Friday, December 07, 2007
This is a reprint from 2005...but it's that time of year again. I don't have photos, but you'll have to trust me that these are gorgeous. But I do have a sweet bit of prose for you. I think they would be a perfect Hanukkah cookie too! At least I think so...I don't want to make the dreaded Hanukkah Ham faux pas. (Really, I thought Erica would be all over that story, but it looks like it's up to me to be the bearer of all ham related news.)
Skillet Cookies
My family's traditional Christmas cookie.
1 stick butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 package chopped dates
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 box Rice Crispy cereal
1 cup chopped pecans
Melt butter in a large iron skillet over medium heat. Cream eggs and sugar together. Pour into skillet with chopped dates. Stir constantly until caramelized mixture is a dark brown. Add vanilla. Remove from heat and whip by hand until cooler (5 minutes). Add rice crispies and nuts to mixture then form small balls and roll in powdered sugar or coconut.
I have been making these cookies for as long as I have memories. In my mind's eye, I can see my chubby little four-year old hands in front of me, covered in stickiness and powdered sugar. I can feel the heat of the mixture of crisped rice, nuts and caramelized dates and creamed sugar.
I hear my mother's voice. "Be careful...it's still hot!" or "You're rolling them too big!"
I liked to roll them big. That was because later, after they were chilled, I would slyly select the largest ones when they were offered. Munching into that cold sweet crispiness and getting powdered sugar all over my shirt. My face. I loved it when my mother would look exasperated and dust me off with her hand.
"I swear!....," she would say.
The recipe was lost for a time. My sister had gotten rid of the cookbook that the recipe was in. I was devastated when I realized this particular book was gone. I thought I was being fair by leaving the sugar-stained tattered book behind for her. It was particularly hard for me to do so. She did not see the old book as the pearl of great price that I did. My brother and sister have often been bemused by the things I deem valuable, but I think they are coming around to my way of thinking. History is important. Even the history of one family is important.
I reconstructed the recipe from my memories. My dead mother whispering in my ear the entire time. She often whispers to me.
I make them alone now to send to my family and friends. It doesn't seem right somehow, they are the sort of treat that really needs tiny sticky hands to form the warm melange into the little sugar-covered balls. If you have such little fingers in your house, you may want to give these a try.
Labels: Food Porn Friday, skillet cookies
3 Comments:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Let them all do the work. I'm not sure I could have come up with as witty commentary as that which I'd already seen, and which they came up with, anyhow.
You are good peeps, Rosie. Thank you. And next time you're in Brooklyn, I have just the place I need to take you to. It's my new regular hangout -- you'd love it!
How appalling that your book is gone. I do not understand how things like that can happen. My great grandmother, whom I never met, kept a lifelong diary. Before I ever knew it existed all the volumes were thrown out except for 1928. Thankfully that one was passed along to me. I treasure it and wish I had the rest of them. I put excerpts from it on one of my blogs quite often
Me...I just clean stuff like that off and fumigate it. It's really the marginalia I regret losing. My mother, like me, was big on writing in the margins of personal books. She often changed recipes and the only way you'd know that she had was by her notes in the margins. I already had the other important recipe from that book...the pound cake...and this recipe I had made so many times as a child that I was sure I could reconstruct it.
So...no harm done. I'm still looking for a replacement copy of the same cookbook. It was all these home economics teachers' dessert recipes.