Pepparkakor, Portal 2 Style

You should know I like to play games. All types of video or board games. Portal 2 is one of my very favorites because it’s full of what I love: puzzles, lasers, a deranged robotic enemy, and

cooperative play. Games are more fun when you share them with other people.

Baking is a game. It has rules to follow (or break), puzzles to solve, sweet rewards, and it’s more fun when you share.

My good friend, Matt, gave me Portal 2 cookie cutters for Christmas. (I mean, seriously, how cool is that?) It doesn’t matter that the holidays have passed. There’s always room for one more batch of Pepparkakor when I have Portal 2 cookie cutters to use. Pepparkakor is the best cookie to make with these because the black pepper bites back—not unlike GLaDOS. Spicy and not too sweet, they’re a perfect post-holiday combination to pass around.

Pepparkakor

Makes 2-3 dozen

1/3 cup butter, real or vegan

120g brown sugar

75g white sugar (vanilla, if you have it)

1 tsp lemon zest

1 small egg

1/4 cup (100g) molasses

120g sorghum flour

100g sweet rice flour

60g tapioca flour

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Day 1

Cream together butter, sugars, and lemon zest. Beat in egg until smooth. Stir in molasses. Add all the dry ingredients and mix well into a uniform dough. It will be soft and sticky. Scoop out onto waxed paper, roll into a log, and refrigerate to roll out the next day. You may also freeze it; try to use the dough within about a month of making it.

Day 2

If your dough is frozen, let it rest at room temperature at least 1 hour before working with it. You may use it immediately from the fridge. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dust a smooth surface with sweet rice flour. Cut off about 1/4 – 1/3 of the dough to work with at a time. Form into a disk, dust with more sweet rice flour, and roll out very thin, about 1/8-inch. Cut into shapes and arrange on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. You may reform and roll out the scraps one time, but after that it’ll be too stiff with flour to bake a good cookie. Bake 8-10 minutes, until cookies are just beginning to brown at the edges. Cool completely before decorating with colored frosting or glaze.

Basic Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

2-3 tsp lemon juice, Grand Marnier, or coconut milk (more as needed, depending on desired consistency)

Food coloring (optional)

Mix together powdered sugar and some liquid, stirring and adding liquid until all powdered sugar is incorporated and glaze is desired thickness. Drizzle from a fork or scoop into a plastic bag and snip off the tip to give a more controlled line.

Dodee Cookies

My great great grandmother, Dodee, would sit out on the porch and drink a beer with my grandfather. She taught my grandmother how to cook meat and kept a sharp wooden three-pronged fork for turning pork chops, which she’d serve with homemade applesauce and sauerkraut. Around her memory hover little unsubstantiated tales involving occasional cigars and outright profanity. She was the best of all idealized grandmothers and even if the facts are a little stretched, her character remains a family legend of love.

I think we would’ve gotten along swimmingly.

Dodee’s cookies are a Christmas tradition for my family. The holiday isn’t right until these emerge golden from the oven, topped with their shining maraschino jewels. I don’t know how long her recipe took to perfect. It probably suffered pinches and prods in her kitchen for years until she honed it into flawlessness. My gluten-free version took ten Decembers.

When a cookie is mostly butter, the slightest tweak to gluten-free flours and starches shakes the recipe to its core. These cookies have been responsible for more oven cleanups than any other recipe I’ve ever created or converted. Now I can’t stop smiling as I write this, having eaten four perfect Dodee cookies that each hold the flavor I remember from way back in my gluten-filled childhood.

I like to think I know a part of Dodee through her cookies. It’s been a long decade of baking chats with her as I change starches, add or subtract ingredients, and strive towards her cookie’s simple genius. This is a flavor meant for sharing.

Happy Baking!

Dodee Cookies

Makes 2 dozen

1 stick real butter or vegan butter (1/2 cup)

85g brown sugar

50g sweet rice flour

45g amaranth flour

55g tapioca starch

raw pecans or maraschino or amarena cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Cream together butter and brown sugar in a medium bowl. Stir in flours until dough forms and everything is well-mixed. Scoop out about 1 tsp of dough at a time and roll it into balls. Arrange on cookie sheet about 1-2 inches apart. Press a fork into each ball just once, then top with either a pecan piece or half a cherry.

Bake about 10-12 minutes, until cookies are golden and just beginning to brown on the edges. Cool at least 5 minutes before removing from sheet. Cookies will be soft when just baked, but will become crunchy as they cool. Cookies with cherries will turn soft again the next day. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

Note: Using vegan butter in these cookies works, though their edges will be feathery instead of smooth.

Grammie and me, during a past holiday season

Apple Spice Cookies

I have a lot of apples.

My father-in-law brought me an entire box full of Liberties and Spartans, all harvested from his backyard trees, and declared I should use what I could and bring the rest back to him when we pressed apple cider (see last week’s post). Well, my week turned busier than I anticipated and I hadn’t touched the apples by the time he wanted to press. So I emptied a drawer in my fridge, lined it with a bag, and piled in a reasonable amount of apples.

Now I have a drawer full of possibilities.

I made apple cake three times and finally have it perfected. You’ll see that recipe soon. Then I wondered how apple cookies would taste and the flour really started flying.

You see, these cookies were meant for the Food52 cookbook release party at Delancey in Seattle last night. (Which was excellent—filled with friendly home cooks eager to talk ratios and spices.)

I always do this: start off making a tried-and-true recipe for an event, then detour off into playful creativity. Sometimes the experiments don’t work and I go empty-handed. Fortunately, these emerged from the oven chewy, moist, and delicious.

Fresh apple is the secret to these cookies. It releases its stores of moisture into the cookies as they bake, locking in the soft chewy texture for days. They’re actually better the next day, after they’ve had time to absorb the spices. Not unlike apple cake, in fact; though easier to serve at a potluck!

Apple Spice Cookies

Makes 2 dozen

1 stick vegan or real butter

100g (1/2 cup) brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

120g (1 cup) quick cooking gluten-free oats

60g (1/2 cup) brown rice or sorghum flour

60g (1/2 cup) sweet rice flour

15g (2 Tbls) tapioca starch

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/2 - 3/4 cup apple, finely chopped

1/4 cup dried currants

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla until creamy texture forms. Add oats, flours, baking soda, and spices. Mix thoroughly. Fold in apple and currants until they’re uniformly distributed throughout the dough.

Spoon out onto parchment about 1 Tbls at a time, leaving 2 inches between each cookie. You can freeze the dough at this step and store the frozen cookie dough to be baked off later. Bake about 12-15 minutes, until cookies are browned and edges are just beginning to look dry. Cool at least 5 minutes before removing from tray.