Monthly Archives: December 2018

Almond Chocolate Macaroons

Christmas, food and cooking, ,

Of Christmas cookies, one of our family’s recent favorites — that is, in the last ten years — is this intense chewy marzipany one, the recipe for which I found on the website of the Odense company. When I use a different brand of paste that comes in an 8 oz. package, I just nibble a little to make it come out even.

ALMOND CHOCOLATE MACAROONS

1-7 oz box almond paste, grated
1 cup confectioners sugar, firmly packed
1/4 cup cocoa, firmly packed [I don’t how one might pack cocoa]
2 tablespoons flour
Pinch salt
2 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
For topping: 1/2 cup confectioners sugar

Preheat oven to 325°F. Line cookie sheets with parchment.

Combine almond paste, 1 cup of the sugar, cocoa, flour and salt in a mixing bowl. With an electric mixer beat on a low speed until all ingredients are incorporated.

Add egg whites and vanilla. Beat on a high speed for 2-3 minutes, or until a smooth, shiny paste. *Cover and chill dough for one hour.

Add remaining confectioners sugar to a small bowl. Drop dough into sugar by a level tablespoon measure (not flatware) [I use flatware], or a lightly oiled cookie scoop. Quickly turn dough (it is sticky) to cover with sugar. Roll into a ball between palms and drop onto cookie sheets, 2 inches apart.

Bake for 16-18 minutes or until firm on top. Cool on wire rack. Store in an airtight container. Best if eaten within 3 days.  [Stored in the freezer or our cold garage they keep well for longer than this.]

The recipe says it makes 18 cookies, so I always mix up a double batch.

*Dough can be chilled for up to 24 hours. [I have saved it for days] Make sure it is covered well to avoid picking up refrigerator odors.

Merry Christmas Cookies to YOU!

He never says you should have.

Christmas, poetry, , , , ,

This poem by John Donne I believe did not start out as a poem. Someone posted it as follows, in poetic lines, but I found the same lines as prose on Bartleby.com, in the middle of a passage in “Sermons Preached on Christmas Day.” Donne evidently did not give the title “In Heaven it is Always Autumn” to anything, but more than one person has more recently used his line to title a poem, as I found in my searching.

Donne uses several vivid words to describe the winter we can experience in our soul at any time of year, showing that he is familiar with that inner dark and coldness. We know that he did suffer terrible grief when his wife died, and it was doubtless not the only occasion when he felt desperate need of God’s presence and mercy.

The first time I posted these words it was autumn, but now I am trying for closer to Christmas, in the spirit of their preacher.

In heaven it is always autumn,
His mercies are ever in their maturity.
We ask our daily bread
And God never says
You should have come yesterday,
He never says
You must again tomorrow,
But today if you will hear His voice,
Today He will hear you.
He brought light out of darkness,
Not out of a lesser light;
He can bring thy summer out of winter
Tho’ thou have no spring,
Though in the ways of fortune or understanding or conscience
Thou have been benighted til now,
Wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed,
Damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied til now,
Now God comes to thee,
Not as in the dawning of the day,
Not as in the bud of the spring
But as the sun at noon,
As the sheaves in harvest.

– John Donne, 1624

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the archives – 2014

Christmas Peppernuts

Christmas, food and cooking, history, , ,

The last time I ate our family’s version of peppernuts, it was in a February that seems very long ago now. Mr. Glad and I were at Pippin’s when she pulled a slab of dough out of the freezer, left over from her Christmas baking. My hands weren’t sticky so it was easy to take pictures that I saved to put with the recipe “someday.” Trying to post every day this month along with Pom Pom has prodded me to make good on promises I’ve made in this regard.

This cookie is a version I cobbled together from the assortment that fill the pages of Peppernuts, Plain and Fancy, given to me at least 20 years ago by my Dutch homeschooler friend Anita.  I just now found my little copy, about 5×6″, on a remote shelf and browsed through it for only the second time. When I first received the book, I was looking for the likeliest of the 26 varied recipes to try, but after traveling from front to back and from Paraguay to Russia and back to Kansas, I decided to take ideas and ingredients from several of them.

I had forgotten until tonight that not all of the varieties in the book are even spicy, like true pfeffernusse are. I found a couple of recipes for White Peppernuts, and ingredients as different as ammonia and lemon, peppermint and fresh coconut. As you can seen from the few pages I have shared, these are true Family Recipes, some of which have unusual sources and have been passed down through many generations.

“Original peppernut recipes probably were copied from the Germans, Dutch and West Prussians when Mennonite families moved about Europe in search of religious freedom. Then, when our grandparents left the Ukraine for America in 1874, they brought this lovely tradition with them, baking peppernuts in their ‘grasshopper ovens’ those early Christmases on the Kansas prairies.”

Some years it can be hard to find fruit-flavored jelly candies in the stores; they are a version of gumdrops, not gummy candies, and aren’t spicy, and it seems their availability is subject to trends. I don’t want to use spice drops because there is already plenty of spice in my recipe. The easiest way to dice the candies is to dust frequently with arrowroot or cornstarch. In the photo down below that is what makes the pieces white.

One year I had a much larger batch of dough than this recipe makes, and I was using it from the freezer for many months after. I didn’t always have time to make “nuts,” so I cut bar-shaped cookies and they were good, too!

CHRISTMAS PEPPERNUTS

½ stick butter, 2 oz.
½ c. honey
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
¼ c. milk
½ T. soda in ½ T. hot water
1 tsp. lemon zest
4 c. white flour
6 oz. diced, fruit-flavored jelly candies
2 c. toasted almonds, chopped
2 tsp. ground star anise
½ tsp. cinnamon
2/3 tsp. ground black pepper
¼ tsp. nutmeg

Mix all, form dough into large “pancakes,” and freeze. While still firm, cut into “nuts” or bars. Bake at 350 degrees 8-10 minutes on greased foil on insulated cookie sheets.
Should be golden brown if you don’t want them cake-y.

Be careful now! Remember that “Old German maxim” quoted on the page above:

That which really tastes
oft us trouble makes.

These do really taste. 🙂

Together from dust and in faith.

church, history, quotes, saints, , , ,

SUNDAY OF THE HOLY FOREBEARS OF CHRIST:

“At Great Vespers this Saturday [last night], we praise the glorious men from before and during the Old Covenant law. We honor Adam, Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Samson, Barak, Jephthah, Nathan, Eleazar, Josiah, Job, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha and all the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, ‘and all the rest,’ especially Daniel and the three holy youths, Zachariah, John the Baptist, and all those who proclaimed Christ.

“Likewise we sing praises to the holy women who were made ‘strong in the days of old by the might of Thy strength, O Lord: Hannah, Judith, Deborah, Huldah, Jael, Esther, Sarah, Miriam, Rachel, Rebecca, and Ruth.’ Orthodox Christians faithfully preserve the awareness of where we come from.

“We not only remember that we are from the dust of the earth, but we also remember those who have preceded us, and are joined to us, in holiness, and in faith, and in the spiritual struggle. History is chronological, but the Kingdom of God is ever-present, and we commune with all the righteous who were before us and await us. As brothers and sisters in Christ, they are our forefathers too!”

-Father Thaddaeus Hardenbrook

Holy Prophet Daniel

Through faith You justified the Forefathers,
betrothing through them the Church of the gentiles.
These saints exult in glory,
for from their seed came forth a glorious fruit:
She who bore You without seed.
So by their prayers, O Christ God, have mercy on us!

-Hymn for the Sunday of the Holy Ancestors of Christ