Unicorn (Unicorn@Indenial.com)
Sat, 12 Dec 1998 06:51:35 -0500
Reader Dolores Spoonmore wrote "Hey Chef, here is a corny joke for
your files." I can already hear the groans.
Q: What did the boy tomato say to the girl tomato?
A: Lettuce be friends
She's right about the corny part. It's also tomatoey and lettucey.
(More groans)
Here is what Guest chef Stephen Block says about his latest
contribution to German Christmas Gift Baking week: "You will need a
springerle mold or rolling pin for these cookies. You can pick one up
from most kitchen specialty shops. Springerle are great when dunked
in coffee. This recipe make about 12 cookies."
Springerle
4 cups (1 L) flour
3 cups (750 ml) white sugar
5 eggs
1 tsp (5 ml) baking powder
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
2 Tbs (30 ml) Anise seed
1. Whip the eggs until they are light and fluffy, either with an
electric mixer or by hand, in a large mixing bowl. Use your favorite
mixing bowl, one that's large enough to really mix ingredients in, so
you can "get into it" without feeling that food will fly out the
sides.
2. Mix in all the dry ingredients (except the Anise seed) one cup at
a time, until the dough is sticky and shiny-looking. The dough looks
very pretty, almost like wood that has been well sanded and varnished.
3. Put the dough, still in the mixing bowl, in the refrigerator and
chill thoroughly for at least 2 hours.
4. Sprinkle a little flour on the bread-board, take a piece of dough
about the size of a tennis ball, and shape it into a rectangle about
2" by 3" (5 x 8 cm) and 1" (2.5 cm) thick.
5. Either roll out with a design-carved Springerle rolling pin, or
press into shape with a similarly carved wooden mold. Spray the
rolling pin or mold with a non-stick spray. (I prefer the mold. My
grandma preferred the rolling pin.)
6. Rolling or pressing the dough, squash it down to about 1/2 inch (1
cm) thick. When you lift up the mold or rolling pin, the dough will
have nice-looking imprints.
7. Cut the cookies apart and place them on a cookie sheet that has
been buttered or sprayed with non-stick spray and sprinkled with some
Anise seeds. Set the cookies an inch (2 cm) apart.
8.The leftover scraps of dough can be reworked nicely a couple of
times, as long as you don't get too much flour in the dough.
9.Now find a cool place to let the cookies sit and dry. Cover them
with a dish towel, and let them sit for 24 hours but not too much
longer. What you are aiming for is to dry them enough to keep the
imprint distinct, but not so dry that the surface cracks. The towel
helps to keep this from happening.
10.Pre-heat the oven to 300F (150C) and bake for about 30 minutes, or
until the surface of the cookie shows just a hint of brown.
11. Cool, and store in an airtight container.
*Suggestion: Before baking the entire batch, try baking one cookie
just to see whether the imprint stays visible after baking. If not,
let the unbaked Springerle dry a little longer before baking.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Sat Dec 12 1998 - 09:00:01 EST