Bizcochitos

Have you ever had half a container of something you'll never consume again but hate to just pitch the rest?  I needed a couple cups of sweet red wine for a marinade and had rather a lot left over (and sweet wines tend not to get drunk at my house).  Cue the New Mexico official state cookie, Bizcochitos, to the rescue.

You don't have to use wine...in fact, there are a great many recipes for this cookie out there.  Some use sweet white wine, some sweet red, some a fortified wine like cream sherry or Madeira, some brandy and some just call for orange juice.  The really neat thing here is how to handle a rollout cookie when you don't want or have time to roll out dough.

Ordinarily, you would refrigerate the cookie dough for a few hours, then roll out and cut into 2" circles.  Firstly, this dough is very soft and tender which means it's a you-know-what to roll out.  Secondly, I hate rolling out dough, even easy-to-handle dough.  So I tried this as a slice-and-bake.  One recipe's worth fit perfectly into an 8x8 plastic wrap lined baking dish.  I fridged the dough as a solid square, then cut the square into 4 "logs", then sliced the logs for cookies.  The only issue is that the "logs" are square rather than round, but after fridging, you could roll them a bit to round them out if you really wanted.  Either way, much easier and tidier than rolling out and cutting shapes.

Note too that traditionally these cookies are made with lard.  Not having any on hand, I used a combo of shortening and butter.  Substitute 2 cups lard for the other fats if you want.

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Pfefferneuse Cookies

I don't sprechen much Deutsch so while due diligence has been done on spelling and noun morphology, please forgive the errors that certainly remain.

When I told my husband that I planned to make pfeffernuse (pronounced feffer-noose), he looked alarmed.  I think he related the name to the famous German game meat stew hasenpfeffer and thought I was proposing he eat rabbit-meat cookies.

What the two recipes have in common is pfeffer, "pepper" (not rabbit, hasen).  These are little spice cookies that do indeed include pepper along with cinnamon, cloves and candied citrus peel.  This the traditional "peppernut" flavor combination, but you can use this recipe as a jumping-off point for several flavor variations which I'll include at the end of the recipe.  I've made some of these variations before, and some are notes for things to try in the future.  The original recipe is from Reader's Digest's "A Family Christmas".

They are the perfect make-ahead holiday cookie as they must be baked 2-3 weeks before eating.  They come out of the oven hard but soften with storage.  They are ideal if you want to make holiday cookies but don't want to be baking in the thick of December.

Today's I Screw Up So You Don't Have To...when you toss the cookies with confectioners sugar at the end, don't knock excess sugar off the cookies by throwing them on the floor.  Or by letting a 3yo help you with that step. 

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