Soft Springerle Cookies

I was talking with someone about cookies. She is an older woman and said she missed cookies her grandmother made; Springerle cookies that were not hard. She'd go to buy them from the local German deli and just had to leave them on the shelf because they were hard like rocks. "You'd break a tooth!"

Having purchased a Springerle rolling pin last year and only giving the cookies a go twice, and not liking the HARD outcome I thought maybe that's a thing. SOFT Springerle.

Hello Google. I came to find out that the hard ones get soft weeks later. And I'm sure they were designed to be hard to hold for months of pre holiday baking or post holiday consumption. Right. But I wanted fresh, soft, quick cookies.

I haven't mentioned that traditionally you roll them, cut them out, and dry the cookies over night; then bake them. The idea is that it holds the shape pressed into the cookie. I didn't want to wait a day, so I rolled them out and put them under a ceiling fan spinning quickly for a few hours until they were drier on top than the bottom. Then I baked the Springerle. Isn't that so 2013? Take a long process and shorten it up. Sadly I don't have a grandmother's month old cookie to compare them to. But the older women who initially put the thought in my head  said they were right on.

Soft Springerle Cookies.

1 stick butter

1 pound raw sugar or 1/2 brown and 1/2 white sugars

4 eggs

2 tsp. anise oil

zest of 1 lemon

4 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

Cream the butter and sugar for 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time. Scrape the sides. Add the oil and lemon and blend. Mix the baking powder to flour add the flour to the butter mixture. The mixture will be very stiff.

To shape:

Take half the dough, refrigerate the other half and roll on a floured surface or between floured parchment paper with a regular rolling pin. Use the Springerle rolling pin or cookie presses to press design into dough. Cut apart and place on parchment lined cookie sheet. Continue until all dough is used up. Set under a fan for 2 to 3 hours depending on how humid your area is.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, make sure the cookies are dry to the touch.

Are there cookie recipes you'd want to up date? I have a short list of others. We'll see.