The jam stars – as Susan calls them – or Spitzbuben, as Max & Patrick say, are made and in the freezer, as are the fruit & nut balls, the Molly Wizenberg recipe that I’ve been making since her first book came out in 2009.
2015 fruit & nut balls
But, I made the Joy of Cooking lebkuchen last night, my usual double batch, two 13 x 9 pans. I usually think they are kind of a slam dunk – they’re a bar cookie, much easier than the Rose’s Christmas Cookies version that is delicious but really difficult – and not only did I forget to put the almonds in, they baked up kind of hard. I think Rose’s is like a traditional Nuremberg recipe, candied fruit and nuts ground up and held together with egg – sticky, and they crumple up when you try to get them off the pan.
So, tonight, rather than tackling another cookie kind, I packed the fruit & nut balls and cut and packed the lebkuchen, with an apple half to soften them up. And then I remade a single batch of the lebkuchen. And oh yeah, finally folded that second basket of laundry. Socks, handkerchiefs, and other critical items, considering that – knock wood and fingers crossed – our early cold weather in WI has continued even as I’ve started baking.
And hope springs eternal in cookie season. I’ve always wanted to make mincemeat tarts as part of the cookie pantheon, and this year I’m going to do it, and they’re going to be vegan. I made the mincemeat tonight, with coconut oil replacing the butter, and not replacing the brandy and dried fruits and candied orange peel and spices and it smells Christmas-y. I also set the fruit for the baby fruitcakes to marinate in bourbon and sherry, and it smells Christmas-y, too.