Have you tried the peppernuts yet from our last newsletter? They are called “pay-pa-nates” in Low German, or Plaudietsch, which my character, Gertie, would have been speaking.

I tried the extra suggestions to make the process go easier, and it did! After the dough had been in the refrigerator for several days, I rolled it out into long ropes about the size of a fat crayon (about 1/2″), placed the ropes on a cookie sheet (it made quite a number of layers which I separated with waxed paper), and placed the cookie sheet in the freezer. Also, I used gloves to roll these out and a pastry cloth to work on. That made it go much smoother without the dough sticking to my hands or to the counter top.

A day later, when we were ready to make the peppernuts, we took out one layer of ropes at a time and laid them in parallel rows to cut several rows at a time into nut-sized cookies. We placed them on the cookie sheet and baked them for 15 minutes. That seems like a long time to bake these little gems, but you want them crisp and a nice golden brown. Once they were out of the oven, they were hard to resist. I had to distribute the ones that were going home with the other bakers and put mine in a sealed container and out of sight. I can hardly wait until Christmas!

Another recipe that my family liked to make at Christmastime is “White Coconut Cake”. It has all the ingredients of a fruitcake and looks like a fruitcake when baked, but it has extra coconut so it has a wonderful coconut almond flavor. Again, with this recipe, it’s better the longer it can sit before digging in.

This makes a large recipe and could easily be cut in half. Often we would get our hands in the mix and combine ingredients that way because this recipe is so big. These can be baked in regular loaf pans or in mini-loaf pans for gifting. It suggests using heavily greased brown paper to line the pans, but regular parchment paper would work as well.

White Coconut Cake

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 6 eggs (beaten separately)
• 2 cups flour
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 2 lbs. glace cherries
• 1 lb. almonds (blanched and cut fine)
• 1 lb. citron peel
• 2 lbs. sultana raisins
• 2 lbs. coconut
• 4 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. almond extract
• 1 cup milk

Cream butter and sugar, add well-beaten egg yolks. Fold in sifted dry ingredients alternately with milk. Mix in nuts and slightly floured fruits and coconut. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites and flavoring. Line pans with heavy greased brown paper. Bake at 250 deg. for 3 hours.

This recipe was submitted by Mrs. A. Dueck, Winnipeg, Manitoba, to The Mennonite Treasury of Recipes.

One interesting note: In the generations before the Baby Boomers, the women when they got married always took on their husband’s name. In formal circles, they were no longer known as Ruth Reimer, but Mrs. Abe Loewen. Among their friends, they still used their given name, but when signing anything or in any formal situation, they used their husband’s name.

In this cookbook, most of the contributors have listed their names as their husband’s name or initial. There are a few who submitted their given name, but those are few and far between. If there is no “Mrs.” title, we would assume that person is single. That person would not include the title “Miss”.

I encourage you to try this recipe and let me know what you think in the Comments below.