Cookie Nostalgia

Today I'm baking springerles for the men in my life at the LCKlopfenstein family Christmas. I always feel as if both my grandmothers would smile knowing I was carrying on their baking tradition for Lynny-Boy and Mark as well as Mike, Joey, and Andrew who never got to eat their wonderful springerles.

I tend to get rather nostalgic when it comes to Christmas baking.

Two years ago this weekend I was in Washington, IL learning how to make these cookies better than I ever had before with Betty Schumacher, my mom's long-time friend and maid of honor. From her I learned a few tips most importantly of which was I NEEDED a KitchenAid mixer. I actually got one in the process of losing my job a year ago. These are the cookies I made with her.

And this is my KitchenAid mixer. I like red.

One year ago I made springerles with my dear Mary Lee. She laughed at my quirks about cookie and especially springerle cookie baking. That's ok--I bake a lot of love into my cookies.

In 1986 my sister Mary came to visit me in IL just before Christmas. We were in a small kitchen store on the square in Washington and saw a springerle rolling pin. We knew Mom really wanted one, but the $17 or $18 price seemed pretty high for two pretty poor recent college grads. However, we splurged to give it to her. Just a few weeks later we were shopping in Boaz, AL and found springerle rolling pins at a kitchen outlet for $2.97!

For the next few years I would make the springerles with Mom's help always trying to recreate the springerles we remembered-mostly misses with an occasional hit.

In 1988 I moved into an apartment in Morton, IL. In another building of that complex my grandmother's first cousin lived. Anna Freidinger was also a springerle extraordinaire who taught me not to roll the dough too thin. She also taught me that it was much better to use a rolling pin that was three cookies wide instead of six.

About 2006 I read an article in the GR Press about a recently released book that told the story of springerle cookies. Many, many years ago a minister in Germany wanted his illiterate parishioners to have the story of the birth of Jesus in front of them. He and his family carefully carved various nativity scenes in blocks of wood and cut out cookies that told the Christmas story. My dear friend Jayne from Handbells saw my blog post about the book and the next year she had a very special gift for me.