Eat a lot: old fashioned Dutch pepernoten

Today's the day I heard the first Christmas song on the radio here in Berlin. It's also the day I baked pepernoten. In Holland, the two are mutually exclusive. Until it's 5 december, all signs of Santa, dressed up pine trees, mulled wine and candy canes are hidden so as not to offend that other beardy old man, Sinterklaas, and his believers.

For it's today that Dutch children get their mountain of gifts. (On Christmas Day, the Dutch do the overeating bit just like everyone else, only without the presents.) Today, it's 'present night'! And it comes with its own food, as every good tradition does.

The most quintessential of all Sinterklaas food is the pepernoot (peppernut, or spiced nut if you like). It's a cookie type snack the size of a nut, made with rye flour and spiced with cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves and nutmeg. A few days ago, I made the dough to make the old fashioned variety of pepernoten, the Chewy Ones.

(The newfangled Crunchy Ones are soooo over, even the ones dipped in chocolate (or, shock horror, cappuccino flavoured stuff) and no way near artisan and purist enough. Didn't you know?)

So old skool chewy pepernoten is what I made, and although people say you can never get them as tasty as the ones from a proper bakery, they came pretty close, flavour wise. Texture is another matter entirely. My chewy peppernuts are not chewy enough! I think it's a matter of bagging them in plastic when still hot from the oven. I left them out to cool instead, and ended up with fairly crunchy outsides and a chewy texture within. Best of both worlds, perhaps. I may let them sit for another few days. All crunchy biscuits go chewy in the end, right? 

Old fashioned pepernoten

Makes about 50

200 g rye flour

175 g plain flour

salt

3 tsp ground cinnamon

1½ tsp ground ginger

½ tsp ground cardamom

½ tsp ground cloves

½ tsp ground nutmeg 

1 tbsp aniseed

200 g mild honey

75 g golden syrup

1 tsp baking powder

The day before

Sift the flours, salt and spices over a bowl. Grind the aniseed in a pestle and mortar until you have a fine dust, then add to the bowl. Carefully heat the honey and golden syrup with 80 ml water until it's gone runny. Pour into the bowl and knead into a dough (you can use a hand mixer with dough attachment for this). Pat into a ball and leave to cool. Once cool, wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge for at least a day (I left it for two days).

On the day

Take the dough from the fridge and leave it to come up to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Spread out the dough on a worktop and sprinkle over the baking powder. Knead the dough with wet hands, adding a few drops of water if the dough is too dry or stiff, until the baking powder is well distributed.

Roll out the dough to a thickness of about ½-¾ inch (1½-2 cm) and cut into ½ inch (1½ cm) strips. Cut each strip into cubes and place onto the baking paper. Bake them in the oven for 20-25 minutes until browned. Leave them to cool a little, then place in a plastic bag, tie to seal and leave to cool completely. (Perhaps covering them with a tea towel would work as well. I wouldn't take the chance though, these really need to be as chewy as they can be.)

This recipe was adapted from a Volkskrant recipe.

The fancy banner on the picture was practice for my Photoshop 101 course at the wonderful Nicole's Classes.