Peppernuts / Pepernoten

Depending on your tradition, you may know these tasty little treats as Peppernutes (English, Russian Mennonite) or Pepernoten (Dutch). It's fun to discover a shared Christmas tradition between our two ethnic traditions. Of course, many the Russian Mennonites were Dutch a while back, so this 'shared' tradition has a common heritage. Whatever the history, they are delicious.

Tonight we invited some friends over to participate in the first step of the peppernut making process, according to Kendall's recipe. We mixed the dough. Now it's cooling and waiting to dry. Here's Rachel and myself enjoying the first step of the batter-making. LOOK at all that sugar and butter!





And here's the a lovely sculpted dough that Sandra made. It seems a shame that we'll have to deconstruct that lovely face to make cookies. But the cookies will be tasty...

We're letting them cool all day Saturday while we write papers and stuff like that, and then Sunday they'll be ready to roll, shape and bake.

We hope to have the pepernoten / peppernuts ready in time to celebrate St. Nicolas day this week, on the eve of December 6. They may be accompanied by some boterkoek (Dutch butter-cake), some chocolate coins, and some really fine poetic verses penned by St. Nick himself. :)