SusieJ's Advent Calendar December 07, 2012

Ethan Becker: Joy of Cooking Christmas Cookies

I remember [Pop's] alost devilish delight in making the eggnogn. This was his wintertime speciality, and it was an eggnog suitable for stunning oxen.

The Joy of Cooking Christmas Cookies was published when Ethen Beckerupdated his mother and grandmother's cookbook, The Joy of Cooking, in the 90s. Becker included all of his grandmother's German cookie from the first publication and various additions, and added his own recipes. It's compact, but they packed a good overview of Christmas cookies in America into the slim volume.

[Christmas trees for sale on South Street, 2009]Personally, I credit the earlier editions of Joy with making some regional German and middle European Christmas cookies better known in America than they are in Germany, outside of their region of origin, particularly Springerle.*

My own favorites are the Mexican wedding cakes, pecan lace, bourbon balls (a version of which my mother has made all my life and is on this site). The recipes are still in the traditional Joy format, with the ingredients interspersed in now-updated directions.


* When we hosted our first German exchange student, there were two other German students in his school. I eagerly baked the students -- who were from Magdeburg, Berlin and Hamburg -- a batch of Springerle, which are a specialty of Stuttgart. It was like serving po' boys to kids who'd grown up eating hoagies and cheesesteaks.