I know it is only August but I am already anticipating starting a new holiday tradition. When I was growing up, my neighbor, Billie, would bring over the most wonderful cookies on December 6th- St. Nicholas Day. The cookies were a lovely recipe with cardamom, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and ginger and they were made with a unique ceramic mold that hung in her kitchen all year long. At my Catholic grammar school, we would put out one of our shoes and St. Nicholas would fill it with candy on December 6th. I have read of similar traditions in Italy, Europe and around the globe.
Well, I wrote my neighbor and asked her to send me the recipe and she did! Unfortunately, I have not been able to find the mold but I found another mold that is handcarved by a man named Gene Wilson at www.cookiemold.com I am buying this St. Nicholas mold in hopes of baking her recipe and giving them out to the kids on our neighborhood. It isn't really the religious tradition I am interested in carrying on but rather the tradition of being a special neighbor.
Now that I am looking at the site even more, I should have ordered a butter mold too! That reminds me of Little House on the Prairie where Ma would mold the butter with a strawberry patterned mold. Maybe that will be my next purchase- the strawberry butter mold is on sale!
3 comments:
Awww...I remember leaving our shoes outside on the benches.
I love both your blogs! Very inspiring...but they're making me hungry!!
Hey Lauren! Love your blog-- and the idea of starting up that St. Nicholas Day tradition. (I, too, have been thinking about Christmas for some reason, wishing that I could listen to some seasonal tunes right about no!).
Tell Justin that we've been enjoying his blog, too.
--Amy Smith
In the Netherlands "Sinterklaas" is a big holiday celebrated on the 5th or 6th of December. The story goes that Sinterklaas (st. Nicholas) lives in Spain with his helpers, zwarte pieten (peters). Somewhere in November he arrives by boat, and from then on children - knowing Sinterklaas is in town- can start putting their shoes out in front of the chimney. On the 5th families get together and the Piets will deliver a big bag of presents!
There are a lot of candies and cookies associated with this holiday, the spiced cookie like you're descibing above being one of them.
I quickly googled to see if I could find the recipe for "Gevulde Speculaas" for you, which is basically spiced dough with almond paste, and then stumbled upon this blog post about using Chinese moon cake molds to make this Dutch treat. I like the culture mix!
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