traditional foods for the holiday season

[journey11]

One year my MIL and I made handpainted Springerle cookies. She has the cookie presses. She loves to collect neat things like that. Her family is Polish, but I'm not sure if the cookies are from that culture or not. We hadn't made them since (hadn't found time!), but will have to make them a tradition someday, perhaps when my daughter is old enough to participate. I love to paint anyway, and it was really fun painting on a cookie! I used anise seed fresh from my garden. They were very good, but I found it hard to eat them after all that painstaking work!

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Journey

They are German cookies. Here's a link to a site that sells them but there is a history of their origins.

http://www.lasermonks.com/index.php?main_page=product_monastery_info&products_id=70231

[edited to add the link which I had forgotten to add ! ]

:rose Hattie :rose

 

[Reinbeau]

Hattie - where's the link?

I make Springerle cookies every year, as a matter of fact, they're on my to-do list for this week. I've tried several recipes, the main thing with the dough is to make sure your room isn't too warm, or the dough sticks in the molds. I've got two, I have a rolling pin with the cookie impressions on it, and a hand made press, made by my German great grandfather, who was a lithographer. It looks sorta like a bacon press. That's my favorite, because my great grandmother was my inspiration for both gardening and cooking. I used to make Christmas cookies with her, I lost her when I was ten - but she's with me every Christmas season

Thank you for that link, journey11 - and Hattie, I want to study yours, too!

 

[HiDelight]

Ok Punkin I changed the title let's just talk about food traditions in general

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Reinbeau

Sorry about leaving out the link -- I have corrected it now!

:rose Hattie :rose

 

[Reinbeau]

Thank you, Hattie, good info there! Here is a nice link for Springerle cookies. They sell the molds there, but there's also great info, recipes, etc. for all kinds of molded cookies. I've used their recipe, it makes lots of cookies! I did find a source for the baker's ammonia, you've got to be careful with that stuff, you surely don't want to breathe the powder - but it does make a difference in the texture of the cookies!

 

[Hattie the Hen]

Reinbeau

Hartshorn/ bakers ammonia is still used by a lot of Scandinavian bakers. I have never used it but I have eaten baked goods thathave it inthem when I worked in Scandinavia. They were delicious & very delicate. I remember a baker in Norway saying that hartshorn was difficult to store as if you don't keep it in absolutely air-tight containers it just disappears !


:rose Hattie :rose

 

[Reinbeau]

Reinbeau

Hartshorn/ bakers ammonia is still used by a lot of Scandinavian bakers. I have never used it but I have eaten baked goods thathave it inthem when I worked in Scandinavia. They were delicious & very delicate. I remember a baker in Norway saying that hartshorn was difficult to store as if you don't keep it in absolutely air-tight containers it just disappears !


:rose Hattie :rose

Yes, it will, it's very volatile. I've got mine in a good Tupperware container, marked in permanent ink to be careful!! I actually got a quantity of it from a Swedish bakery a few towns over - they were surprised I wanted it and know what it was for! They gave it to me

 

[journey11]

Thank you, Hattie, good info there! Here is a nice link for Springerle cookies. They sell the molds there, but there's also great info, recipes, etc. for all kinds of molded cookies. I've used their recipe, it makes lots of cookies! I did find a source for the baker's ammonia, you've got to be careful with that stuff, you surely don't want to breathe the powder - but it does make a difference in the texture of the cookies!

Wow, they have some beautiful molds! I followed the link for Crafts and seems you can do just about anything you can think of with them.

 

[obsessed]

I made pozole this weekend and will make menudo and tamales by xmas for the family. Sometimes it gets sad because we are so far from our family and we dont get to do the whole mexican xmas feast. But it is way easier to clean and cook, now.