These cookies beautifully exemplify the rugged roots of Polish culture from centuries ago–or at least my exotic view of it. They are crunchy, gritty, and sharp-tasting. They are not very sweet, although a lot of honey goes into them. I can imagine munching on them after a long, exhausting trek through snowy, mountainous terrain. No buttery smooth mouthfeel. No rich tasting, sweet pillows of cookie to sink your teeth into. Basically, these cookies challenge our overly pampered taste buds of today. As far as sweet treats go, they seem to be on the healthy side. And it looks as though they can be stored forever (but I’m still testing out my theory).
Here is my 9-year old daughter sneaking a cookie.
Little did she know what she was in for. These are almost like ginger snaps, but with hardened honey keeping the cookie together. No eggs, no fats, and no dairy. It’s made up of rye flour, honey, and spices (and, in my case, baking soda, which is a more modern invention). Dip this cookie in some coffee, and the hardened honey begins to melt, and it tastes pretty interesting, uh, I mean, good. Quite a different cookie from today’s Polish gingerbread cookies, pierniczki.
It turns out that pierniczki are not just an icon in Polish cookery, but also in Russian cookery. In Russian, they are called medoviya prianiki. I came across a wonderful article from 2008 by Lisa Kies, The Prianiki Project, which goes over some history and works through several recipes to try to get the ultimate goal: tasty, moldable, old-style prianiki. She also did some comparison studies between her recipe of medovija prianiki with 14th Century English gingerbread cookies (made of honey and breadcrumbs), Dutch speculaas, German springerle, and German lebkuchen, the last of which we are probably most familiar with, especially if you’ve visited Trader’s Joe’s in the weeks leading up to Christmas. But boy was it a different cookie centuries ago. She found that the old recipe for lebkuchen was very similar to medovija prianiki, except that regular flour was used and sugar was added. But they baked the same way in that the cookies turned out hard and dry when cooled. In case you are wondering about the other cookies, the English gingerbread wasn’t baked and was more like a confection. The speculaas and springerle used other additives, like eggs and butter, so they produced altogether different cookies than lebkuchen but still different from what we know them to be today. Looks like over the centuries, improvements were made here and there.
I’m not too interested in taking advantage of the improvements right now as I am in tasting a piece of history. So, here we are at my attempt to make old-style pierniczki. I did keep the baking soda in it (which wasn’t invented until the 19th century), but I have read that it doesn’t make too much of a difference. With the baking soda, the cookies puff up during the second half of baking which is truly a sight to see!
First, I got the spices ready.
I then grated some orange zest and put it in a pan with some melted butter, cooking it until the zest was transparent.
Then it was time to multi-task at the stove. I toasted the rye flour in a big pan at the same time I heated some honey with a little bit of alcohol.
I stirred the flour to prevent burning in spots, while I skimmed “scum” off the top of the honey.
When the flour started to take on some color in patches, I took the pan off the heat.
I mixed orange zest and spices into the hot honey.
I scooped up almost a full tablespoon of baking soda.
And then added it to the flour.
It was time to put all the ingredients together. If I were being authentic, I would have used a wooden spoon, but, well, I wimped out. Using my electric mixer with the paddle attachment, I mixed the flour and then slowly poured the honey mixture into it.
I was in store for at least 15 minutes of mixing.
Doesn’t this look lovely?
It was getting harder and harder to mix as the minutes ticked by. I switched to a dough hook so that my ancient Kitchen Aid mixer didn’t overheat and die on me!
I formed balls of dough with my hands. I found that wetting my hands with water prevented the dough from sticking. The dough was actually surprisingly easy to handle.
I placed my dough balls on parchment lined cookie sheets, flattening them slightly.
For my first batch, I used 1 tablespoon of dough for each dough ball. I spaced them out pretty far apart.
Well, I didn’t space them far enough apart, because half way through baking, they grew to be huge, and the cookies ended up stuck together.
For my second and final batch, I used 1 teaspoon (rounded) of dough for each dough ball. This time, they did not fuse together while baking.
They were very delicate when fresh out of the oven, so they had to cool on the pan for a few minutes before being transferred to a wire rack to cool completely.
When completely cool, they were light, airy, dry, and crunchy. The crunch comes from the hardened honey, which makes for an interesting bite.
And there you have it–a blast from the past!
Servings |
dozen
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- 3 cups rye flour
- zest of one orange
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 2 cups honey
- 1 ounce Kirschwasser
- 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon ground anise seed
- 1/8 teaspoon ground pepper
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
Ingredients
|
|
- Preheat oven to 275°F. Melt butter in a small skillet over medium low heat, and stir in orange rind. Let rind cook in the butter until transparent, about 3 minutes, and remove skillet from heat. Set aside. Toast rye flour in a large skillet on medium low heat. Stirring occasionally so that flour does not burn, toast until flour begins to brown. Remove from heat.
- While the flour is toasting, in a heavy-bottomed medium saucepan, combine honey and Kirschwasser. Simmer over low heat. Skim off any scum that rises to the top. When honey is clear, remove from heat and stir in orange rind and spices.
- Stir baking soda into warm flour and transfer warm flour into the bowl of an electric standing mixer. Slowly pour in hot honey into flour mixture while mixing at low speed using the paddle attachment. Continue mixing for about 7 minutes. Switch to the dough hook attachment and continue mixing for another 7-8 minutes.
- Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Wet hands with water. Form dough into balls using 1 rounded teaspoon of dough for each ball and place onto lined baking sheet. Balls should be spaced at least 3 inches apart. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until edges of cookies change color.
- Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Note: Cookies will deflate and harden when cool.
Cookies are best eaten after dunking into hot tea or coffee.
2 Comments
Do you have measurements in grams for the flour?
Thanks for your question. When making the recipe, I didn’t weigh out the flour but instead only used an American cup measure. Mine comes to 230 ml (conversion tables say it should be 236.5, but that’s not what I got!). I checked out a conversion table. For rye flour, generally speaking, 1 cup = 102 grams. A different site (The Fresh Loaf) said 130g! I think the difference might come from the type of rye flour being used. So for a final answer to your question, I weighed out 3 cups rye using the measuring cup I use to see what it would be in grams for the recipe, and it came to 353 grams of rye flour. Hope this helps! Ania