Recipe Notes

I’m a big fan of getting creative in the kitchen, whether it’s with a recipe of my own or an already composed winner from a favourite cook book. The same rule applies to this bonbon recipe, so I encourage you to use your imagination with these cute cookies, to go crazy with colour combinations, fillings, and toppings. Dried fruits, candied ginger, chocolate chunks, anything you think would make an agreeable centre. And who said there was anything wrong with an electric blue cookie with hot pink icing? Topped with almond slivers and chocolate chips?

Achieve a marbled effect with the dough by waiting until everything is mixed before adding the colouring, mixing it in last until your dough acquires the desire look. Heck, why not try multiple colours?

Yes, these cookies would be great for children. This I know, because I am one. A children, that is. Not a cookie.

When I discussed making anatomically correct cookies last week, anise cutouts were truly the base of the inspiration. Another annual mother-daughter(s) event, decorating these cookies was one of the highlights of my year and, despite no longer celebrating Christmas, I cannot help but continue this seasonal tradition on my own. Unfortunately with age the patience to make body part cookies has worn ever so slightly thin. Must regress again to childhood.

Recipe Notes

Based on a classic family recipe, everyone in mine seems to have a preference for how these cookies are made. Some like them burnt, some don’t like sugar sprinkles and others express size preferences. Here are a few tips to get what you want out of your cookie:

• To obtain a crisp and slightly burnt cookie roll the dough out very thinly and/or use smaller cookie cutters and/or increase baking time by a minute or three.
• If you prefer a softer end result, don’t go thinner than 1/8 inch and err on the side lesser cooking.
• To piss off your uncle, put a tonne of coloured sugar on as decoration. Of course I don’t know this out of experience or anything.
• For evenness in cooking, try to make sure all the cookies in the oven at one time are of uniform size and thickness.

Which I am not. I just like egg(less)nog.

And coffee.

Recipe Notes

Depending on the desired consistency of the end result, you can use between 1/4 and 1/3 a cup of water. Obviously the former will produce a thicker syrup and, in my case, so will the latter. This is because I would have spilled all of the extra water down myself.

If you feel the need, you can strain the spices, but I personally like the texture.

Not a coffee fan? Don’t worry; this recipe is good for lots of other things too. Have a few suggestions:

• Pancake syrup
• Hot cocoa enhancer
• Top your favourite ice-cream(less)
• With hot rum (okay I’m making this up, but it does sound good
• Flavour cakes
• An easy gift in a pretty bottle!

The last time I visited my family in the U.S. my mother passed along an old German baking manual and I recently got around to taking a look at its inspiring if somewhat dated recipes. A German book printed in the early 1970s at a guess, there’s no such thing as a vegan recipe in its contents. It’s a good thing veganising most (imagine me sighing in memory of macarons) cookies is pretty straightforward!

When I bake cookies, I have all sorts of good intentions. I tell myself things like “just have 2 or 3 a day and they will last” or “maybe if you only make a dozen you’ll be more likely to savour them so they last until the weekend.” Sometimes I even tell myself I should save some for my hard-working husband.

I generally eat all the cookies by myself, quickly. Paul, if he’s lucky, might manage to scavenge a couple.

Recipe Notes

Raise your hand if you’ve already thought, “but wait a minutes! Those aren’t black and white cookies!” What you might traditionally think of as black and white cookies are coated with split black and white fondant frosting, apparently quite a favourite in New York. These cookies, however, resemble a shortbread with a mild cocoa rum twist.

I use a couple of teaspoons of rum in the recipe. Its impact on the overall flavour isn’t huge, but it does add a mellow extra something. If you don’t have any though, I don’t think the world will end if you leave it out.

Get creative with the dough! You’ve got two different colours on your hands, so twist and twirl it to your heart’s content and make some cool designs! The easiest is to make two small balls of dough and press together. Other options include mixing the dough together a bit so you get a swirled effect. You can also roll the dough into thin snakes for spiral effects.

German cookies tend to use far less sugar than American and British counterparts. This of course means they are less sweet, but it doesn’t mean they’re less good! Besides, it means it’s more acceptable that I eat virtually the entire batch by myself.

Right?

My husband has a hard time with this one, not I believe because of its flavour, but because it’s hard for him (and many people) to conceive of certain foods being served in certain ways.

“But think about pumpkin pie,” I said. He reminded me pumpkin pie is not so common in the UK. Oops. Well I think it’s good.

So yes, it’s a little like pumpkin pie ice cream. I had a big kabocha/sweet mama squash sitting around being begged to be used and I got to thinking about what could be made of the thing. I knew I’d roast some, but not all, so what about the rest? Ice cream! Why not?

Recipe Notes

I steamed my squash by cutting into small pieces and placing in a bamboo steamer lined with greaseproof paper. If you have a steaming basket, that works too.

I purposely made the recipe not too sickly sweet, but hubby thinks it’s perhaps not sweet enough. I still disagree but if you’ve got a great big sweet tooth then you might want to consider adding more than 1/3 cup of sugar.

If preferred, you can filter the mixture through a sieve to remove any ginger pieces or little strands of squash before adding it to your ice cream maker. This is, however, by no means necessary.

Don’t have kabocha squash? How about trying pumpkin or butternut squash instead?