Berta’s Old-World Pfeffernüsse
Berta’s Old-World Pfeffernüsse
(The real, hard-as-rocks, keep-for-months, pepper-included kind – exactly the ones that smell like mercy in a snowstorm)
Makes about 4 dozen. Give or take, depends on you but does it matter? Keep baking til the dough is gone.
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1¼ cups dark brown sugar (or half dark muscovado, half white)
- ⅔ cup good honey (wildflower or forest – the darker the better)
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
Spice blend (this is the soul – do not cheat)
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp ground anise (or crushed anise seed)
- ¾ tsp ground white pepper (yes, real pepper – the bite is the point)
- ½ tsp ground allspice
- ½ tsp ground cardamom
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp ground mace (optional but perfect)
- Pinch of ground coriander
Finishing
1½–2 cups powdered sugar for dusting (you will use a lot)
Directions
- Warm the honey and butter together until just melted; let cool slightly.
- Beat eggs into the honey-butter mixture.
- Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and all the spices.
- Stir the dry ingredients into the wet until you have a very stiff dough (it will fight you).
- Knead briefly on a floured surface until smooth. Wrap tightly and rest in the fridge at least overnight – 24–48 hours is better (This mellows the spices and makes the cookies chewy inside, rock-hard outside.)
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 °F. Line sheets with parchment.
- Pinch off tiny pieces (8–10 g each – walnut-sized or smaller). Roll into perfect balls between your palms. Place 2 cm apart – they hardly spread - at least then you know you're dough is right or loose.
- Bake 10–12 minutes. They will look underdone and soft; bottoms should be just turning brown -then that’s correct. They firm up as they cool and age.
- While still warm (but not hot), toss them in a paper grocery bag filled with powdered sugar. Shake gently until each cookie disappears under a blizzard of sugar. Repeat once more when fully cool – traditional pfeffernüsse wear a thick white coat.
- Store in tin or glass jars. They improve over days and weeks and keep for months.
Eat one straight from the oven when the world is cruel. Save the rest for the children who show up at your door with frost on their eyelashes and no one else’s light to walk toward.
The pepper will wake them up. The sugar will remind them they are still allowed to be sweet.
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