HOLIDAY COOKIES : A Spicy Dream : The Cookies Were Mysterious, Exotic. But Were They Real?

My mother, who had diabetes, made only one kind of cookie, a spice cookie. She rolled each one into a perfectly round sphere the size of a walnut, then rolled the sphere in granulated sugar before baking. I remember having deep anxiety that these cookies would not be like other cookies--flat, that is--and I wanted to punch them down, but my mother promised they’d turn out fine.

And she was right. More than fine. These were stunningly round cookies, thick and chewy, dark as chocolate--only instead of chocolate, they had wide pungent flavors that heated up the tongue. The only thing I’d had that tasted remotely similar was pumpkin pie, which seemed a mere whisper compared to the operatic resonance of these wafers.

I liked so much about these cookies: I liked that they appeared to be chocolate but weren’t. I knew about savory spiciness from eating Mexican food, but these cookies represented the sweet dimension of spiciness and that seemed mysterious, important and unspeakably exotic.

And I loved the way these cookies looked, which was directly connected to their taste and texture: The crackled, crusty top of the cookie glittered with granulated sugar, but there was a pattern of chasms where the dough pulled apart and provided a glimpse into the dark, moist depths. I don’t know if I was born with a love of crackled surfaces or if these cookies engendered it in me, but I’ve had a lifelong appreciation for old paint, mud flats and certain raku glazes on ceramics.

My sister and I soon were old enough to help my mother in the manufacture of these wonders. I was frustrated because I couldn’t produce the perfect spheres that the two of them could. Mine varied in size (from marbles to pingpong balls) and looked more like two-sided tops or like tiny worlds whose two poles pulled apart into sharp points. We made these cookies together for several years, then stopped, probably when my mother started working and had less time and inclination for recreational cooking.

As soon as I moved into my first apartment, I started trying to make the spice cookies. It had been a good 10 years since my mother and sister and I made our last batch together, and my mother was vague about the recipe--it might have been in the “Settlement Cookbook,” or maybe someone had given it to her, she couldn’t remember. In fact, she wasn’t sure she remembered the cookies, at least not with the clarity of detail I did.

For years, before and after her death, I’d describe these cookies to people and they’d give me their recipes, but not once did the cookies come out right.

Some were the color of toffee and crisp as commercial gingersnaps; others were soft mounds like small dollops of gingerbread. I followed all sorts of advice: sprinkled water on each cookie to ensure a crackle (no go), sifted the flour extra times, measured more carefully, baked on parchment paper, even copier paper, experimented with coarser sugar.

Cookie after cookie was too pale, too cakey, too bland, too gingery and, invariably, the sugar sank in, became invisible instead of sparkling on the top like snow crystals. Never, ever have I come across those rich, dark, glittering cookies of my childhood, the lovely, chewy ones with deep, alluring crackles.

Which, I now think, never existed. Or existed only in my imagination as an extrapolation of some cookies baked 30-odd years ago, now an idea of a cookie that had been intellectually perfected and idealized beyond recognition.

Still, every year, I try. It borders on insanity, but I scan the year’s new cookbooks for molasses/spice/crinkle cookies, and if the directions say to roll the dough in sugar, I’ll try it out. When those fail, one more time I pull out my mother’s battered copy of the “Settlement Cookbook” that I inherited and look up the spice cookies. And every year, I end up with the same greasy, too sweet, disgusting, flat-as-a-pancake cookies that often as not go right into the trash can. (I actually tried that recipe twice this year.)

Unlike my mother, however, I have not tied my cookie-baking career to one cookie. I find the entire process of cookie baking, from creaming butter and sugar to eating the final product, entirely pleasant, satisfying and comforting. My father had surgery recently, and, between trips to the hospital, I baked batch after batch of cookies, which did indeed seem to keep me calm.

*

It helped, too, that a friend had given me “Maida Heatter’s Brand New Book of Great Cookies,” in which each recipe is better than the last. (The first recipe I tried, of course, was for “Grandma’s Gingersnaps,” spicy cookies rolled by hand and in sugar; while these are admirable cookies in and of themselves, they are not the dark, crackled platonic ideals of my childhood.)

I seem to go through phases with cookies. I started with drop cookies. Chocolate chip. Peanut butter. Oatmeal raisin. Classic cookies you could mix up and bake on the spot.

Then, I (and every other baker I know) went through a biscotti phase. For years, I made biscotti like mad in every flavor I could think of until all that loaf-forming, all that sawing into individual pieces, all that double-baking and all that gnawing on the final product finally wore me out. I can hardly look at biscotti any more.

These days, when I’m not turning out molasses-spice flops, I’m probably making icebox cookies.

One of the few benefits of aging, for me at least, seems to be a increased capacity for delayed gratification. In cookie-making, this translates to the ability to whip up a batch of cookie dough and then stick it in the freezer for hours or even days before baking the first sample.

Not only have I come to not mind delaying the baking (and therefore the eating) of cookies, I actually like having logs of raw cookie dough lodged in my freezer. I can slice off just as many cookies as I need for a dessert or to go with a pot of tea--or for a bit of needed consolation, any time, day or night.

POPPY SEED ICEBOX COOKIES

1 cup butter

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon lemon zest, chopped fine

2 cups flour, sifted

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup poppy seeds

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg. Add lemon juice and rind. Sift flour with salt. Combine wet and dry ingredients and add poppyseed. Form two rolls, wrap in wax paper and store in refrigerator or freezer until firm.

Slice 1/4-inch thick and bake on parchment paper-lined baking sheets at 375 degrees until golden, about 8 minutes.

Makes 3 dozen cookies.

Each serving contains about:

111 calories; 72 mg sodium; 20 mg cholesterol; 8 grams fat; 8 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams protein; 0.41 gram fiber.

HEIRLOOM WALNUT ICEBOX COOKIES

1/2 pound (generous 2 cups) walnuts

2 1/4 cups sifted flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1 cup butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 lightly packed cup light brown sugar

1 egg

2 tablespoons milk

The perfect icebox cookie, from “Maida Heatter’s Brand-New Book of Great Cookies.” Thin, light, delicate and crisp, with a mildly spiced flavor. After you mix and shape the dough into a loaf, it has to be frozen for about 3 hours, or for as much longer as you wish. When it is frozen, it slices beautifully.

Break nuts into large pieces; set aside. Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and allspice; set aside.

Beat butter until soft. Add both sugars and beat until thoroughly mixed. Beat in egg and milk. Add sifted dry ingredients and beat on low speed until incorporated. Carefully stir in nuts.

Spoon out dough to make thick strip about 12 inches long in middle of 20-inch sheet of wax paper. Form into rough log, about 3 inches wide and 1 1/2 inches high, with squared ends. Make loaf as smooth as possible.

Place on baking sheet and freeze at least 3 hours. If frozen for more than few hours, re-wrap bar in aluminum foil.

When firm, unwrap loaf and cut in 1/4-inch slices. Place slices about 1 1/2 inches apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees, reversing sheets top to bottom and front to back once or twice during baking. When cookies are nicely browned and spring back when gently pressed, about 10 minutes, transfer to racks to cool.

Store in an airtight container.

About 5 dozen cookies

Each cookie contains about:

82 calories; 53 mg sodium; 12 mg cholesterol; 6 grams fat; 7 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 0.19 gram fiber.