Peppernuts
1¼ pounds brown sugar 3 eggs 1 cup chopped walnuts 1 teaspoon cloves 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1¼ teaspoons soda 1 tablespoon hot water Flour to make dough Beat the eggs thoroughly; add the sugar and beat again. Then add the chopped walnuts and spices and some of the flour. Add the soda dissolved in the hot water and more flour-enough to make a dough that can be rolled out on a pie board. Roll one eighth of an inch thick; cut into tiny rounds and bake on greased tins.
A stiff rolled dough rather than a drop cookie, and the recipe leaves both the flour quantity and the oven to the cook's judgment. A few numbers make it workable.
- Flour to make doughThe original gives no figure because it depends on egg size and how wet the sugar is. Expect roughly 4 to 5 cups; stop when the dough is firm enough to roll at an eighth of an inch without sticking, and chill it an hour if it resists.
- SodaPlain bicarbonate of soda, not baking powder. Dissolving it in a tablespoon of hot water before it goes in is the correct method here — it disperses evenly through a dough too stiff to take dry powder well.
- Brown sugar by weight1¼ pounds is about 2¾ cups firmly packed. Brown sugar of this period was often moister and less refined than modern supermarket light brown; a dark brown sugar may give a closer flavour.
- OvenNone is stated. A moderate oven, 350F, is right for these; 8 to 10 minutes for rounds this thin. They should be dry and just coloured at the edge, not browned through.
- How small is tinyTraditional peppernuts are cut small, roughly ¾ inch to an inch across. A small round cutter, a bottle cap or the wide end of a piping tip all work.
- Greased tinsParchment on a flat sheet is easier and stops the sugar-heavy dough from catching. These have enough sugar to stick firmly to bare metal once cool.
- Texture and keepingPeppernuts are meant to harden. They are dry and almost tooth-breaking the day they are baked and soften over a week or two in a tin, ideally with a slice of apple. Do not judge them fresh from the oven.
Peppernuts are the English name for Pfeffernüsse, the small hard spice cookies carried into American kitchens by German and Dutch immigrant communities, where they also appear as pepernoten in Dutch households and as a fixture of Mennonite and Pennsylvania German Christmas baking. The pepper of the name is usually taken to refer to the general class of costly imported spices rather than black pepper specifically, though many older versions do include it; this one relies on cloves and cinnamon alone. The hardness is the point rather than a fault — a dough this dry and this sugar-heavy keeps for weeks, which is why the type survived as a seasonal cookie baked well in advance of the holiday and stored in tins. The walnuts here are an American touch; European versions more often use ground almonds or none at all.