Two more cookies came out of the kitchen today, but I will be posting these one at a time for now. First, Pfeffernüsse. Martha calls them Pfeffernüssen - maybe that's pural? I have no idea. The more searching I did about these cookies the more confused I got! Seems like most all of the recipes had one thing in common - a blend of spices, including pepper - thus the name Pfeffernüsse which translates to "Peppernuts". Quite a few recipes I found, like this one, called for rolling the cookies in powdered sugar while others called for icing. Some called for a touch of citrus and/or nuts and a few recipes called for soaking them in rum.
Whatever Pfeffernüsse is really supposed to be, this particular recipe produced a cookie that was somewhat soft and cake-like on the inside, while slightly crispy on the outside and spiced much like a typical spice cookies. The powdery, sugary coating is a nice contrast to the dark brown insides both in taste and in appearance. I like these quite well, but whereas the Russian Tea Cakes are likely to become a holiday tradition, the jury is still out on whether the Pfeffernüsse will make that list or not.
Stay tuned for Cookie #3 - an ooey-gooey bar cookie filled with all kinds of goodies.......
Whatever Pfeffernüsse is really supposed to be, this particular recipe produced a cookie that was somewhat soft and cake-like on the inside, while slightly crispy on the outside and spiced much like a typical spice cookies. The powdery, sugary coating is a nice contrast to the dark brown insides both in taste and in appearance. I like these quite well, but whereas the Russian Tea Cakes are likely to become a holiday tradition, the jury is still out on whether the Pfeffernüsse will make that list or not.
hey there, I accidently stumbled over your blog and, nice coincident, come from the land of the Pfeffernüsse ;)
ReplyDeleteThey're traditional German cookies, so I have no idea how Martha got the idea with the additional n, the plural name is Pfeffernüsse (the singular would be Pfeffernuss)
Thank you for the German lesson, cheshire Alice. :) It's so hard to figure out what is correct when dealing with other languages.
ReplyDeleteI did take one semester of German in college, but that was ages ago and I don't think we covered cookies. ;)