back who’s reputed to be a fine baker, and her ears perked right up at the word Rosquillas. She doesn’t speak much English, but a coworker agreed to translate my request for feedback.

Her eyes crinkled up in suspicion when I opened the tin of powdered rings. She picked one up with obvious hesitation, gave it a little nibble, and made a face so universal it needs no translation. “No, no, no. No bueno.” It wasn’t quite a blecch! because she didn’t mind the flavor per se, but she was quite firm that these were not the Rosquillas she grew up with. Not even close. Mine were sweet, tender, and had a uniquely wine-tinged aroma. No bueno. Nicaraguan Rosquillas were supposed to barely sweet, very crunchy, and [ahem] untainted.

Then she pulled out her phone, did a quick search, and showed me a photo. Plain, golden rings. “Estas. Estas son Rosquillas.” I scrolled up and saw the title: Rosquillas de Maiz. Wait a second. Maiz? As in “maize?” I.e., corn?

[Pause for translation]. “Of course it is. Rosquillas are made with masa a/k/a corn flour.”

And thus the penny dropped. The basic idea of ring-shaped cookies had indeed traveled the length and breadth of Spain’s former dominion, but not the Spanish recipe. People in the Americas had taken the idea and made it their own.

I looked things up as soon as I got home, and found quite a few examples from Nicaragua and Honduras in particular. It’s a pretty straightforward recipe with a few twists.

Twist #1 – The Basic Formula and Target Result

Research for this cookie quickly ran into a problem: the details were all over the place. Some called for lard (pig fat), some called for tallow (beef fat), some called for butter. Some were leavened, others unleavened. Some had sugar added, some didn’t. Etc. Fortunately, it’s a problem we’ve faced before and we knew what it meant.

This is a peasant recipe enjoyed by the whole society, not a well defined restaurant dish. That means the overarching instruction goes like this: “Use what you have on hand, so long as you keep the basics in place, and achieve the right result.”

Here are those basics, as measured by weight:

  • 3 parts finely ground cornmeal (masa harina),
  • 3 parts hard, grated farmer’s cheese (queso seco),
  • 1 part fat,
  • an egg to bind it together, and
  • baking time at 350° F (175° C) to get them browned, followed by more baking at 200° F (93° C) to get them completely dry and crunchy.

And here is the target:

  • Nicaraguan Corn Donut Cookies serve the same function as Italian Biscotti: they’re a not-quite-a-cookie intended to accompany coffee, tea, an alcoholic beverage, or a fruity dessert soup. Make that, and you’ve made Rosquillas de Maiz.

Everything after that comes down to refining and perfecting each point.

Baking With Corn Flour And Meal – You May Want To Toast It In A Pan

Central Americans have fresh masa harina on hand, every day and everywhere, waiting to be used. If you’re like us, you probably have a bag of masa tucked away in the back of your pantry, sealed as well as possible to keep out the moths. “Fresh” it is not.

There is an easy solution. Put your somewhat stale corn product into a dry pan over medium heat, and cook it until you can smell the corn flavor rising up. Presto. Ready to go.

That trick may work for fresh masa harina too, but it isn’t in the original recipes. On the other hand, it isn’t all that outside of the recipes either. Spain and its cultural heirs make a series of cookies like Polvorones that are built on a combination of toasted wheat flour and a healthy amount of butter and/or lard. This fits right into that tradition.

The Cheese

Most cultures with a European heritage make a variety of fresh cheeses known by different names around the globe. Quark, tvorog, topfen, etc. They typically come in two basic varieties, wet and hard, and have a mild, creamy flavor. The closest American equivalents would be something like cottage cheese mixed with ricotta, and then drained in cheesecloth until you get the desired texture.

For this recipe you want the driest version of that cheese you can find, grated down to as fine as you can get it. We used tvorog from a local Polish store, drained in a sieve before weighing it out. It’s probably not ideal, but remember that basic instruction up above. It’s peasant food. Use what you have on hand, so long as you keep the basics in place, and achieve the right result.

NOTE: If you only have access to something as wet as cottage cheese, wring it out well before weighing, and then you’ll be fine. The darned cookies get dried at the end of the recipe anyway, and there’s no gluten to develop because they’re made with corn rather than wheat.

The Fat

As noted above, the authentic recipes vary from all butter through all lard, to a mix of butter, lard, and tallow. That isn’t odd for Spanish-heritage cookies. Again, see Polvorones and their U.S. relative Biscochitos. Use what you have on hand. Our favorite was a mix of butter and lard, but it doesn’t really matter from a “heritage” point of view.

This can be a dry dough. Drizzle in water (or extra fat) a teaspoon at a time as needed to make it just hold together as a dough. Remember that it will tend to moisten throughout as it rests, and the dry corn grains moisten up.

The Sugar Content

Authentic recipes varied from no added sugar at all to a small amount (from the perspective of a U.S. sweet tooth). The target is something that will taste like corn in your personal opinion. Season to taste, as they say.

Some recipes also call for obscure (to us) products like loaf sugar. Nicaragua and Honduras are major production centers for sugar cane, and such niceties probably matter to those who live there every bit as much as green peppers versus red peppers do for us, or Apple A versus Apple B. With all due respect, and subject to one exception, it doesn’t matter to you and me. U.S. brown sugar comes from sugar cane, with some of the byproducts (a/k/a molasses) mixed back in. The result should be identical once it dissolves into a cookie dough.

The exception? There is a Rosquillas variation that uses no sugar at all in the dough, but decorates the top of the cookie with sugar shavings from the aforementioned loaf. Consider that an Internet Bonus, because it isn’t in our written recipe. That’s a case where only true loaf sugar will do, because the texture simply can’t be duplicated.

To Salt Or Not To Salt?

That’s simple. Salt. No, it isn’t in the most authentic recipes. But we’ve found that every single baked good we’ve ever tried will taste a little better if you use an invisible pinch or two of salt.

The Leavening Agent

We call for baker’s ammonia if you have it, and there was one recipe I found that incorporated this antique leavening agent. Others use baking powder, with a healthy percentage calling for nothing.

So why did we specify the more obscure one? It comes down to the target. All biscotti are crunchy and dry, but we’ve eaten a lot of them over the years and have come to appreciate the distinction between (i) hard, which is unpleasant until you’re initiated into the cult, (ii) crunchy, which amounts to the introductory level for people not yet beaten into submission; and (iii) crispy, a rarely achieved state of perfection that catches the essence of hard without the dental ramifications of crunchy.

Unleavened Nicaraguan Rosquillas are hard. They’re still okay because we have molars for a reason, and you’re supposed to dip the darned things anyway, but in our opinion one ought to do better. Nicaraguan Rosquillas made with baking powder are crunchy. That’s what a native of the region will expect.

Nicaraguan Rosquillas made with hartshorn a/k/a baker’s ammonia are light and crispy, which made our native tester down at Reyna’s raise an eyebrow with delight. For what it’s worth, I also brought a version made with baking powder only, and that was considered good, but not as good as the lighter and crispier variety.

NOTE: Here’s an Internet-only tip. Hartshorn is a little stronger than baking powder. You may want to increase the amount to a full 1 teaspoon if you use the more common leavening agent.

CONCLUSION

Nicaraguan Corn Donut Cookes (Rosquillas de Maiz) fell into our life by total surprise, and have quickly earned an enduring spot in our hearts. The aren’t a “favorite” per se, because we associate cookies with sweet, tender, dessert-like baked goods such as shortbreads and nut cookies. But that’s taste, not judgment, and these would definitely be in the running if we were making recipes along the lines of Biscotti, Mandelbrot, or even our recent forays into Greek Ladokouloura and Lebanese Yansoon Cookies.

The first two are crunchy, crispy, and nutty-sweet. The next two are crispy and spiced-sweet. Rosquillas de Maiz are crunchy, crispy, and corn-sweet. They fit right in as a peer to the others, and illustrate a special heritage that most of us could stand to know a lot more about.

NOTE FROM KATE: I really enjoy these, and the cheese adds an extra tang. Also, look at the proportions: doesn’t the recipe resemble “Real Food?” The guilt factor is cut by two-thirds at least when you nosh on a barely-sweet, high-protein Rosquillas de Maiz. They are absolutely lovely. Now as you all know, I struggle with fitting into my jeans in this cookie-rich environment. This round little cookie has me all excited, though. Some online recipes cut out all sugar and add a bit of parmesan to the farmer’s cheese. Interesting… I wonder how these would go over as an almost-savory, balanced treat with my afternoon cup of coffee? Try them and decide for yourself!

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!

HARTSHORN CRACKERS, A Beautiful and Tasty Illusion Cookie

Appeance? Cracker. Texture? Cracker. Taste? Sugar cookie. Gotcha!

We often discover something new and exciting as we experiment when odd or exotic recipes appear on the radar. We expected no less with this one. “Crackers?” It had to be a European version of those crispy, crunchy Mediterranean tea cookies. Right?

Nope. These taste like a standard sugar cookie, and earned their name by mirroring the appearance and texture of a classic saltine a/k/a soda cracker. They are eminently snackable too. Dangerously so. Each piece is so small that you will find yourself innocently popping five or ten at a sitting, which actually adds up to more than that regular sized sugar cookie you would have been able to resist.

Unique, fascinating, and familiar all at once. How cool is that?

Click here if you only want the recipe without the discussion

Saltines, right? Gotcha!

The Things You Learn When You Do The Math…

The past few months have uncovered several new recipes that rely on baker’s ammonia, including a few that feature a crisp, crackery texture achieved through the use of an antique leavening agent called baker’s ammonia a/k/a hartshorn. See, e.g., Norwegian Pretzel Cookies (Kringla), Greek Olive Oil Cookies (Ladokouloura), and Lebanese Anise (Yansoon) Cookies. So we were kind of excited to try this one, which promised to be a more classic European version.

The Mediterranean recipes both start with oil. The older versions of this recipe start with lard or shortening. Seems like an obvious connection, right? The only unusual thing was the math. All the classic Ammonia a/k/a Hartshorn Cookie recipes ended up with a really odd amount of fat when normalized to a reasonable amount of flour. A bit more than three tablespoons. At the same time, the flour measurements got weird if we tried to normalize things from the fat or sugar point of view.

Version 1.0

I decided to plan out my first test recipe by weight since the numbers weren’t that far off. 100 grams of lard, 100 grams of sugar, and 250 grams of flour. 1 to 1 to 2½, spread over two baking sheets. The result? Extraordinarily thin crackers that tasted like a cookie, but with a very distinct flavor from the fat. They were also a little greasy.

NOTE FROM KATE: They were a fun kind of greasy! Sometimes, using an animal fat you already have saved from a roast can give this kind of a cookie a very interesting character. Flaky tenderness and a hint of other flavors add to the gustatory experience. I like knowing that you’re eating a natural product and not a highly processed shortening. Scott will disparage that from time to time as “virtue points,” but they matter to me.

Fair enough. 250 grams of flour equals 1¾ cups of flour. The next batch would increase the flour to an even two cups. That would take care of the greasiness. The sugar level was about right. But what about that very lard-heavy flavor? What could I do for people who prefer something less distinctive and more common? Shortening, yes… but the flavor wasn’t loud enough to do with a totally neutral fat. So why not clarified butter?

How much butter would I need? Butter is about 16-18% water… Assume that’s been cooked that off, and account for a little more weight from the milk solids… And you end up with…

Son. Of. A. [cough]! You end up with exactly 4 ounces, dead on the nose. And what is 4 ounces? Exactly one standard stick of butter, or and even ½ cup.

And was I wasting effort and cleaning time by assuming the recipe called for two baking sheets? I had carefully rotated the pans midway through because thin dough and high heat are a bad combination. But even so we ended up with one tray browned more on the top, and the other tray more on the bottom. Annoying. And there was an awful lot of room around the dough on each tray, so…

Version 2.0

(A) Clarified butter instead of lard. (B) A little more flour. (C) Roll it all out to fit on a single sheet pan, and see if it’s still thin enough to be a “cracker.” (D) Adjust the cooking time to account for the extra thickness, and having only one pan in the oven.

This is how they come out of the oven. See the uneven break by the bottom right? That’s what happens if you merely cut the lines without giving the wheel/blade a little wiggle to add an extra hint of separation.

This experiment told us (almost) everything we needed to know.

  1. I had the proportions nailed. The dough was easy to make, easy to handle, and just plain worked.
  2. This amount of dough rolls out thin – something on the order of ⅛” when all is said and done – but that’s still a big difference from “roll until you can roll no more.” The final result ended up being just under 3/16“, which definitely gave more of a cookie vibe than a cracker.
  3. The flavor changed radically. Lard notes versus butter notes were extremely clear when we tasted them side by side.
  4. The butter version does indeed taste standard. Just like a sugar cookie. But is there anything easier to vary than a sugar cookie? Tea, chai, cinnamon, other spices, herbs… This is clearly a cookie that bakers can play with to an all but infinite extent.
  5. Those darned lines aren’t always clean enough when the cookie comes out of the oven.
    Thick indeed! These come off as more “cookie” than “cracker.” Note how the lack of docking adds to that.

This cookie was, quite honestly, good enough to publish. But we weren’t done just yet! Could we customize this into a true illusion cookie with a taste that would complement a cookie tray instead of just fitting right in with so many other tastealikes?

Digression: Revisiting The Ratio Of Ingredients

Remember how odd the ingredient list seemed at the start of this project? And how the fat didn’t work out evenly until we figured out that it equaled a 4 oz. stick of butter that’s been clarified? But the overall ratios still didn’t work out to even numbers by weight, as experience taught they should in such an old recipe?

But now, with some extra flour and a more limited amount of fat… Aha! These changes created something very close to a 1:1:3 ratio of fat:sugar:flour. Gotcha!

Version 3.0 (see below) established our preference for a little less in the way of both fat and sugar, and that is what the recipe now says, but we have no doubt how Grandma taught the recipe by that ratio back in the day.

Version 3.0

  • Use the 1:1:3 ratio of ingredients;
  • Add some bacon fat in place of butter (we ended up with 2 tablespoons after I rendered four slices in a pan);
  • Roll out two trays as thin as possible, and only bake one at a time;
  • Dock the dough to make the final product look more like a saltine; and
  • Move some of the sugar from the inside to a sprinkling on top that would mimic the salt on an actual cracker.

The result? Have a look!

[Shakes head]. I don’t know how I missed it, but this is a marvelous illusion cookie. It actually fooled our real life daughter when she stopped in to visit! That docking made a much bigger difference than I ever imagined.

We could taste the bacon, but only because we knew it was there. The bacon also added a healthy hit of extra salt that we both enjoyed – enough to bump the basic salt level in the recipe up from ¼ to ½ teaspoon (though we might revert to the reduced amount if we work with salty bacon fat again). I even enjoyed sprinkling the tops with a little bit of extra salt to enhance the effect. It now appears as an option in the recipe. Here, among friends, I will admit to recommending that option because it makes the cookie taste more distinctive. But that’s taste, not tradition.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We also learned, to our chagrin, that simply marking the lines with a fluted wheel isn’t enough. We lost several “crackers” because they baked together too firmly, and wouldn’t snap along the lines. Even more than we did with the thick cookie (see photo above).

LESSON LEARNED: Don’t just mark those lines; mark them clearly and emphatically, with a little wiggle of the wheel or blade to be on the safe side. You need the pieces to bake together in order to have that crackerish center show, but you also need the separations clean enough to be sure they will break evenly.

The only other adjustments came down to fine tuning the ratio. Hark! Can you hear your great-great Grandma speaking from the beyond? “It’s a simple ratio dear. Three parts flour, to one part sugar, and one part lard. But here’s the secret… They taste even better if you take back a spoonful of the sugar and fat.”

Grandma is great. Grandma is wise. Listen to your great-great Grandma.

Conclusion

This is one of those cookies where we started out thinking “A,” only to discover it was really a “B.” This is not one of those cracker-crisp Mediterranean tea cookies. It’s more like a good, cracker-crisp sugar cookie designed to create a convincing, extremely snackable illusion.

NOTE FROM KATE: Be careful with these – they are quite more-ish! The texture is a lot of fun. You will easily snack on five cookies when you would’ve said a “no, thank you” to a similar cookie in its one-piece form.

Here’s a summary of the lessons learned:

  1. The dough follows a 1:1:3 ratio of fat to sugar to flour, with a spoonful taken back from the first two.
  2. The cookie changes in wonderful ways if you mix and match different fats in place of the clarified butter. We tried them with lard alone, butter alone, and butter mixed with bacon fat. The last was the best, partly because we liked the extra salt.
  3. The illusion part matters, so roll the dough out super thin, take the time to dock them with a fork, and sprinkle on a bit of sugar to fully recreate the saltine look. Sprinkling on some kosher salt will also help the illusion, and has the side effect of making the cookie taste more distinctive.
  4. Maintain an even thickness. Smeared edges cook faster than rolled centers.
  5. Mark the dividing lines emphatically, with a little wiggle of the wheel/blade to add some room. The helps the “crackers” to separate cleanly.
  6. Just don’t separate them too much, because those broken-open sides show off the crackerish interior, which is both pretty and useful for the illusion.
  7. Bake only one tray at a time, and spin the tray just after the estimated halfway point. Two trays won’t cook evenly, and oven hot spots really show.
  8. The bake is done when the top turns cracker-tan brown. Go by that, not the designated baking time.
  9. Hartshorn is mandatory. Baking soda/powder yield a standard cookie texture.

All in all? A very successful experiment, and a cookie we will gladly add to the repertoire. Especially if we want something more on the snackable side than a proper dessert, or there’s someone coming over who’d be fun to fool…

Enjoy!

LADOKOULOURA, Greek Olive Oil Cookies

A crisp sesame-orange tea cookie made with olive oil and baker’s ammonia

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

Our Last Minute Discovery of Hartshorn Cookies

A funny thing happened on the way to Heritage Cookies Volume 1. The closer I got to the deadline, the more must-have cookies showed up to thrust their way into view. Typical, right?

Kate and I recently agreed that Volume 2 will come out sometime in 2024. And sure enough, a whole new set of cookies jumped onto the radar – much loved, irresistible, heritage recipes that rely on hartshorn a/k/a baker’s ammonia because baking powder and baking soda simply can’t duplicate its unique properties.

NOTE FROM KATE: At this rate, we will need to put our project management hats on and simply leave other cookies for later. As in, “There might be a slim pamphlet called Heritage Cookie Crumbs, or something equally silly! It’s true, though. As soon as you think you’re done with a project, new opportunities start to push their way through the door!

Northern Europe offered up two incredible Christmas treats, and two amazing illusion cookies: Swedish Drömmar and Polish Ammoniaczki (a/k/a “Vanilla Puffs”) taste as good as any other holiday cookies you know, but have textures that won’t resemble anything else on your tray. Kringla (Norwegian Pretzel Cookies) and Lemon Ammonia Crackers are simply spectacular. The first tastes like a super-crunchy ladyfinger but looks exactly like a salted pretzel. Go have a look if you don’t believe me. The “crackers” taste more like a standard sugar cookie, but their illusion is so good that a visiting daughter got legitimately fooled. She grabbed a few “saltines” to snack on, and got a surprise I will hold over her head for the next several years.

[NOTE FROM KATE: The same daughter then absconded with a large handful for her drive to see the cousins in Maryland, and to try and fool them in the exact same way. She can deny it all she wants, but we are the ones writing the history here.]

What a trove!

I discovered just as many unique recipes from the Mediterranean nations. There’s Croatian Cvite (Flowers), an illusion cookie we haven’t tested yet. There’s at least a pair of honeycentric biscuits out of Italy. Another from Spain. And then come the most common of them all: crispy, crackery “tea cookies” with powerful flavors offset against enough leavening to keep them airy and light. [NOTE: That’s “Tea,” as in actual tea, or coffee, or maybe something a little stronger.]

This is the Greek version, known interchangeably as Ladokouloura (“Olive Oil Rings”) and Koulourakia Ladiou (“Sesame Rings”). The names pretty much say it all. The main flavors are good olive oil (adjust the strength to your taste and tolerance), sesame seeds, and a solid hit of orange. Highlights come from delicate amounts of cinnamon and clove. A matching version, Lebanese Anise (Yansoon) Cookies, should be up in the next few weeks.

The rings on the right are the most classic form, but other shapes are almost as common.

NOTE FROM KATE: Back in Czechoslovakia when I was in elementary school, I used to walk instead of taking the bus and I saved my transportation allowance for various treats. Orange-oil scented tea biscuits were one of my favorites. Some of these cookies are the closest home-baked thing I have found to date.

Yes, You Must Use Hartshorn

The essence of these cookies lies in how they feel between your teeth: an extremely light center, a crispy crust, and a crunchy texture that baking soda and -powder simply can’t produce. The modern products make a cookie that tastes the same on your tongue. They’re nice. But you won’t “get it” until you taste them made with baker’s ammonia. The feel between your teeth is night and day.

See that crisp, honeycomb core? That’s from the hartshorn.

Lessons In The Baking

Happily, we know several families of first generation immigrants who have been happy to help us with testing Greek cookies. It took only three bakes to get these nailed.

The first one earned raised eyebrows for the exceptional flavor. People really liked the fresh orange notes compared to commercial versions. It only lacked in the texture department.

For version #2 I increased the amount of hartshorn by 50%, and then decided to gild the lily by rolling them in sesame seeds to imitate the ones we were shown in the market. This batch had the right texture, and they looked amazing, but those extra sesame seeds dominated the flavor.

In batch #3 we kept the same level of hartshorn powder, but decided to decorate with some of the sesame seeds originally used inside the cookie. These were perfect according to all our native testers. Or to give a more accurate quote, “Crunch, crunch, mmmmm. Oh my yes.”

NOTE FROM KATE: I love sesame, just love it! To my surprise, however, I found that rolling the entire cookie in sesame went a bit too far. The seedy texture got in the way of the added flavors. For that reason, I tried dipping only the top part (which worked,) on only half of the top part (which produces an interesting effect in itself. Suit yourself – your sesame level is a matter of preference just as the level of orange and clove.

A Final Note On The Olive Oil

Kate loves the taste of olives. I, emphatically, do not. Thus we decided from the very beginning to split the oil 50/50 between powerful extra virgin oil of the sort used in salad dressings, and “light” olive oil of the sort that’s used in cooking.

That turned out to be a very wise choice because it fell exactly at the median opinion. But – BUT – I need to stress that almost everyone fell outside of this middle ground in one direction or the other. Olive aficionados loved the “little hint” of flavor, but would have preferred a little more. Olive doubters could have done without the “vaguely unpleasant note,” but agreed that it wasn’t strong enough to get in the way.

Which camp do you and yours fall into? As some old Greek dude once said, “To know thyself is the first step on the path to wisdom.” It’s pretty good advice for Ladokouloura as well. Though I cannot recommend following that gentleman’s advice for tea to drink alongside… [NOTE: That’s an inside joke for my fellow philosophy and history buffs. If you get it, you win.]

A PHOTOGRAPHY NOTE FROM KATE: This cookie caused me both humor and frustration. The combination of round cookies and the flat ones that look like rectangular teeth had me seeing faces in too many compositions – and once you start seeing faces, you can’t unsee them! I even tried to go with it and made a bunch of goofy, googly-eyed plates. If eating sentient food bothers you, I suggest you bake either circles or rectangles, but not both!

Conclusion

You simply cannot travel through the Greece or any of its neighbors without running into tray after tray of Ladokouloura. They are as ubiquitous as they are loved, which makes them as genuine a Heritage Cookie as anything else we have ever baked.

This is your puppy if you want a true taste of Athens, Santorini, or any of the lands that consider Greece to be a neighbor.

Enjoy!

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!

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!