I made 5 batches' worth of springerle this year. Not all in one shot - I did one double batch and one triple.
And in the process, I made a little change in the recipe that Bill's mom had used when she showed me how to make springerle once upon a time.
But before I get into that, I just want to put in a plug for House on the Hill - a phenomenal source for springerle molds and other cookie-related fun. If I had gobs of money to play with, I'd spend a happy portion of it shopping on their site.
(the only one not from House on the Hill is that 6-sectioned, hand-carved mold)
Anyway. Like I said, I made five batches' worth of dough. One entire batch (or most of it) went to the forming of this large (13" diameter) cookie, which we'll probably save for Christmas Eve:
I'm extremely pleased with how this turned out this year - so much detail, except here and there around the edges. Yay!
This year I reduced the amount of flour when I made some of the dough (the triple batch, in case you're keeping track) and I found it was much easier to work with as I rolled it out and pressed it into the molds.
The other change was to dust the molds with confectioners' sugar instead of flour.
The current edition of Martha Stewart Living includes a recipe for spekulaas, a spicy, gingerbread-like cookie molded very much like springerle. In the recipe, the directions call for you to dust the molds with confectioner's sugar so that the dough won't stick in the crevices of the mold. Now, flour serves the same purpose, but the thing with flour is that when it gets damp, it morphs into glue, and once dry, it's a pain in the butler to get out. Sugar, on the other hand, when combined with water, melts, which makes clean-up gloriously quick and easy. So, thanks, Martha!
And while you're making your springerle, don't forget to trim the edges so you've got nice neat sides. You can make a cute little dough creature thingy with the trimmings.
Isn't cookie baking fun?
To see my original post on baking springerle, you can go here.
For a printable version, go here.
