Pfeffernüsse / Peppernuts

by Lynda Ollenburger Sangster
(Powder Springs, Georgia, USA)

Pfeffernüsse – Marie Ollenburger's Peppernuts via Lois Ollenburger and her daughter, Lynda.

Marie was my dad’s mother, my grandmother, and at our house, her daughter-in-law, my mother Lois, baked these every Christmas. I was told this recipe was actually my grandmother’s mother-in-law’s recipe, which places it in the mid-1800s.

My dad’s favorite way of eating them was to float them in a cup of coffee and spoon them out. Milk worked for us kids. Some Pfeffernüsse recipes yield a frosted cookie. In our house, these were never frosted. They were little cookie bites, like nuts.

Yields several hundred 1” cookie bites
Ingredients:

• 1 c. shortening
  
• ½ c. sorghum syrup
  
• ½ c. molasses (dark syrup/honey or a combo of any/all OK)
  
• 1 c. sugar
  
• 1 egg
  
• 1 tsp. each: cloves, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, black pepper
  
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
  
• ½ tsp. salt
  
• 4-5 c. flour (Lynda's note - more than 6 cups used)
  
• ¼ c. water
  
• 1 tsp. baking soda
  
• Grated rind of 1 orange
  

1. Put the syrup & shortening in a dish and melt. While it is heating, mix sugar and egg in mixing bowl and add syrup and shortening mixture. Be careful not to curdle the egg with hot syrup/shortening.
   
2. Sift the spices with some flour (altogether, it will take about 5 cups, but start out with 3 or 4.) Add the flour mixture to syrup/shortening.
   
3. Stir in the baking soda dissolved in the water, and orange peel. Add enough flour to make a rolled cookie dough. Roll a bit of the dough -- if it holds its shape pretty well, it's ready to bake. If not, add more flour. Best to make the dough one evening, cover the dish and leave in a warm room overnight. Then bake the next day.
   
4. Roll the dough out into ropes, the thickness of your pinkie, sausage-fashion, cut in 1/3" pieces with a knife, place about 1” apart and bake about 350° (7-10 minutes) only light brown.
   

• Wonderful results using baking stone & parchment paper.
  
• Heat the shortening/syrup mixture in the microwave until shortening just melts. The warming of the syrup/shortening is the secret to the perfect cookie texture.
  
• Measure out the spices onto a plate beforehand, to make avoid forgetting any.
  
• A microplane makes quick work of the orange peel.
  
• A 76 oz./9.5 cup plastic container with snap-on lid makes a perfect overnight dough-keeper and helps keep the batch fresh as it's being worked.