Christmas cookies and Estonian piparkoogid

Marzipan cookies

 

In Switzerland and Germany the typical Christmas cookies are Vanille Kipferln (vanilla half moons), Zimt Sterne (cinnamon and almond stars), and many others often made with ground almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts.

This year I set out to extend the line of the cookies and pair the dark Piparkoogid with a contrasting marzipan and orange cookies.

Marzipan - orange cookies from Germany

Piparkoogid are traditional Christmas cookies in Estonia and Scandinavia. Christmas and New Year without piparkoogid just doesn´t feel right. Piparkoogid are made with lots of different spices, cinnamon, ginger, clove, cardamom, nutmeg, orange peel, black pepper. The most important part of the preparation of the dough is burning the sugar. It gets very very hot, must not be over burnt, but under burning leaves the cookies too pale. The burnt sugar gives the piparkoogid the brown colour. It is good to let the dough rest for at least 24 hours and it can stay in the fridge even for a month. It almost has to given the volumes that all get baked during the last weeks of December.

Estonian Piparkoogid - Christmas ginger cookies

My Mom bakes lots of them for my Dad and for all the friends of the family. I usually make half of her  portion and that amounts to roughly 1000 pieces. So you can imagine a big basket of piparkoogid at my parents that gets filled and emptied and filled again. I must add that we love the very small ones and because they are small the hand just doesn´t stop going back to the bowl for more...and more...

Making Estonian Piparkoogid from dough

Small Piparkoogid are the best

I hope Santa will be in my town on the 24th, any day really would be good. He is a busy man visiting all of your towns too and hopefully with some foodie presents in his sack.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Pear and Persimmon Polenta Bread

Polenta Bread with Persimmon Kaki and Pear

I am lucky to have a lot of very international colleagues. My colleague who comes from Florida, a highly skilled cook herself, has awakened my palet to corn bread. This introduction happened last year during our cookbook project. To be perfectly honest I had mixed feelings with the first bite of her corn bread. On one hand I was so happy to have found something that is so simple, so tasty with qualities that would make a dish a family favourite instantly and on the other hand I couldn´t believe that it had taken me decades to get acquainted with this US staple. Of course I know why it is. Corn is not a staple in Estonia or in northern Europe for that matter. Polenta is more a southern European ingredient. It is grown in Italy or in Ticino in my current country Switzerland. In any case corn bread has found a place on my favourites list.

Today I am sharing a fruity version of the corn bread. Both pears and persimmons are quite sweet fruits and therefore don´t require too much added sugar. The changes to my friend´s recipe include adding the sour cream and the fruit, changing the quantities of flour, sugar and bicarbonate baking soda.

Pear and Persimmon Polenta Bread
Ingredients:

200g fine polenta
100g flour
1tsp bicarbonate soda
300dl butter milk
100g sour cream
2 large eggs
4 tbsp sugar
0.5 tsp salt
50g butter, melted
1 medium large pear (250g), grated
1 persimmon kaki, grated

Set the oven on 200 degrees Celsius.
In a large bowl whisk together butter milk, sour cream, eggs, sugar, salt and bicarbonate soda.
Add grated pear and persimmon, melted butter as well as the flour and polenta.
Combine everything into a smooth batter.

Fit baking paper into a tray (eg. 20 x 30cm) and trasfer the batter into the baking tray.

Bake for 30 minutes until golden brown.

Serve warm or cold. Dust powdered sugar on top if you prefer.

Fruity Corn Bread with Pear and Persimmon