Category: Desserts

Mary Emily and Lorraine’s Fruit Slices

Judging from the number of cards for icebox cookies in her recipe boxes, I think that my mother and her friends must have really loved them.   Actually, they seemed to like just about any kind of cookie, but simple ones like drop cookies were obvious favorites, and ice box cookies were a close second.

Mary Emily Libbey may well have shared my mother’s enthusiasm for a cookie dough that you can stir up, put in the refrigerator and use to bake fresh cookies every morning.  I first tasted these cookies at a Christmas open house hosted by Lorraine and Chris many years ago.  Lorraine got the recipe from her mother-in-law, Mary Emily Libbey, whom Jerri and I met at one of those holiday extravaganzas when Chris’s mother was visiting.

Mary Emily was celebrating Christmas in Wisconsin, 1,300 miles from her home in Westborough, Massachusetts, where Chris grew up.  I wish I had known more about her when we met, as she was an impressive lady.  Besides helping Chris’s father make lollipops to sell on his milk and egg route, she started the first food shelf in Westborough when she was seventy years old.  Her concern for others manifests itself in Chris and Lorraine’s community service today.

Chris and Lorraine met and married when he was a student in Springfield, Massachusetts.  His choice of a bride who was a stranger from a city sixty miles away meant that it took a long time before Mary Emily decided to trust her daughter-in-law with the recipe for Fruit Slices.

Finally, seventeen years after Lorraine had been welcomed into the Libbey family, Mary Emily shared her recipe for Fruit Slices.  This year Lorraine gave me the recipe and permission to share it with anyone who likes a delicious icebox cookie.  My mother would have loved them, and I think you will too.

Here is Mary Emily’s recipe for a cookie that is perfect for giving at Christmas or enjoying and sharing anytime. 

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup salted butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/8 tsp. salt

1 cup coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts

2 cups candied cherries

PROCEDURE:

Put the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl and allow the butter to soften while you cut the cherries in half and coarsely chop the nuts.

Cream the sugar into the butter.  Beat the egg and vanilla into the creamed sugar until you have a smooth batter, then sift the flour by thirds into the batter.  Mix in the fruit and nuts after two-thirds of the flour is added.  Stir well between additions and make sure that all the flour is incorporated into the batter.  The dough will be very stiff.  If necessary, you can add a tiny bit of water if the egg was not large enough to provide all the moisture needed.

Tear three or four fourteen-inch pieces of wax paper from a roll and put them near your work surface.  Put a quarter of the dough on a sheet of wax paper and press it into an oblong shape.  Wrap the dough in the paper and form it into a log by rolling it on the work surface.  When the log is about ten inches long, place the log seam side down in a baking pan.

Make the other logs the same way and put the pan in an unheated room or refrigerator for at least three hours.  When the logs are hard, they are ready to cut into cookies.

Preheat the oven to 325º and use a serrated knife to cut the logs into thin slices about a sixth of an inch in thickness.  Place the slices a half-inch apart on ungreased baking sheets and bake the cookies ten to thirteen minutes until they just barely begin to brown on the edges.

Cool the cookies on wax paper and store them in a sealed container.

NOTES:  Lorraine noted that she sometimes uses a combination of a half teaspoon of vanilla and a half teaspoon of another flavoring.  Almond would probably make a delicious variant.

Mary Emily’s recipe called for pecan or walnut halves, but I agree with Lorraine that coarsely chopping the nuts makes sense.

Lorraine says that she now substitutes fruitcake mix for the cherries because she likes the different colors in the mixed fruit.  I prefer the cherries, both for appearance and flavor.  If you want a nice effect, use half red and half green cherries.

Chris told me that the cookies I made were thicker than the ones he remembered his mother making and Lorraine said that they were thicker than hers.  Both Chris and Lorraine said that the flavor was fine, but that the cookies were not as crisp as Mary Emily’s.  If you want cookies like Chris and Lorraine remember, try making the slices an eighth of an inch thick.

In case you are wondering if I missed an ingredient, Lorraine confirms that there is no baking soda or baking powder in this recipe.  

Finally, Lorraine’s emailed recipe ended with this comment:  “Enjoy – you are the only one I have shared this recipe with.  We were married in ’67 and I did not get this recipe until ’84!!!!!”  

Christmas Cookies—Grandma Maria Kaufman’s Pfeffernüsse

Two weeks after our marriage, Jerri and I moved into the bottom floor of an antebellum house in Charlottesville, Virginia, which had once been the slaves’ quarters.   We loved the place. However, while most of the rooms were big, the kitchen was so tiny and narrow that one person could not squeeze past another while working at the sink or range.

It was too small to make Pfeffernüsse. The total counter space was less than three feet, and since we lacked a dining table for several months, there was no place to roll out and cut the dough. Two years later, when we moved to Murray, Kentucky, we rented a farmhouse with an enormous kitchen, where Jerri made our first batch of Pfeffernüsse.

Pfeffernüsse are traditionally made in Germany for the Christmas holidays. The English translation of the name is peppernuts.  Commercial Pfeffernüsse from Germany are about the size of walnuts and are dusted with powdered sugar, but we much prefer these plain little peppery nuts: What other cookie lets you eat a whole handful without feeling guilty?

Jerri’s Swiss-German Mennonite ancestors brought this recipe with them when they emigrated to Kansas from the Ukraine in the 1870’s.  The recipe came to us from Jerri’s grandmother, Maria Kaufman, via Jerri’s Aunt Hilda, who was a talented cook famous for never letting anyone leave her home hungry.  

Jerri made these cookies for many years, keeping the family tradition alive and supplying them to her brothers and their families until her death in August 2020.  She made a half batch of Aunt Hilda’s recipe, which is itself a half batch of Grandma Maria’s recipe. Even the recipes of our ancestors were giants!

Here is Jerri’s recipe followed by the instructions from Aunt Hilda, with additional instructions and notes by Jerri.  This recipe makes about a half-gallon of cookies.

Pfeffernüsse aren’t hard to make. They just take more time than a lot of other cookies, BUT THEY ARE WORTH IT.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup dark molasses

1/2 tsp. oil of anise

1 T baking powder

3/4 tsp. salt

Rounded quarter teaspoons of the following ground spices:

cinnamon

cloves

black pepper

nutmeg

allspice

ginger

mace

cardamom

About 5 cups all-purpose flour

PROCEDURE:

Aunt Hilda’s instructions:  Cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Beat in the egg, then add the cream, molasses and oil of anise and beat well. Sift about four cups of the flour, baking powder, salt and spices into the liquid ingredients a cup at a time, stirring well between each addition.  You will need a strong wooden spoon.  

Then gradually add the remaining flour. You may need to knead the remaining flour into the dough. The dough should be “firm–kinda stiff–but still maybe kinda sticky–not bad.”  Mix all thoroughly, cover and set in a very cold place overnight.  You can freeze the dough or keep it for days in the refrigerator. Bake in a 350º oven. “Watch carefully.  They burn easy. Smells wonderful. Tastes good. Yum! Yum!”

Aunt Hilda said that her mother couldn’t make these cookies until the weather turned cold, because they didn’t have a refrigerator. If you want to make them in the traditional way, put the dough into an unheated room. Otherwise, use a refrigerator.

Jerri’s instructions: Take pieces of the cold dough about the size of two walnuts and roll them into quarter-inch diameter “snakes” on a well-floured board. Layer the snakes on a baking pan and separate the layers with waxed paper. Jerri coiled them into a pizza pan. Freeze the snakes for several hours or overnight.  

When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350º and lightly grease two or three baking sheets. Chop three or four snakes at a time into three-eighth-inch-long pieces and put them on a cookie sheet. The pieces should be separated slightly. When you have a sheet full, bake it for nine to ten minutes. Let the cookies cool a minute or two before transferring them to waxed paper. Let the cookies cool thoroughly before storing them in airtight containers. These cookies develop their best flavor after being stored for at least two weeks.

JERRI’S NOTES: I use a big wooden spoon to stir this dough and usually get Chuck to help at the end of stirring so I don’t have to “knead” to get it stiff enough. Chop only three or four snakes at a time as they are easier to cut and place on the pan if the dough is frozen. Dusting your fingers with flour makes it easier to place the pieces on the baking sheets. If your oven heats unevenly (as did our previous one), you might need to turn the sheets after five minutes.

CHUCK’S NOTES:  I have never made these tasty little cookies myself, but I have stirred the dough, watched Jerri and placed lots of little pieces of “snakes” on the pans.  My first batch will be in 2020 now that Jerri is gone. 

The photo shows Grandma Rang’s Date-filled Cookies, Grandma Hopp’s Gingerbread Cookies and some Peppernuts.