Springerle Cookies--Playing the Waiting Game

Have you ever found something at a yard or rummage sale and wondered what it was and what it was used for? A few years back I found a cool wooden rolling pin at a garage sale.

After a little research, I found out that what I had puchased for a dollar was a springerle rolling pin. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, here's the lowdown from wikipedia:

Springerle is a type of German biscuit with an embossed design made by pressing a mold onto rolled dough and allowing the impression to dry before baking. This preserves the detail of the surface pattern. They are most commonly seen during the Christmas season.

The name springerle means "little jumper" or "little knight". Their origin can be traced back to at least the 14th century in southeastern Germany and surrounding areas.

As someone who loves cooking gadgets, and an artist who enjoys looking at the detail in things, I was very excited at the prospect of baking some of these biscuits, especially since I'm a history buff too, and it looked like the tradition of springerle is an old one. The rolling pin, although cute, features designs that are handcarved, but sort of crude. From my research into springerle, I discovered that hand carved wooden molds with more intricate detail are commonly used. I even found some modern-day artisans (mostly in Pennsylvania Dutch country) selling these molds online. (Here's one such vendor: http://www.cookiemold.com/CookieMoldsSPRINGERLEmultiples.html)

Well, a few months ago, I stumbled upon a 4" x 6," four-panel springerle mold at a rummage sale. It cost me 25-cents and I was thrilled with its detail. Here's a photo:

Now that I own a detailed mold, I decided to bake some springerle cookies for the holidays this year.  I always give a new recipe a trial run, before I actually rely on it. Because I'd read all about what an arduous process springerle making is, I decided to try the recipe out way before Christmas. As in yesterday. Undaunted, I scoured my cookbooks for a recipe and found one that seemed reasonable.

Here's the thing about springerle--there's a lot of waiting involved in making these biscuits. You don't wake up in the morning and say, "Hey, I'm in the mood for springerle--I think I'll bake some today." Oh no. There's a reason these cookies look like works of art when they're done. They take time. Lots and lots and lots of time.

Without getting into too many recipe specifics, suffice it to say, right off the bat, the time you spend beating eggs and sugar at the beginning of the process seems excessive. One recipe said to beat at high speed for 30 minutes! I know my electric mixer would have overheated if I'd attempted such a thing. I opted for a recipe that required about 13 minutes, and that seemed like a long time to wait.

Once the dough is done, you must let it chill in the refrigerator overnight. More waiting.

Next day, you carefully roll out the dough and impress it with your molds, then cut the cookies out along their frame lines. I was dumbfounded this morning when I attempted my first impression and it came out perfectly! I would have bet a million bucks that there was no way I'd capture the detail of the mold in the cookie dough, but it worked. Here's a pic of my unbaked cookies on the sheet (the other little things on the sheet are anise seeds, a common springerle flavorant).

Anyway, there's even more waiting involved before these cookies are finished. In order to preserve the impressions, the cookies have to dry out by sitting at room temperature for a day. Mine are doing just that now, under napkins, of course. Tomorrow I get to bake them. And then, there's more waiting. You can't eat springerle until they have cured by sitting in a cookie tin for three weeks. For real. Have you ever heard of working so hard for a biscuit?

If you've never eaten springerle (I have), they are something of an acquired taste. They are quite hard, subtly flavored (my recipe has lemon peel and anise seed in it), and bland. But I happen to love the flavor of licorice ad enjoy hard biscuits to dunk in tea, so I like these cookies.

Tomorrow, my pretties go into the oven, and then into a tin for safekeeping for the next 21 days. I will update the blog with the results of my springerle baking on November 29. And if they actually work out, I'll post the recipe I used. So far, so good.