SusieJ's Advent Calendar December 8, 2007

The recipe: Springerle

Springerle are another cookie that will last from the beginning of the month to the end. They are a two-day cookie, requiring half an hour of beating, then an hour of resting, rolling out, and another 12 hours of drying. If you have no Springerle mold, you can use any cookie stamp.

The surprise: More Springerle!

Springerle are a very old cookie (sometimes literally), and the molds used to make them are almost a folk art. New molds are machine carved, but you can still buy replicas of intricate, hand-carved designs.

Air Springerle

Springerle were never my favorite cookie; I preferred forgotten cookies which are oh-so-sweet and filled with chocolate chips. It didn't help that they can be hard as rocks. Anise was a more sophisticated taste preferred my mother and, later, my husband.

Because they are my mother's (and husband's) favorites, I make them every year, even when I'm getting married in mid-December, or when I spend Thanksgiving pregnant and laying floor.

It turns out they are also my godfather's favorite; this was not a surprise as he is my mother's cousin and the brother she never had. What is surprising is that his wife, the best baker I know, will not make them. Dozens of other kinds of cookies, but not Springerle. Since his mother stopped baking years before, who knows where his Springerle supply came from?

I learned of this sorry state of affairs while visiting Germany, in the middle of the after-dinner-drinks part of the dinner. This could not be allowed! My beloved godfather must have Springerle!

How, everyone asked, did I propose to ship the cookies to Stuttgart before they became stale?

FedEx! I replied (thankfully this translates directly into German).

And FedEx them that year I did. Two pounds of Springerle (which, really, isn't that many, these are a dense cookie), second day air to the tiny town where my family lives. Value? Without price (I declined the insurance). Cost? $50.

The most expensive cookies ever.

And he loved every bite.