Santas From Around The World: The Netherlands- Sinterklaas (Advent 2020, Day 5)

In parts of Europe, today is St Nicholas Eve. That means that Sinterklaas is on his way to make a lot of good little boys and girls very happy.

Unlike the American version of Santa, Sinterklaas doesn't hail from the North Pole. Instead, he hails from Turkey. More a cleric than a jolly fat man, Sinterklaas rides a white steed, bedecked in a red frock, carrying a golden staff. Sinterklaas looks like he just jumped off of a chess board if I'm being honest.

The legend of Sinterklaas is where we get the tradition of putting out stockings for Santa to fill. Legend has it that 3 young girls in a poor family were destined to be sold as prostitutes to help ease the family debt. Hearing this, Sinterklaas sneaks into the girls home one night and gifts each of them with gold coins inside of some clothes that the women have hanging up to dry.

Today being the eve of St. Nicholas, the children of Europe will put their shoes out by their front door. Some will be filled with hay to feed the horse Sinterklaas rides. If the children are deemed good, they'll awaken tomorrow to shoes filled with oranges, nuts, candy and if they are really lucky; some odor eaters…

For today's recipe, since St. Nicholas Day is celebrated all over Europe, I've got my pick of countries to choose from. I'm going with the Netherlands and their spicy peppernut cookies that resemble the nuts that Sinterklaas gifts for the kiddos.

Enjoy!

Pepernoten (Dutch Honey Anise Sinterklaas Cookies)

Prep:20 mins

Cook:30 mins

Resting Time:24 hrs

Total:24 hrs 50 mins

Servings:45 servings

  

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup/150 g honey
• 1/4 cup/60 g water
• 1/2 cup/100 g bruine basterdsuiker (see note below)
• 3 1/3 cup/300 g rye flour
• 1/2 teaspoon/3 g salt
• Sunflower oil (to grease)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons/12 g ground aniseed
• 1 tablespoon/10 g baking powder (sifted)

STEPS:

1. Gather the ingredients. 

2. In a saucepan, heat the honey with 2 3/4 tablespoons/40 g of the water and the sugar until the mixture reaches 194 F (90 C) on a candy thermometer.
3. Remove the saucepan from the heat and mix in the rye flour and salt using a hand mixer with a dough hook attachment (or pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment and knead the dough that way).
4. Knead the dough thoroughly. Grease some plastic wrap with sunflower oil and cover the dough with the plastic wrap. Allow the dough to rest for one day at room temperature.
5. The next day, preheat the oven to 340 F/170 C.
6. Add the ground anise, the remaining 1 1/3 tablespoons/20 g of water, and baking powder to the dough and knead well. Rub a little of the sunflower oil into your hands and roll little balls, roughly the size of a marble. 

7. Place the balls into a round spring form cake tin. The cake tin may be densely packed, it doesn't matter if the pepernoten touch each other. 

8. Bake the pepernoten for 20 minutes in the preheated oven until golden brown. When you lightly press down on the cookies, they should bounce back a little. 

9.Take the tin from the oven, invert over a dish and separate the pepernoten. Allow to cool and keep in an airtight container. 

Extra Tips:

 Basterdsuiker is a typical Dutch product and cannot be substituted easily. It is manufactured by adding invert sugar and other ingredients to fine white refined sugar. This mixture helps to achieve certain textural structures and keeps baked goods moist. There are three varieties, white, brown and dark brown, called witte basterdsuiker, (licht)bruine basterdsuiker or gele basterdsuiker and donkerbruine basterdsuiker. It is widely available at Dutch supermarkets and from some Dutch groceries on the internet.

 ■ Pepernoten should be baked in a spring form tin so that the edges don't bake too quickly or they will get too hard. 

■ Because ground anise loses its flavor quickly, we advise buying this spice whole and crushing them just before you need them. Use a spice grinder, a mortar and pestle or place the spices in a bag and bash with a rolling pin. Sieve and use only the fine powder in this recipe.