Just as I can’t bring myself to eat strawberries in December or parsnips in June, I also can’t make these German spice cookies at any time other than Christmas. I’ve been dreaming about them all year long, but it just doesn’t seem appropriate to be digging the ground cloves and allspice out of the cupboard until winter has properly arrived.
You can buy these biscuits in supermarkets (usually iced or coated in chocolate) but they are really quite expensive, and as I could happily munch through a whole packet in one afternoon, I decided to start making my own to get enough of my Christmas spice fix before the season is over.
The recipes I found online for these rolled the biscuits in icing sugar, so I decided to try making them that way rather than coating them in royal icing like the ones you can buy in the shops. This was partly because they look like lovely little snow balls and also because it creates far less mess, and I was feeling particularly lazy that day!
These cookies are denser and less sweet than the shop-bought version, but this helps to put their spicy pepperiness centre stage.
Things I have learnt from making these pfeffernusse:
Leave them in the oven for the full 15 minutes or they will collapse, like mine did.
Even if they do collapse they are still delicious, and even better after being stored in an airtight container for a couple of days.
The easiest way to coat them in icing sugar is to put them in a plastic food bag along with the icing sugar and shake vigorously; it’s so much quicker than rolling them in a bowl of the stuff.
Pfeffernusse: makes around 35
(adapted from the recipe here)
50g molasses
45g honey
30g unsalted butter
30g vegetable shortening (Trex)
1 large free range egg
250g plain flour
75g brown sugar
50g caster suger
½ teaspoon each of ground nutmeg, ground cloves, ground ginger and black pepper
1 teaspoon each of allspice and cinnamon
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
¼ teaspoon of salt
65g icing sugar for dusting
- Heat molasses, honey, butter and shortening over a medium heat until melted and combined
- Leave to cool to room temperature (or thereabouts)
- Mix together the flour, sugars, salt, spices and bicarb in a large mixing bowl
- Pour in the molasses mixture and stir until thoroughly combined
- Wrap the dough in cling film and place in the fridge to rest for at least 2 hours
- Preheat the oven to 165°C and line two baking sheets with parchment
- Pinch off lumps of the dough and roll into 1 inch balls
- Place on the lined baking trays leaving at least an inch betweens the balls
- Bake for 15 minutes
- Remove the pfeffernusse from the oven and leave for 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool
- Once cooled to room temperature, put the icing sugar in a large food bag along with half of the pfeffernusse, and shake to fully coat them with sugar. Remove the coated pfeffernusse and repeat with the remainder of the batch
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