Peppernuts...a Family Tradition

The Christmas season is a great time for me to think about all the "traditional" family activities I grew up with.

Here is one that we do every year...peppernuts. These are little, tiny, miniscule cookies that come from my Russian-Mennonite background. There are several recipes to use, some have nuts, some don't, some have anise flavoring, some don't, some are made to be hard and some are made to be soft. The only truly important thing is that they are all made to be SMALL. The smaller, the better. Sometimes so small that you can hardly see them on the tray. I am not kidding!

The trouble with this is that it is not something I enjoy. I do enjoy mixing the dough, rolling out the "snakes" for cutting, and taking the cookies off the trays after they are baked. However, I DO NOT like to cut them. They stick to the knife, stick to the cutting board, stick to my fingers, you get the idea.

Luckily, this year we had 4 cutters in our family (yes, we decided Jedrek needed to wait another year to use a knife...call us overprotective), so the process went much faster.

These cookies are actually MONSTROUS when compared my family's normal expectations. I am using the "I have a 1 year old who pulls at my legs anytime I am cooking and not paying enough attention to him" excuse this year.Still, after all was said and done this was all that we had. (I burned 2 batches that had to be thrown away and I froze some for later...don't tell my family because they don't know)

All of the cookies you see in this jar, however, are already gone...

One year when Wayne and I were dating, we, along with my dad, made a 5 gallon bucket full of peppernuts. Yes, that's right, a 5 gallon bucket full of teeny, tiny, miniscule cookies.

The good thing is that you can eat a dozen (or two or three) without feeling guilty!