Tag Archives: holiday cookies

Sparkling and Spicy-Sweet Persimmon Cookies

Posted on by
10

It seems a bit absurd, I know, but until this week, I had never tasted a persimmon. I’ve been curious about them, though. Especially when I discovered my friend, Pat, who grew up in California with a persimmon tree in her yard, orders them by the case each year through the local food co-op.

Persimmons started simmering up in my mind a few weeks ago when I was in the Twin Cities. After reading a recent review at Heavy Table about some interesting food being served for lunch at Hmong Village in St. Paul, I was determined to get over there to explore on my own.

The large building was filled with vendors selling fresh produce, individual nooks offering a variety of this and that, and several vendors offering freshly made, ready to eat Hmong, Thai, Asian and Vietnamese food.

It was in the fresh produce area that I was tempted to grab a bag of ripe persimmons. They were the Fuyu variety — the kind that are shaped like a tomato, but with a burnt orange-colored skin. They can be peeled, sliced and eaten. I decided against purchasing one of those bags that held at least 8 persimmons. I had no idea what I’d do with all of them. But when I got home, I picked up a few Fuyu persimmons at the store.

I had planned to just eat them or maybe add a few slices to my morning smoothie. After leaving the fruit out on my kitchen counter for a few days, the persimmons got nice and soft. I did eat one. Soft and so ripe, it was filled with juice. And then, quite by accident, I came across a recipe for Persimmon Cookies in an old cookbook my mom bought for me in 1989. The recipes in the book were compiled by Home Economics teachers in California.

The recipe for Persimmon Cookies was submitted by Sandra Robertson at Whittier High School in Whittier, California. She commented that her mom made these cookies every year during the holiday season.

I decided to give them a try. It wasn’t until I started measuring out the ingredients that I noticed there were no eggs listed. Seemed strange to me, but I decided I could trust a home ec teacher. Then I realized there were no instructions for oven temperature or baking time. Maybe I shouldn’t trust a home ec teacher.

I made a few simple changes to the recipe. Rather than using the cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg that were listed in the recipe, I used some Cake Spice that had just arrived this week in a box of herbs and spices that I ordered with a gift card from the The Spice House. Baking Spice blend or even a blend of Pumpkin Pie spices would work well, too.

The cookies are soft and sweetly spicy. I added chopped dates and broken toasted pecans, but dried cranberries or raisins would be good, too. Before baking the cookies, I used a rubber band to attach a damp cloth to the bottom of a glass. It makes a great non-stick cookie press/stamper when the damp cloth-covered bottom of the glass is dipped into sugar first.

If you can get your hands on persimmons, give these sparkling, egg-less cookies a try. They’re delicious with a cup of tea or hot cocoa.

If you can get your hands on several persimmons, make the cookies and make some persimmon margaritas. Just days after I turned my back on those bags of plump persimmons at Hmong Village, I saw this margarita recipe over at City Pages. Oh, I should have come home from my trip to the Cities with one of those bags of persimmons.

Persimmon Cookies

  • 1 cup peeled and chopped Fuyu persimmons
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup shortening
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 1/4 teaspoons Cake Spice, Baking Spice or Pumpkin Pie spice blend
  • 3/4 cup chopped dates
  • 3/4 cup broken toasted pecans
  • Sugar for stamping cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or grease lightly. Use a fork to mash the chopped persimmons, achieving a pulpy consistency. Stir baking soda into the persimmons and set aside.

Blend sugar and shortening. Sift dry ingredients together and add to sugar mixture. Beat on low speed to mix. Blend in persimmon mixture. Stir in dates and nuts. Drop by teaspoonful on prepared cookie sheets about 2 inches apart.

Cover the bottom of a glass with a small damp cloth and fasten with a rubber band. Dip the damp towel in sugar and use it to press down each cookie. Dip glass in sugar before stamping each cookie.

Bake in preheated 350-degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until bottom of cookies are golden brown. Cool cookies on wire rack. Makes 3 1/2 to 4 dozen cookies.

Store in airtight container or tin. These cookies can be frozen.

Tip from the cook

A thin-skin peeler, the kind with serrated blades, is a good tool for peeling persimmons.

Fancy raspberry cookies from a friend: a sweet surprise

Posted on by
4

It was early Sunday afternoon. Since it was Mother’s Day, I had been lounging all morning, sipping French press coffee as I curled up in my favorite overstuffed chair. I finally shook myself from my dreamy, comfy yoga-pants world and headed to the shower. It was time to get ready for the 1 1/2 hour drive to a restaurant in Detroit Lakes where we would meet our older son and his family for dinner. They were driving from Fargo. We were meeting in the middle.

I had the blow dryer going full blast when I heard the door bell. Who could it be? When you live in the woods, it’s not often that someone just stops by. Our children and grandchildren all live a few hours away. I knew it wasn’t them.

My husband, who was quite presentable, answered the door. I heard some chuckling and bits of a short chat, but still couldn’t figure out who had come to the door.

As I patted foundation on my face, my husband appeared with a clear cellophane bag in his hands. The chubby little bag was filled with fancy cookies, sliced and filled with red raspberry jam, drizzled with glaze. My friend, Cori, who knows how much I love shortbread, dropped her homemade cookies off for me. It could have been a bag of fig newtons (not my favorite cookie) and I would have loved it. But, it wasn’t fig newtons. It was a bundle of buttery, tender Raspberry Ribbons.

Now, that’s quite a friend who would drive out of her way to come to my house in the woods just to share her gift of cookies with me. I smile just thinking about it.

And, I smile with each bite of Raspberry Ribbon. They are delicious. They look like springtime. Yet, they’d be just the right cookie to brighten up a holiday cookie plate, too. Make them now, then see if you can wait until November or December to make them again. I don’t think I can.

I had a brunch at my house a couple of weeks ago. Raspberry Ribbons would have been a nice addition. I didn’t take one picture of the table or the food we had for brunch. But I must tell you that after I set the table with a set of old Bavarian china from my Aunt Julie’s china hutch, I realized I had no napkins that seemed appropriate for the pretty table settings. At the last minute I remembered an idea I had seen somewhere. I pulled some old vintage handkerchiefs from my dresser, touched them up with an iron, and placed them on the table to be used as napkins. They were perfect.

Now I’m thinking how cute these Raspberry Ribbons would be, packaged in a cellophane bag and then all wrapped up with a delicate, old handkerchief. Another thing to hunt for on my visits to antique shops and second-hand stores.

Enjoy the Raspberry Ribbons. Share some with a friend.

Raspberry Ribbons

from my friend Cori

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons almond extract, divided
  • 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup raspberry jam
  • 1/2 cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tablespoon half-and-half
  • 1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Add egg and 1 teaspoon almond extract and blend well. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Stir into creamed mixture.

Divide dough into 4 portions. Shape each portion into a 10-inch x 2 1/2-inch log. Place logs on baking sheet. Make a 1/2-inch depression down the middle of each log.

Bake logs in preheated 350-degree oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Fill depression of each log with jam. Return to oven. Bake 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from oven. Cool 2 minutes. Use sharp knife to slice log into 3/4 inch cookies.

Mix powdered sugar, cream and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract, blending until smooth. When cookies are cool, drizzle with glaze.

 

 

Happy Turkey Day!

Posted on by
1

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just mixed up the dough for the rolls that my son loves. The turkey is still in the refrigerator, slathered with salt. During a visit with my husband’s 86-year-old aunt on Saturday, who still makes a turkey each year for Thanksgiving, we discovered her secret to the best roasted turkey in the world. She cleans the turkey well on the night before Thanksgiving. She pours coarse salt into the cavity and packs salt all over the outside of the turkey and then stores the bird in the refrigerator overnight. On Thanksgiving Day, she washes all the salt from the turkey. Using loads of butter, she rubs under the skin and over the skin and inside the turkey and seasons it with her favorite herbs and spices. I like to stuff the turkey with apple and onion wedges, fresh lemon wedges, cloves of fresh garlic, a little celery and a few fresh sage leaves. That’s it. So, we’re giving Aunt Martha’s method a try this year.

Today our meal will be late in the afternoon, so I don’t feel rushed right now. I just wanted to thank all of you who are such loyal readers of my blog and my newspaper column. You make my work so rewarding.

And, I wanted to show you the cute ginger snap turkeys that will mark each person’s place at our table this year. I used those sweet sugared orange slices that you can get in small bags in the candy aisle of the grocery store to stick on the back of each turkey to help them stand up.

The ginger snap dough makes darling Christmas cut-outs, too. You can find the recipe in my newspaper column this week along with a couple of pictures of the same dough in holiday shapes. Just click here.

Enjoy this beautiful day!

Filled Pastry Crescents hit the (Hungarian) Spot

Posted on by
4

Little crescents, rich with butter, sweetened with a generous filling of jam and dusted liberally with powdered sugar. These are the cookies my Hungarian grandma made. She called them kifli. They were delicious.

I would be more apt to call the flaky bites a pastry rather than just a cookie. My grandma filled the pastries with a thick plum or prune jam that she called lekvar. It’s not easy to find these days, so I use a premium apricot jam. It’s important to use a flavorful filling, since the pastry itself is not sweet.

The recipe I am sharing with you is one I found in my mom’s recipe box. I’m not sure it is the exact recipe my grandma used. I cheated a little and used my food processor to mix the dough. That can be tricky, because it’s important to be gentle with this pastry dough and not overwork it. My little sweets are probably less flaky than what they would have been if I’d used my own arm-power to mix the dough.

Hungarian Jam Crescents make a lovely little gift. They are just right with a cup of tea. And, they are a satisfying sweet bite after a meal of Hungarian Gulyas.

Hungarian Jam Crescents

  • 1 cup butter
  • 3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1/4 cup cold water
  • 3/4 cup jam
  • Powdered sugar

Blend butter, flour and salt. Stir in egg and egg yolks. Mix well. Gradually add water and mix until smooth. Chill for 2 to 3 hours. Divide dough into 4 pieces. Roll out one piece on a lightly floured pastry cloth to about a 12-inch round. Cut through to make 16 wedges. Spread jam on wedges (about 3 tablespoons per rolled round of pastry dough). Roll up each wedge, wide end to pointed end. Place on ungreased (or parchment-lined) baking sheet. Bake in 400-degree oven for about 12 minutes, until light golden brown. Cool completely. Store in airtight container. Dust with powdered sugar before serving. Makes 64.

These pastries can be stored in the freezer, in a tightly sealed freezer container, for up to a month.