Kruidnoten (also known as Pepernoten)

The arrival of certain foods on the supermarket shelves often announces the arrival of another holiday or celebration to come. Chocolate eggs mark the beginning of the Easter season, and Vlaggetjesdag is initiated by the catching of the first herring. But nothing prepares us for this month of December, with its Sinterklaas, Christmas and New Year celebrations, like the smell of speculaas from the bakeries and the sight of pepernoten, pepper nuts, at the store.  Pepper nuts show up as early as mid-September, three full months before the good-hearted Saint Nicholas with his Pieten helpers have even set foot on shore. And with it, also appears another event: the yearly, and sometimes heated, discussion on the difference between pepper nuts and spice nuts.

Pepernoten (pepper nuts) and Kruidnoten (spice nuts) are very different from each other: pepernoten are chewy, taai-taai-esque square pieces, whereas kruidnoten are small round, crunchy peppery speculaas-type cookies that the Pieten throw around as treats for the children. Throwing pepernoten is not encouraged!

Until recently, the difference between kruidnoten and pepernoten was clear to everyone. But as the crispy crunchy tenderness of the kruidnoten gained terrain, pepernoten became the new name for kruidnoten. And from then on, it's all been a bit confusing. Even product packaging, marketing and the customers call it pepernoten, except for the purists. And they are very vocal about it! 

When I first wrote an article on this treat for a Dutch magazine, the editor emailed me back and asked whether the recipe I was submitting was for kruidnoten or pepernoten. Good question, and I am glad he asked. I still called them pepernoten, but the recipe was clearly for kruidnoten. 

Anyway....if you choose to share these and call them pepernoten, you'll know soon enough which one of your friends is a peppernut purist. You've been warned!! :-) 

Kruidnoten

1 cup all purpose flour (150 grams)

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup brown sugar (100 grams)

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground aniseed
½ teaspoon white pepper
½ teaspoon ground ginger

2 tablespoons butter (28 grams), cold and cubed

1 medium egg


Mix the dry ingredients together, then cut the butter into the mix. Give it a quick knead, then add the egg. Knead everything together into a stiff dough. You may have to add a tablespoon or two of water or milk if it's too dry or too stiff. Wrap and rest the dough in the fridge, preferably overnight but at least for a couple of hours to let the flavors blend. 

Divide the dough into three equal pieces, and roll each one into a small log. Cut small pieces of the dough and roll them into a ball, about the size of a small marble (0.18oz/5 grams). Place them on parchment paper or a silicone mat on a baking sheet and slightly press them down. 

Because of the baking powder they will puff up a bit, as well as spread just a little, so give them a bit of space. If the dough has warmed up because of the rolling or your kitchen temperature, you may want to stick them back in the fridge for about 30 minutes before you bake them. 

Bake the kruidnoten at 375F in about 10-15 minutes or until nicely browned. They will be soft when you pull them out of the oven but let them cool on a rack so they can harden and crisp up. 

Mix with chocolate coins, and hard candy to make an excellent "throw mix" for the Pieten, or put it in a bowl on the table for people to snack on. 

Makes about 70 peper..eh...kruidnoten ;-). See below the picture for additional suggestions.

Listen, I get it. You're busy, you don't have white pepper, or can't be bothered to roll out 5 grams worth of pepernoten dough. Here are some suggestions. Some of these suggestions are links to the product. We are Amazon Associates so any purchase through this link will provide is with a tiny (and we mean TINY!) compensation which helps to keep the website running, at no cost to you. 

Leftover kruidnoten? 

• Make Arretje's cake or kruidnoten bavarois! 

Shopping Ideas:

• Don't care for the peppery bite? Use pumpkin spice or speculaaskruiden instead.
• Can't be bothered to roll 70 dough balls? Roll out the dough (3 mm) and cut out cookies instead.
• Don't know how much 5 grams is? Use this scale!
• Got all your kruidnoten rolled and baked? Practice Dutch with the grandkids with this cute Dutch-English book! 

Borstplaat

You know that the special holiday season, starting with Sinterklaas, is approaching when a series of traditional sugary sweets start showing up in the local bakeries, with coffee at work or if your best friend shows up with "iets lekkers" (something tasty) in a small bag at your appointed tea time.

Enamel-chipping sweet, borstplaat is one of those traditional candies. Fabricated purely from sugar and water, and sometimes a splash of heavy cream for good measure, borstplaat is one of the sweetest confections around. And, honesty dictates me to say, also one of the most addictive ones. Thankfully, it only shows up around the holidays, so you get your fill, vow to never, ever eat another piece of borstplaat again and after about a week wait impatiently wait till next year until you see those innocent-looking, cute little figurines or sugar hearts in the bakery's shop window again......

Thankfully (or not, as the case may be), this sweet candy is easy to make at home. Furthermore, it allows you to be creative with flavors, shapes and dimensions, so the sky is the limit. Traditional tastes encourage strawberry, coffee and a lighter cream flavor, but as soon as you have the hang of making this lovely sweet, you can pull out all stops and go for gold: how about banana flavor, almond, chocolate, caramel, peppermint, coconut? The grocery store offers many varieties of flavorings, natural or otherwise, that you can stir in and make your own personal batch of borstplaat. Try flavored lemonade powders, coffee creamers or basic materials such as instant coffee or Dutch cocoa powder.


The molds used in the photograph are old-fashioned borstplaat molds that belonged to my grandmother Pauline. The metal mold is held together by a small pin: after the sugar cools, you remove the pin, carefully separate the legs of the heart and the candy un-molds from the metal. As it takes a while for the candy to set, it is not easy to push it out of the mold without it breaking.

If you cannot find these molds, try using silicone candy molds, or pouring the borstplaat on a slightly buttered piece of parchment paper, let it set until almost hardened and cut out shapes with cookie cutters. It takes a try or two to know when the borstplaat is still soft enough to be cut but not too hard to break, so don't be afraid to give it a try. And if you miss the deadline, no worries. Break the borstplaat into edible chunks and call it good, it's all about the flavor!

Borstplaat
1 cup (200 grams) white sugar
3 tablespoons milk, water or heavy cream
Flavoring
Butter
Molds
Parchment paper

Lightly grease the molds and set them on top of slightly greased parchment paper on a baking sheet. Heat the sugar with the milk, water or heavy cream in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and stir until the sugar gets "woolly", about five minutes. Dip a fork into the mix; if the sugar forms a sheet on the tines, it's ready to be poured.

Take the sugar off the stove, mix in two drops of vanilla extract, stir and count to five. Now pour the hot sugary mix into the molds. Let it rest for thirty minutes, then carefully see if you can tip the molds on the side so that the bottom can cool and dry. When the candy feels hardened enough (it is difficult to say how long it takes as each kitchen is different, but give it a good another thirty minutes), carefully take the pin out of the mold and separate the sides. If you use silicone molds, see if it will allow you to unmold at this time without breaking. If not, eat the evidence and wait a little longer for the other ones :-)

Let the candy cool on a rack until dry. Keep in a jar or tin that closes well: extreme moisture will make this candy crumbly and soft.

Slagroomtaart - We vieren feest!

Hieperdepiephoera!! We're celebrating today's 100th post on The Dutch Table with an authentic Dutch slagroomtaart, or whipped cream cake. The name itself already suggests reckless abandon, from a Calvinistic perspective, but what can I say? Today is a special day and in good Dutch tradition, any reason is a good excuse to bring out the coffee, some cake and enjoy the company of friends.

Slagroomtaart is THE birthday cake par excellence. It has a very light and airy batter, and is hard to find outside of the Netherlands. It's an easy cake to bake, and a fun one to decorate. Traditionally you will find fruits and chocolate on top, and nougatine, candied nuts, on the side. Since those last ones are hard to find here in the United States, we're making them, it doesn't take long.

Slagroomtaart
For the cake:
4 eggs

3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar
3/4 cup (100 grams) flour
1/4 cup (35 grams) corn starch
Chocolate, fruits for decorating

For the whipped cream
2 cups (475 ml) heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup (60 grams) powdered sugar

For the nougatine
1 cup (125 grams) dry roasted peanuts
3/4 cup (150 grams) sugar
3 tablespoons water

Preheat the oven to 320F/160C. Butter and flour a 9 inch (22 cm) spring form.

Beat the four eggs and the sugar at high speed until it's tripled its volume and is light yellow, full of air and falls off the beater in a thick ribbon. Sift the flour and the corn starch together and carefully fold it into the airy batter. Pour it into the mold and place it in the oven. Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the center.

Let the cake cool.  In the meantime, chop the peanuts into small pieces or pulse it several times in the food processor. Take a heavy bottomed pan, and add the sugar and the water. Bring it to a boil and keep stirring until the sugary mixture caramelizes and has a nice, dark golden color to it. Remove from the stove, add in the chopped peanuts and stir them quickly, making sure all the peanuts are coated. Spread the thick layer on a piece of parchment, a marble top or a silicone mat and let it cool. When cooled down, you can use a rolling pin to break it into small pieces, leaving you with caramel coated peanut pieces.

Whip the cream with the powdered sugar and transfer half of it to a piping bag with a big star tip.

Slice the cake in half lengthwise. Spread a generous amount of whipping cream on the bottom half and replace the top. Now cover the rest of the cake in whipping cream with a spatula, making sure you don't miss any spots.

Balancing the cake on the palm of one hand, cup a handful of nougatine in the other hand and apply it to the side of the cake. Rotate a bit and press some more onto the side until the cake is covered. This takes a bit of practice and maybe an extra set of hands.

Place the cake on a serving tray or pedestal and pipe big rosettes all around the outside rim, and another smaller circle in the middle. Fill the rest up with smaller rosettes or ribbons, however you see fit.

Dry off the decorating fruit (pineapple slices, kiwi, strawberries, maraschino cherries, mandarin oranges.....), and start making up the cake. Usually each rosette receives a piece of fruit, or every other one. Add the chocolate (balls, fans, sprinkles....) for a finishing touch and ready is your cake!!!

Best chilled and eaten the same day, with a cup of hot coffee and in good company. I know I'm in good company with all of you, so I'm helping myself to a large piece. Thank you all for these fantastic first 100 posts, there are many more to follow!!

Bakleverworst

My grandpa Tinus always loved old-fashioned, hearty farm food: liverwurst, blood sausages, balkenbrij.... all those wintery, solid foods that for many of us belong to a different era. It is food that is not readily available at the butcher shop or grocery store anymore, except for a few artisan butchers that still take pride in producing local, traditional, old-fashioned products. But the other day, I ran into a lady of Dutch descent who told me that each year, she and her sisters make balkenbrij, another one of those offal dishes, for Christmas, at home. Much to the horror of everybody else, but they love it and enjoy the process of making and baking it.

The old days of home hog butchering and using up all the goodies is far removed from many of us, and we flinch at the thought of grinding up livers, chopping up kidneys or stirring buckets of blood into flour in order to make bakleverworst, balkenbrij or Dutch boudin, bloedworst. But there is nothing wrong with reaching back to the cooking of our grandparents, or great grandparents. Their cooking was honest, solid, and tasty. Remember, they didn't have all the fancy entertainment options we have nowadays, so food was something everybody looked forward to and was often a source of bringing people together.

One of those by-product foods is liverwurst, or leverworst. The Dutch like their leverworst and purchase it in a variety of options: as a soft, spreadable Braunschweiger-like leverworst for the lunch sandwich, a harder and sliceable ring-shaped leverworst as a cold snack, or in chunks and pickled in huge vats of vinegar (zure leverworst) and available from your local patatkraam or neighborhood fry shop. A not so familiar one is the bakleverworst, a solid liverwurst that you cut in thick slices, dip in flour and fry up in some butter. It's good eaten cold, after being fried, or warm on a slice of bread.

Embrace your inner grandparent and decide that this winter you are going to venture out and try some of these old traditional dishes from long ago. They are easy to make, and easy to keep.

Bakleverworst
2 lb pork liver
2 lb pork shoulder
5 slices of thick sliced smoked bacon
1 onion
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons ground white pepper
1 bouillon cube
1/2 cup flour

Bring a large pot with water to a boil, add the bouillon cube or stock and lower to a simmer. Cut the liver and meat into cubes and simmer in the stock for fifteen minutes.

Grind the meat, batch for batch, in a food processor or meat grinder. Depending on whether you want a coarser grind or finer grind, you may have to put the meat through several times. I processed it twice to get a finer texture.

Chop the bacon into small dice and mix through the meat, add the spices and the flour. Mix together. Add a tablespoon of cooking liquid at a time to get a mixture moist enough to be malleable but still solid.

Measure out about 22 oz per sausage, a little bit more or less doesn't matter, just make sure they all have the same weight.

Place a piece of plastic food film on the counter, form the sausage and place it in the middle, lengthwise. Now take the ends of the film and tighten them up, rolling the sausage back and forth on the counter, until it's the right shape. Tighten a knot on each end, cut off the remaining film and wrap in another piece of food film, now wrapping it width-wise. Finish with wrapping each sausage lengthwise again, tying off the knots (see picture) and cutting the remaining film.

Bring a large pan with water to a boil, and place the sausages in the water. Make sure that all wrappings are watertight. Leave it simmering for an hour, remove and shock the liverwurst by placing it in a tray with ice cold water. Let it rest until cold (thirty minutes), unwrap and pat each sausage dry. Rewrap, and refrigerate or freeze for later use.

The next day, slice thick slices from the refrigerated liverwurst, dip them in flour and fry them brown and crispy on the outside. Butter a slice of bread, add the bakleverworst and yum!!! Good old fashioned winter food, love it!!

Bruine Bonensoep

"I don't pray for brown beans," little Bart said, pulling his plate away when his mother tried to serve him his dinner. Young Bart Bartels is not alone: few like the brown beans served as a vegetable because of its mushy texture. But put these tan pulses in a soup and you'll find that the texture contributes to a hearty, thick, wonderful stew. The typical Dutch brown cooking beans called "bruine bonen", or in Bartje's dialect from Drenthe, "bruune boon'n", are not available in the United States unless home-grown or purchased from a Dutch store.

Bartje was the main character in two books written by the author Anne de Vries, during the mid nineteen thirties. Bartje is a young boy who lives in a rural village in the province of Drenthe, in Holland's north-east. Brown beans were standard fare for the poor and during one episode, he refuses to say grace, as he's sick and tired of eating them. Needless to say, this earns him some spanking!

You will not encounter such rebellious behavior at the table when you serve this brown bean soup. If you're not able to find any, this soup will also work well with pinto or pink beans.

Bruine Bonensoep
2 cups of beans, dry

1 bay leaf
1 medium size onion, peeled
3 cloves, whole
1 leek, sliced
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 small onion, diced
1/2 cup of diced celeriac root
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 handful of celery leaves, chopped
2 tomatoes, diced
4 slices of bacon, diced
1 Kielbasa or 10 smokies
Salt
Pepper

Wash, rinse and soak the beans the night before in sufficient water. The next day, drain, rinse and add to a cooking pot with enough water to cover the beans. Poke the cloves in the whole peeled onion, take the bay leaf and the thyme and add these items to the pot. Cover and bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer and cook the beans until done. This may take up to an hour or two, depending on the age of the beans.

When the beans are done, dispose of the onion, cloves, bay leaf and thyme sprigs. Take out two cups of cooked beans. Purée the rest of the beans. You may have to add some water or stock if the soup is too thick at this point. Add the remaining fresh vegetables and the bacon to the soup, and simmer for another twenty minutes. Add the kielbasa or the smokies after that until they're hot, and stir in the two cups of beans you've set aside earlier. If you're using kielbasa, remove it after ten minutes, slice it in thick chunks, then return the meat to the soup.

Taste, adjust with pepper and salt if needed, and serve hot with thick slices of whole wheat buttered bread.