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Post by nana on Dec 29, 2019 15:53:45 GMT -5
Before I put this away for next year, I wanted to share my favorite Christmas cookie. This is the recipe card my mom wrote out for me when I got married, so I could carry on her tradition.
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Post by nana on Dec 29, 2019 16:05:30 GMT -5
(The above pictures were from my hubby's phone and were making my post go all wonky, so I'm finishing it here!)
Anyway, Her voice comes through so clearly, all her motherly care and cautions, although I suggest you ignore her miserly advice and spring for the ground cardamom-- you won't regret it. And I usually leave out the pressed nutmeat because it is just gilding the lily.
I feel close to my mom when I make her recipes, but because we made these together for so many years, I really feel connected when I make these.
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Post by pooka on Dec 31, 2019 7:32:52 GMT -5
The "too expensive" comment is literary gold. To even mention cardamom, then to bemoan the high price. I guess it was a traditional option, but remembering tougher times when money was scarce. It's still the third most costly spice behind vanilla beans & saffron. But as you say, for the real taste, spring for the cardamom, at least on some of them. It says the recipe makes about 200. That's an all day baking session. These sound like a good project for a group. The nut meat is one of the things that makes them a bit special. Some I saw had almond slices or pecan halves. I guess it depend how fancy you want to make them.
I see in looking these up, I hear them called German sugar cookies. I see them made in several ways too. Maybe there's some regional variations. When I searched for sand tart cardamom, I run across Sandbakelse. Wikipedia calls them a Norwegian sugar cookie. They are made by pressing the dough into little tins of various shapes.
It's cool to have this voice from the past to carry the tradition forward.
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Post by nana on Dec 31, 2019 15:51:02 GMT -5
Literary gold!?! My mom would have demurred publicly, but secretly I think she would have been pleased. English was her second language, but she was probably more fluent in it than many native speakers. "It'll burn in a thrice" became a shorthand warning for us for anything that needed a close eye kept on it to avoid disaster, like teenage boys wrestling next to the china cabinet.
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Post by nana on Dec 31, 2019 16:23:45 GMT -5
She wasn't joking about the cold kitchen, though. Keeping the dough from warming up too much is key. The trouble is, after you've worked your way through batch after batch of cookies, your kitchen will warm up, even with a Chambers, and then the dough practically melts. It seems like a lot of flour, but it's really barely enough to hold the butter, eggs and sugar together. I sometimes take a bag or two of frozen veggies or a ziploc bag of crushed ice to put on the counter between roll-outs to keep the surface cold enough. (By the way, it does make an insane amount of cookies. Feel free to halve the recipe!)
Also, after baking let them sit on the cookie sheet a minute to firm up before you try to get them off. They are incredibly crisp and delicate when cooled, but hot from the oven they are too flexible and bendy. I know they sound fussy, and they are, but so worth it!
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Post by pooka on Dec 31, 2019 18:57:17 GMT -5
You need a big slab of marble to roll them out on like the pros. The stone stays cool better. Mom had a Tupperware rolling pin that you'd fill with water & freeze. I've seen old glass ones that I'd guess you'd fill with ice. When we were kids, we'd make sugar cookies using a whole pile of old aluminum cookie cutters. I don't know what's happened to them now. She'd roll the dough out, & we'd cut them out & put all kinds of different colored sugars & sprinkles on.
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Post by nana on Jan 1, 2020 10:52:30 GMT -5
I actually have a little marble topped end table that I have used the marble piece to roll things out on, but it's just a little too small to really be useful, plus there's the bother of taking the lamp and the tchotchkes off of it...It does work really well to keep things cool enough though.
I have my own cookie cutters, plus I inherited my mom's AND my Aunt Ann-Marie's collection. Apparently having cookie cutters of various sizes in the 4 suits of playing cards was a big must-have for folks back then, probably for bridge parties. I've got them in everything from an inch across to about 3-4 inches--big enough to cut out shaped sandwiches, which is probably what they were for, not cookies. Plus the usual assortment of animals, holiday shapes, etc...I even have a hatchet shape for Washington's birthday cookies (I assume!).
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Post by cinnabar on Jan 5, 2020 19:48:26 GMT -5
nana, your cookies cutters sound like mine, my own, my mom's, grandmother's, great auntie m., and great gram's. I have to keep them in a large popcorn tin.
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Post by nana on Jan 7, 2020 18:58:34 GMT -5
Popcorn tin! Say, that's a good idea! Mine are in ziploc bags in several different places--a really bad system.
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Post by cinnabar on Jan 8, 2020 23:13:30 GMT -5
One of the really big ones that held 3 flavors of corn,,,,,mmmmm.
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Post by karitx on Jan 13, 2020 17:16:30 GMT -5
That recipe card is one to cherish, Nana! I have a couple of my mom's recipe cards, but her handwriting was always so small and light that that they are almost impossible to read.
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