12/11/2006

In the Kitchen

Cookie memories both exotic and from the dairy case

By Sally Ketchum
Local columnist

Ilse Widmann, Polly Balleau and The Pillsbury Dough Boy are pulling things out of my mind's oven these days.

Ilse was German, and although I don't know if she sketched or painted, I do know that the crafts and cookies that passed through her hands were magical. She knew how to craft with paper, origami, serpentine and such. And her Christmas cookies — varied, beautiful and delicious — were also exquisite.

Yet one stood out: Her Moravian Christmas cookies. They are basically a ginger snap, but that isn't the telling factor.

Isle's cookies were paper-thin. I've seen thicker potato chips. Moravian cookies are a Christmas classic and the recipe is in most comprehensive cookbooks. The point is that no one — no one I know — can roll those cookies as thin as Ilse's. All others are mere gingersnaps.

One cookbook says, "Roll dough 1/8th inch thick, but 1/16th is better.” Ha! No, true Moravian cookies are as thin as a common envelope. I can only say, try to make them. Follow the recipe exactly. Do keep dough you are not working with wrapped and in the fridge. I wish you "thin.”

Polly was a faculty wife when He-Who-Must-Be-Fed and I taught at Albion College. Her cookies, too, were perfect, but they differed from Isle's. They were art works of form and color. Their surfaces were painted with delicate blushes or varnished to a shine or covered with a sugar coating so even, it looked like snowfall on a windless day. One look at them, and you realized that hours and hours went into the cookies. You were more tempted to take them home than to eat them.

Now we come to The Dough Boy, and most of the year I have nothing against the pale kid. But frankly, I'd like to leave him out of Christmas. How many of you have used those convenient slice 'n bake rolls? I have, but I stopped several years ago because they just aren't Christmas cookies to me.

Sociologists and anthropologists who have studied winter celebrations in many countries and through the ages agree that Christmas gifts must be expensive, in time or in value/money. (HWMBF says, "also in sugar.”) Slice 'n bake cookies are quick, and the rolls are not only inexpensive, but also are usually on sale.

My first bad (and embarrassing) experience with the cookies was a subdivision cookie exchange. It was well-attended and the ladies were good friends, but every single woman brought slice 'n bakes. Oh, some were disguised, several with green and red sugar, others with a Hershey kiss on top, but they were the Dough Boy's special, and everyone knew it.

My second lesson involved a box of cookies that I sent to my California son. I had baked our traditional chocolate lebkuchen. HHMBF loves it since you put whisky on the dough and let the bowl sit in the kitchen three days before you bake it. It fills the house with a fragrance that can only be described as "Christmas.” I had baked our other favorites, mostly easy though delicious, the rum balls, Isle's (way too thick), almond crescents, holiday nut drops, Chinese chews and date-filled cream cheese cookies.

But, the box was not full. All the pretty cookies were carefully stacked in order, but one corner was empty and gaping at me. "Dough Boy to the rescue!” I thought. So I held off until I got to the store to get a couple of slice 'n bake cookie rolls. Back home, I sliced, baked and filled the box and off it went.

My son appreciated my labors, I think. I know he called when he opened the box. And he said, "Hi mom, thanks for those cookies. You didn't bake the white ones with the green Christmas trees and the red reindeer, did you?”

I was shattered — shattered just as much as one of Isle's Moravian cookies when you take your first bite and hold your hand under your mouth to catch the gingery crumbs.

I recently read that you can ("easily,” "conveniently,” "craftily”) buy a roll of slice 'n bake cookies and add flour until you get a really stiff dough. Then cut out ornaments (not cookies), using a straw to make a hole for the string to hang them before baking. I'd try it, but I would be humiliated if a friend saw me at the freezer counter, holding a slice 'n bake roll with a green wreath or red Santa hidden in the middle.

Chocolate Lebkuchen

• 2 c. semi-sweet chocolate pieces
• ¾ c. honey
• 2 T. water
• 1 ¼ c. sugar
• ¼ c. orange juice
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2&3/4 c. sifted flour
• 2 t. cinnamon
• 1 t. ground cloves
• 2 t. ground cardamom
• 1 t. baking soda
• 1 t. baking powder
• 1 c. unbalanced almonds or chopped pecans
• ½ c. dried cherries
• ½ c. candied orange peel
• 2 T. whisky (optional)

Use a double boiler. Add chocolate pieces, honey, water, and sugar, cook, stirring, until chocolate is melted and all is blended. Remove from stove. Add orange juice, stir. Reserve.

In a large bowl, combine flour, spices, baking soda and baking powder. Stir to mix. Add eggs to chocolate mixture. Add chocolate mixture to dry mixture and stir. Add nuts, cherries and orange peel. Stir. (Dough will be very heavy and sticky.) Put dough into greased 9-by-13-inch pan. You might want to wet your hands to handle the dough. With spatula or fingers, spread the dough fairly evenly in the pan. Cover tightly with plastic wrap (double wrap). Let dough stand at room temperature for two or three days to meld flavors.

Bake in 325° oven for 30 to 35 minutes. Do not overbake. Remove from oven when a toothpick inserted is slightly dough covered. Cool, cut as like small brownies.

Sally Ketchum is a northern Michigan writer who bakes her family's favorite cookies at Christmas, not always all of them, not always dozens of dozens of them, but the cookies that seem like Christmas to the family. She can be reached at ketchum1985@gmail.com