Frosted Eggnog Logs

Not that I don’t eat cookies nearly constantly all year round, but the Holidays really seem made for them, and each year I delight in finding new and different recipes to make and share with my friends – I mean, to eat till I feel sick. This year my dear friend Lauryl sent me a link to an adaptation of a recipe she’s been making for years, and by coincidence, my dad’s wife also sent me a Xerox of an old recipe for the same thing! It was fate – I *had* to make them!

They really are the same recipe, the only difference being in the old recipe, you are advised to “shape the pieces of dough on sugared board into long rolls ½” in diameter.” Now I’m sure I could figure this out, but I don’t have a big board to use, and I’m not actually familiar with this technique, so I just hand-rolled little log shapes. The results are OK, but I think 1960 had something there, so I’m going to do them that way next time. SEE? The old ways are the best, people!

Below I’ve copied the new version, but see the image of the old page straight from some unknown magazine, dated December 1960. I don’t care which recipe you use, but you’ll be happy you tried these rummy delights! Make up a batch and share them – or keep them all to yourself!




Frosted Eggnog Logs

From Lauryl Berg (adapted from Cooks.com)



Cookies:



3 c. flour

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 c. butter

¾ c. sugar

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp rum



Frosting:

3 Tbsp butter, softened

½ tsp rum

½ tsp vanilla

2 ½ c. powdered sugar

2-3 Tbsp cream or milk

Food coloring (optional)



Cookies: in a mixing bowl, stir together flour and nutmeg. In a large bowl, bear butter for 30 seconds. Add sugar and beat until fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla and rum until combined. Add dry ingredients and beat well. Shape dough into 3 inch logs, about ½ inch wide. Arrange on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 15 to 17 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on racks.

Meanwhile, prepare the rum frosting. Frost tops of the cooked cookies. Mark frosting lengthwise with fork to resemble bark. Sprinkle with additional nutmeg if desired. Makes 4 ½ dozen.

Frosting: Beat together softened butter, rum and vanilla. Beat in ½ cup sifted powdered sugar. Gradually add more sifted powdered sugar (about 2 cups) and cream or milk. Beat until frosting spreads easily. Tint with green food coloring if desired.

Spekulatius or Speculaus

The Christmas Cookie Book, by Virginia Pasley, 1949

Yay, Christmas! One of my favorite holidays, thanks to the food! Cookies, eggnog, pies and cakes, hot toddies, chocolates… oooooh I’m drooling in preparation for tonight!

Since everything else tends to the rich side this time of year, I decided to do some lighter, yet still quite yummy, cookies. I actually had these cookies last year in a gift basket from a client – and this is one of the only times I have ever had something packaged that I was able, later, to find a printed recipe for! And this simple recipe is quite possibly even better than the ones I had from the package.

This book caught my eye originally because the author is a (excurse the expression!) dead ringer for my late grandmother. So much so, that looking at the photos actually disturbs me, and on top of the physical similarity (see photo!), they share the same name: Virginia. Naturally, I had to have it. What I like best about it is that, despite the age, she calls for things I can generally procure, which I think comes from the fact that she has included many “old world” or traditional European recipes that used basic ingredients. I did have to add corn starch to the regular flour to make cake flour, but everything else was quite standard. And tasty, give them a try – they are plain, almost biscuit-like. Perfect with coffee!


Spekulatius or Speculaus

½ cup butter
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 egg
Grated rind of half a lemon
1 tsp cinnaomon
½ tsp salt
2 ½ cups cake flour
½ tsp baking powder

Cream butter and sugar, add egg and continue beating. Then mix in grated rind and sifter dry ingredients. Chill for several hours before rolling out and cutting into fancy shapes. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

Notes: The old German recipe for this cookie (which is believed to be of Dutch origin) called for an ounce of cinnamon for this much dough, typical of the heavy hand with spices of the old recipes. It also specified that the butter, sugar, flour and eggs be stirred all together at once, the dough stored overnight and the baking powder sprinkled over it and kneaded into the mixture the next day before rolling out.

Chocolate Malt Cookies aka DS-ers

As I sit engulfed in the intoxicating fumes of melting chocolate, (*NOTE: melt the chocolate in a double boiler or in the microwave, if you are brave enough to own one of those new-fangled contraptions!), I perform the age-old ritual of watching the oven while the cookies bake, barely patient enough to endure the 12 -15 minutes needed to transform flour, salt, sugar and vanilla (and a few other key elements) into divine and heavenly baked-chocolate morsels. I also know full-well that I will not be able to wait for them to properly cool, and so I will burn my tongue, as I do every single time I bake these cookies.

I am starting with this recipe because it is quite possibly the first thing I ever learned to cook. Even before I went to French school, where we were taught how to bake Madeleines, and to kids’ cooking school, where I even cooked fish, (something I would not willingly consume for nearly 20 years) I helped my mother bake these, my dad’s favorite cookies. And though I didn’t use any vintage bake-ware in their creation (I have a new Kitchen Aid stand mixer, a new silicone scraper and I recently bought new cookie sheets), I will remove them from the oven with a vintage pot holder, and store them (Oh really, who am I kidding, like there will be any left in 20 minutes!) in vintage tupperware.

Though the cookies themselves are FABULOUS, it is really the name that is the story. As I have been told, when my mother was a new bride in 1965, she was told she needed to cook and bake up a storm to please her new husband. She did so, even cooking meat for him though she was a life-long vegetarian. So one day, she lovingly whipped up a batch of these Chocolate Malt Cookies, thinking how my dad was sure to love them as he tends to love anything made with chocolate, and these were a family favorite, dating back to the 20s. Now my father is not one to hide his feelings, and unfortunately, the shape and color of the cookies bore a striking resemblance (in his mind) to animal droppings! He apparently proclaimed that he was Not Eating any of those g-d Dog S*it cookies. Somehow my mother convinced him to try one (though I can’t imagine how, as this was a man who jumped RIGHT on the “Real Med Don’t eat Quiche” band wagon of the late 70s) and he discovered that, in fact, they were perhaps The Best thing he had ever eaten!

So thus, his new favorite cookies, the ones I helped cook every year thereafter for his birthday and on many, many other occasions, and, in fact, on a nearly weekly basis during one memorable phase in college, were christened: DS-ers!

Ingredients:
1 cup butter (room temp)
3 oz cream cheese (room temp)
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
2 Tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 oz unsweetened chocolate; melted (double boiler or microwave - do not scorch!)
2 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts - OPTIONAL! My dad hates nuts so I don't include them

Method:
1. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or microwave, being careful not to scorch it
2. Cream butter, cheese and sugar, then add egg, milk and vanilla
3. Stir in melted chocolate
4. Sift dry ingredients together, add the liquid and blend
5. Stir in nuts IF USING
6. Drop from teaspoon onto cookie sheet (no need to grease or line) OR use a small melon baller
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 min
8. Remove to wire rack to cool - ENJOY!