Recipe edit: salt = licorice salt
Baking with licorice salt - just try it!
Swapping one good thing for another
Many cookies, including this one, call for anise seed or ground anise. I swapped the salt in this recipe with the Saltverk Licorice Salt. I also sprinkled it on top of a few cookies since I prefer a saltier cookie. This deep, rich, Icelandic, liquorice-infused salt is fantastic on roasted beats, in salads with fennel, and yes, as a replacement for salt in a dish with anise. I have also used it as an extra aroma in a gin and tonic.
If you don’t like licorice, I would still suggest you try it. This is a surprise to most of our tasting event guests and one that people come back to and remember.
Great Great Aunt Rosie’s Recipe
10.5 to 12 cups of flour - WTF. Yep, the family Pepperise cookie recipe calls for a bucketload of flour. This means that the cookies are meant to be shared widely. Since it took me a few decades to get my hands on this recipe from my Aunt Jean, so the full recipe is only for paid subscribers. However, the recipe edit can be applied to many dishes.
A little backstory
My family is not that big but when you add in the aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends, a recipe for 250-270 cookies once a year is not that outlandish. You might have heard of German Pfeffernüsse cookies. These are only seen during the holiday season. They come in both a drier crunchy version from the store, to a cake-like variety, and are full of spices from anise to cinnamon to white pepper. Some have a heavy icing, others just a dust of powdered sugar.
Aunt Rosie’s recipe is called Pepperise. Why the different spelling - I have no idea. I can’t even find it in a search so I’m assuming it was a misspelling at some point that stuck. But her recipe is a bit different in the spices it calls for including the addition of coffee which I always swap for espresso.
Aunties are the Best
I was quite young when Great Great Aunt Rosie passed away but I do remember her. She was the owner of this recipe for a long time, she lived alone and she gave all of us kids a $2 bill for Christmas and Birthdays. I still have a few. This recipe was passed to my Grandma and then to my Aunt Jean. (My middle name is the same as hers). Jean has been the keeper of family recipes since Grandma Guthmiller passed. I was almost 40 before I was passed this family gem.
Since receiving the recipe, sometimes Jean tells me she whipped it up, other times, I know she hides them in the pantry because I told her I would make it. Since I now share these cookies with friends too, it’s not a bad thing that we double up.
I’m more of a cook than a baker and I can’t help but edit a recipe, Jean makes the original. Hers tend to be more fluffy and round with an all-over glaze. Mine are richer since I swap coffee for espresso and add more spices to the dough and the frosting.
I’m an auntie and I hope my nieces or nephews will take both versions of the recipes and make variations of their own.
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