Mom's Fabulous Pfeffernuesse
"A delicious and rich little spice cookie-very flavorful and perfect for tea. My mother sends me some every year around Christmas, but they're so good that I begged her for the recipe. My favorite aunt Ava's version uses molasses instead of honey, but a combination is nice, and the honey helps them stay fresh."
photo by mianbao
- Ready In:
- 40mins
- Ingredients:
- 16
- Yields:
-
26 dozen
ingredients
- 1 1⁄4 cups butter
- 1 1⁄4 cups brown sugar, packed
- 3⁄4 cup honey (OR a combination) or 3/4 cup molasses (OR a combination)
- 1⁄2 cup water
- 1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 dash pepper
- 1⁄2 teaspoon clove
- 1⁄2 teaspoon allspice
- 1⁄4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1⁄4 teaspoon mace
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1⁄8 teaspoon cardamom
- 6 cups flour
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon anise extract
- 2 cups nuts, chopped
directions
- Cream butter, add sugar, cream well.
- Blend in honey (molasses) and 1/2 of water.
- Dissolve soda in remaining water.
- Add with sifted dry ingredients, anise and nuts to creamed mixture.
- Mix well.
- Chill.
- On greased cookie sheets, 10- 12 min, 375F.
- My mother used to make long rolls of dough, 3/4 in.
- thick, and slice'em off.
- Ava has some kind of sausage stuffer- works on same principle.
- I use a melon-baller, which does take some time.
- My batch is usually 26 dozen or so, if I remember right.
- Good luck and enjoy.
- Love, Mom.
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Reviews
-
These are so cute, so tasty, so crisp! They're lovely. I made half a batch, following the recipe carefully, using half molasses and half honey. I used toasted almonds as the nuts. I did look at other similar recipes, and noticed that a lot of them contained eggs, which this one does not. I was a little concerned about that, but they turned out fine. I did get about 13 dozen for the half batch, so the yield is quite accurate, too. These don't spread very much, so it is possible to place the pieces of dough relatively close to each other. I shaped the dough into rolls about the diameter of a nickle, cut them, then briefly rounded them off with my hands. Maybe because I often make bread with sticky dough, this dough didn't seem all that sticky to me. And I think I got the measurements correct, but these didn't seem so very spicy to me. The flavor is nice, just not very strong, IMO. That may just be old taste buds, though. Thank you very much for this special recipe. Please thank your mother for me, too.
