I stopped eating meat mainly because I was 14 and it seemed like a cool thing to do, but then found I didn’t miss it and haven’t really missed it  in the [redacted] years since. While I believe that it makes sense to reduce the number of animal products we use, I have never had much of a rationale for vegetarianism, and never felt much inclined towards being vegan. I’m way too lazy to monitor my diet that closely – living with three committed omnivores, I am okay with picking the sausage out of my favorite lentil soup. I’ll cook meat for everyone else, although they have to make their peace with the fact that I won’t taste it to check how it is. What about your family? Do you have a pescatarian in your midst? Or lurking lactose intolerance? How do you handle multiple dietary needs around the table?

So back to the subject of this post. Despite being happily ovo-lacto myself, my most beloved cake recipe is, by chance, vegan. It’s a Bundt cake and pretty much my stock answer to “what should your birthday cake be?” Although it’s extremely easy to make, it falls into the category of a special occasion cake so it’s not a one I make or eat too often, and that’s not right. When I started seeing cookies baked from cake mix around the internet, a little light  went off over my head. Could this be a way to get a dose of chocolate spice deliciousness whether it’s a birthday or not?

Indeed. Baked for ten minutes, these cookies are delightful puffy, pillowy little cakelets, gooey with chocolate chips and perked up with cinnamon and cloves. But try underbaking them by a minute or two, and you will get what I consider the ideal consistency, which is amazing, almost pudding-y. And  what with them being vegan and all, no worries about raw eggs – go ahead and eat a spoonful or two of the dough, you have my permission.

The canonical version of the cake does not include raisins, although they are in the recipe as written on an index card in my mother’s file. These are to be soaked in brandy or other liquid, and while I scornfully cast out the raisins, I do include that liquid; coffee (what else?) in our household. Feel free to booze it up if you have some handy.

Chocolate spice cookies

Since the original cake is by nature a bit heavy, I used some whole wheat flour in the cookies to give them some heft. You could use all all-purpose, but add the coffee/liquid gradually to see that the mixture doesn’t get too thin. It will thicken some if you refrigerate it for a few hours or overnight.

Ingredients

Makes about 3 dozen smallish cookies

• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
• 3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• ¾ cup applesauce
• ⅓ cup canola oil
• ¼ cup brewed coffee, cooled (or brandy, or other liquid of your choice)
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350° F and line a baking pan with parchment paper.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, spices, baking soda, salt and cornstarch. Add the sugars. Stir in the applesauce and oil, then add the coffee and mix until fully combined. The dough will be soft.
• Scoop the dough out in rounded teaspoons on the baking sheet.
• Bake for about 8-10 minutes or until just puffed – leave them to set for 5 minutes on the baking sheet before moving them to a plate to be gobbled immediately cool.

Here is the promised third Czech Christmas Cookie. You can find a similar recipe in the December issue of Sauveur magazine, although they call it an Austrian cookie, which raised my blood pressure. Luckily there are bloggers out there who will correct these mistakes.

Anyway, these cookies have a deep walnut flavor, buttery richness, and are amazingly tender. That is what makes them my favorite. Beware – you can  eat an awful lot of these before you know it. They’re that good.

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Vanilla Crescent Cookies – Vanilkové rohlíčky

Ingredients

Makes about 60 cookies.

• 1 cup walnuts
• 2 cups flour
• ½ cup powdered sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 stick of butter

Method

• In a food processor, grind the walnuts until they form a crumbly paste.
• In a large bowl (of a stand mixer if you have one), combine the ground walnuts and the other ingredients. With the paddle attachment, or with your fingers, blend until a smooth dough comes together.
• Form the dough into a ball, then shape it into a disc and put it into the fridge for 30 min to rest.
• Preheat the oven to 350° F/190° C.
• Cut the dough into ½” strips, roll them into a rough log shape and then cut those into ½” slices.
• Roll the small slices and then curl them to make a crescent shape.
• Place them on a cookie sheet lined with baking paper and bake for approximately 10 minutes, or until the edges are just beginning to brown.
• Let them cool and dust with powdered sugar to serve. Enjoy.

There are a few differences between the Christmas season in Central Europe and how most families celebrate in the USA. The major one would be that the presents are brought by the baby Jesus, and not by Santa.  During the dark Orwellian times, the fashion from the Soviet Union was to bring in “Ded Maroz” (Father Frost), which was the comrades’ version of Santa. It did not work for many reasons, one being that December 6 in Central Europe is Saint Nicholas day, when kids eat themselves sick on candies brought by Saint Nick. For kids it was very hard to understand why would a man in red suit and beard coma back at Christmas and bring toys. Why he wouldn’t he drop off the candies and toys all at once? We needed another character.  So the concept of baby Jesus survived.

One thing we did after St. Nicholas (Mikulas) day was to start baking Christmas cookies. My mum used to make 4 batches of 6-7 different types of cookies. Emperor’s Crumbs will bring you my top three, starting with “Bear Paws” today. It has always been the tradition that everyone pitches in to make the cookies; while filling the molds with bear paw dough,  my brothers and I had to sing. This way my mum was sure that we were not eating the dough (which is pretty good, maybe even better than the cookies!).

Here is our family recipe and a video tutorial as well. The video stars my mum, who has been making these cookies for more than 60 years now. Some of the molds we used have been in our family for almost 200 years.

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Bear Paws – Medvedie Tlapky

This is a rich, soft dough that can be handled quite a bit without getting tough – so it’s perfect for working with kids (also, no raw eggs to worry about if someone happens to nibble the dough). While we are lucky enough to have vintage molds, we got equally good results from a brand new cookie pan like this one. Traditionally, these cookies are allowed to sit and soften for a week or more before they’re considered ready to eat, but we’ve never had a problem gobbling them up as soon as they’re cool enough to touch.
Ingredients

Makes one good batch for a big family and more.

• 1 cup walnuts
• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• pinch salt
• 1 cup +2 tbs softened butter, in small pieces

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350° F/190° C. If your cookie molds are unseasoned or not non-stick, lightly oil them.
• In a food processor, grind the walnuts until they form a crumbly paste.
• In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
• With the paddle attachment of a stand mixer, or with your fingers, blend the butter into the dry ingredients until a smooth dough comes together.
• Form the dough into a ball and gently knead it a few times.
• Pinch off a small quantity of dough and press a thin layer into your cookie mold. It should just cover the bottom and sides of the mold.
• If you are using individual molds, place  them on a baking sheet; bake for 8-10 minutes, watching carefully that the edges of the cookies don’t burn.
• Allow the cookies to cool for 5 minutes before gently sliding them out of the forms.

With our respective families 6000 miles apart, one thing Valerian and I have done together a lot is travel. And with two kids added to the mix now, we arm ourselves seriously when we head out to the airport: books, toys, changes of clothes, and of course, snacks. Lots and lots of snacks. When your kids start to get squirrely, sometimes a treat that would normally be off-limits is just what you need to get through the last hours of a 14-hour flight.

Some of the other things we’ve stashed in our carry-ons to amuse the small fry have included a small notebook and the cheapest set of coloring pens I could find; a set of trading cards; a box of band-aids for peeling and sticking at will, as well as other stickers; sets of little animals, preferably packaged in a plastic tube (often putting things in the tube is the best part of these toys); finger puppets; a magnadoodle.

As far as snacks go, I do nod towards healthy stuff like mini carrots, crackers, string cheese, etc. But really, when you’re looking for distraction as much as nutrition, this might be the time to bust out the Dora the Explorer shaped fruit snax, or whatever. The following recipe is a bit of both – I put in plenty of dried fruit and even chocolate chips, but by making it yourself you can avoid the high-fructose corn syrup and artificial colors.

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On the go Bars

This recipe is pretty flexible – you could swap in ingredients like whole wheat flour, or add some soy flour for protein, use different fruit, nuts, other seeds, use maple syrup instead of honey, add a little cinnamon or ginger powder, and so on. The mixture needs to hold together when you press it into the pan, so chop larger pieces of fruit or nuts, and add a little more liquid if mixture seems very crumbly. Even pretty small kids can help make it, too – mixing with fingers and patting it into the pan can be a fun activity between rushing around getting your bags packed.

Ingredients

Makes about 36 bars

• 1¾ C/200 g rolled oats
• 1 C/150 g flour
• ¾ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 2/3 C/155 g brown sugar
• 1/3 c/50 g pumpkin seeds
• 1 C/135 g dried fuit (I use apricots, prunes, dried cherries)
• ½ C/100 g chocolate chips or chopped chocolate
• ½ C/118 ml vegetable oil
• 1 Tbs honey
• 2 Tbs water or juice

Method

• Line the bottom of a 9×13″ pan with baking paper or foil to make it easier to remove the bars. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (170 C).
• In a large bowl, mix together the first 7 ingredients (the dry ones) with your fingers until everything is evenly distributed. Stir in the oil, honey, and water.
• Dump the mixture into the prepared pan and press it together firmly to form a layer about ½” (1 cm) thick. Bake for 30-35 minutes until lightly browned, then allow to cool in the pan before slicing into bars.

Along with those of his great-aunts, Katicza and Agota Gyurkovics (pictured above),  he has a few recipes by a magnificent woman Countess Marica Ordody, whose godfather was Kossuth Ferencz (son of Kossuth Lajos) and some from his mother Valeria. We will post some of these recipes. The very first one I wanted to try my grandma’s recipe for Linzer bars. I love linzer and my dad always asked my mum to make linzer like his mum used to make. So I was curious about two things.

1. How does my grandmother’s  linzer taste, obviously.

2. Would my dad recognize the taste and would he mention that “this is like my mother used to make it” or is he just cruel to my mum and he wants to make her something that does not exist.

Grandma

The test won in the 1st case but lost in the 2nd. I loved this Hungarian linzer. It is very easy to make and tastes great! After feeding crumbs to my dad (it is a small recipe… not too much left) he did not instantly recognize it as a miracle from the past though. When I told him that it is my grandmother’s recipe he said… oh yeah that’s right…that’s how my mum used to make it. So, some success but I was expecting more. After this I had a third question: why did’t he show the recipe to my mum, because if she knew it is so easy she would have been delighted.

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Linzer Bars/Cake/Cookies

This is a small recipe so do not make it as your main dish.

Ingredients

Makes 4-5 portions.

• 1 stick/113 grams butter
• 1¼ cup/240 grams sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 2.2 ounces/60 grams crushed almonds
• 3/4 cup + 2tbs/100 grams flour
• small jar of you favorite jam (I used cherry)
• a few blanched almonds for decoration

Method

• Work the flour, butter, sugar, egg yolks, and crushed almonds into a dough.
• Roll them 1/2 inch/2 cm thick into your desired shape: it can be one big square, one big circle or small circles. This might be a bit tricky with the rolling pin because the dough is very fragile and may fall apart. I used my fingers and pressed it into shape. Reserve a little bit of dough to make shapes on the top of the linzer. I made a lattice. Or tried to  — as I mentioned, the dough was very fragile.
• Spread the jam over it, and add a dough design if you choose. Place blanched almonds on top for decoration.
• The recipe says you should bake them in a very hot oven. So I tried 350 F (180 C). I baked them for 25 minutes, but I think 30 minutes or a higher temperature might work better. The dough under the jam was slightly undercooked.
• When the sides and the lattice are getting golden, take out the linzer and let it cool.
• Do not touch! Let it cool completely. And enjoy.

You know you’re in love when your heart’s aflutter waiting to see if you’ll get a big gaudy gingerbread heart from the fair. What, that’s not the sure sign you were thinking of? At least then you’re spared the anxiety over whether you should save that cookie to gaze upon rapturously with thoughts of love, or just eat it. Sadly, many of the goodies sold at the local fairs just aren’t that tasty. Made for sturdiness rather than flavor, they might outlast your romance anyway. Here’s a cookie recipe that will satisfy lovers of spicy sweetness; you can always write Miľujem ťa or Szeretlek on it to satisfy any other lovers.

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Mézeskalács/Perník/Spice cookies

This recipe is adapted from an old village cookbook. You can buy a mixed spice here called “Mézeskalács” or “Perník” spice, which includes cinnamon, allspice, anise, coriander, and nutmeg. If you can’t find a similar blend, substitute 1½ tsp ginger, 1½ tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp cloves, and ½ tsp nutmeg for a traditional gingerbread flavor.

Ingredients

Makes about 18 cookies

• 2½ cups/250 grams flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2½ tsp mézeskalács or perník spice blend (or see above)
• 1 tsp cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup/125 grams granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 Tbshoney

For the icing:
• 7 oz/200 grams powdered sugar
• 2 egg whites
• 1 tsp vanilla extract or lemon juice
• food coloring, if desired

Method

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, 190 C.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, spices and cocoa powder.
• Add eggs and honey. Mix to form a soft dough – it might not look like it’s going to come together, but it will. (I bet this dough would be easy to make in a food processor, not that I have one.)
• On a floured surface, roll out dough to about an eighth of an inch (4 mm) thick. Cut out with cookie cutters, and bake on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for 10-12 minutes.
• While cookies are baking, beat together the icing ingredients until smooth.
• Allow cookies to cool completely before icing. Decorate using a pastry bag fitted with a small tip, or even a ziplock bag with a corner cut off.