By Sarah J. Hauser
@sarah.j.hauser

“How come we cannot figure out how to get these dumb cookies out of these tins after this many years?!”

I throw my hands up, slightly exasperated but laughing. My sister, Jenn, and sister-in-law, Krista, laugh with me. “This is going to be the year! This is it!” Jenn says. It’s our seventh annual Christmas Baking Day, and we’re determined to succeed at the cookies Mom seemed to make effortlessly every year growing up. Sandkaker are a family favorite. They only require a few ingredients, but yield buttery, sweet, slightly almond-flavored perfection—that is, if you can get them out of the dang metal molds.

I’m sure there’s a trick to it. In fact, we’ve tried all the tricks, but every year we just end up laughing while we toss the crumbled, damaged cookies into a Ziploc bag to save for use as an ice cream topping.

“How did Mom do this?” Jenn says, shaking her head. Her hands grip the edges of one of the molds, gently squeezing with vain hope that the cookie will break free.

***

Mom’s cookies were always flawless, or at least that’s how I remember them. As a kid, I’d walk through her kitchen, make a lap around the island to inspect the results of her work, and sneak a cookie or two while she wasn’t looking. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, the kitchen smelled like butter and sugar. I’d watch her press the dough into those metal molds, not too thick, not too thin. Into the oven they went, and then a few minutes after their edges were golden brown, she’d pop them out of the molds with relative ease.

Occasionally, as she leaned over the counter with laser-like focus, you could hear her say, “Oh crumb!” under her breath when one didn’t release its grasp on the metal in one piece. I liked it when one got messed up. Those were the ones we were allowed to eat right then and there, no waiting for Christmas day or whatever holiday event was on the calendar.

Decades after snitching broken cookies off my mom’s counter, I email Jenn, Krista, and a few of my nieces who live nearby.

“So for whoever wants to join, I’d love to have a girls’ baking day on Sunday, December 18.”

I add a few other details and a “no pressure at all!” clause. We’d never done this before, and I’m not really sure what a “baking day” might look like, how we’ll divide up the work or decide who brings what ingredients. I wonder if I’m just adding more busyness to an already busy season. But I know I have to get a few recipes made before Christmas—Swedish Tea Ring, maybe krumkake, those chocolate cookies with the Andes mints melted on top, for sure sandkaker if I can find the tins hidden in the back of the pantry. I’ve also had that yellow box with the krumkake baker sitting in the basement for a few years, so maybe I should learn how to use it.

“We’ll be there!”

“We can come!”

Their replies roll into my inbox that same day, and I get to planning. In the coming weeks, I scour Mom’s cookbooks, trying to find the right recipes for all the things she used to make. I search for the page with instructions for sandkaker. Sugar crusts over some of the words, but thankfully I can still read the fading black print. I keep flipping through yellowed pages, taking mental notes of the recipes that seem more well-loved before sliding that cookbook back onto the shelf and pulling out another worn, butter-splattered volume. I wish I could call her, I think, as a couple tears add their own mark next to the recipes.

She’s been gone a few years by this point, but opening these cookbooks rubs my heart raw. I remember her wiping dough on her cow-print apron and pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose with the back of her wrist, her hands covered in flour. I remember her telling me how to add fractions so I could double or triple the recipe—there were always so many mouths to feed. Later as an adult, I usually forgot I didn’t need to make multiple batches of every recipe and ended up with far more food than my husband and I could ever eat.

I remember her playfully swatting my brother and my hands away as we tried to take a swipe of the unbaked cookie dough with our fingers. By the third or fourth swipe of dough, though, the swats were accompanied by her gritted teeth and a few stern words about how we’d better knock it off. We did … until she turned around.

I wish I had offered to help her cook more often. I wish I had asked more questions. I wish she could teach me her tricks. She did teach me, occasionally. But I kept myself so busy as a kid, especially in high school, that I probably couldn’t be bothered to help with much of the baking––just the eating. Now, as an adult, this baking thing seems far more important, maybe even essential. It’s a way I can keep a piece of her in the kitchen with me, a way I can share her with my kids. They never met her, having been born a couple years after she died. But they will know Nana’s recipes. I’ll make sure of that.

Everyone gathers that first year at my house. I hold an almost two-year-old on my left hip while reaching to preheat the oven with my free hand. My nieces press cookie dough into metal molds and Jenn rolls out another kind of dough for Swedish Tea Ring. Krista watches my other child since her own kids are grown enough to not need her to read recipes or remind them to not touch the pan when it comes out of the oven. We attempt all the family favorites, with varied success, but we’re learning.

***

Little did I realize that first year that this would become a tradition I’d never want to miss. This winter, we’ll gather for our eighth baking day. Some of my nieces have moved away, and we’ve added more of my own kids to the mix in recent years. Who’s there and what we make changes slightly. But we’ve never missed a year. Baking day has become an anchor in the season, a chance to eat well and be creative and laugh despite whatever else is going on. It’s a chance to share a piece of Mom with each other, with our kids, and with everyone who gets to enjoy the fruit of our baking day labor.

Oh, and it’s also a chance to try to get those stubborn cookies out of the molds. One of these years, we will prevail.

Brown Butter Cookies with White Chocolate + Pecans
Yields about 24-28 cookies

There are a couple steps to this recipe that involve inactive time (letting butter cool and chilling the dough). These steps affect the texture of the final product, so just plan your baking day accordingly.

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
½ cup brown sugar, lightly packed
½ cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon kosher salt
7-8 ounces white chocolate, either chips or bars broken into smaller pieces
4 ounces roughly chopped pecans

For the Browned Butter:

Cut the butter into smaller pieces. Add the butter pieces to a pan set over medium heat.

Stir the butter continually with a wooden spoon or heat proof spatula. The butter will melt, and then it will begin to foam. Keep stirring regularly. During this time, the color will deepen, some of the foam will subside, and the butter will give off a rich, nutty aroma. As soon as that happens, turn off the heat. The whole process should take 5-8 minutes. (It takes only seconds for the butter to go from browned to burned, so don’t get distracted!)

Transfer the butter to a heat proof container, and put it in the fridge to resolidify for at least 1 ½ to 2 hours.*

For the Cookies:

When the butter has resolidified, add it, along with the brown sugar and white sugar, to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or use a hand mixer). Cream together the butter and sugars on medium speed for about 1-2 minutes. Add the vanilla and then the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition until the batter is smooth.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt. Turn the mixer to low speed and gradually add the flour mixer to wet ingredients. Mix just until blended, being careful not to overmix. I like to finish this process by hand, using a spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl and make sure all the ingredients are fully incorporated.

Cover the bowl of dough with plastic wrap, and place it in the refrigerator. Chill the dough for a minimum of 30 minutes, but preferably 2-4 hours.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Roll the chilled dough into 1 to 1 ¼-inch balls and place at least 2 inches apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. These cookies will spread quite a bit, so make sure you leave ample space between each one.

Bake for 10-13 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and crisp.

As soon as the cookies come out of the oven, place some white chocolate on each cookie. Let the chocolate melt a bit, then spread the melted chocolate over the cookie with a spoon. Sprinkle on chopped pecans.

Cool completely until the chocolate on top hardens. Store in the fridge or freezer, or serve and enjoy!

NOTES:

*I have experimented with this way more than I care to admit. You could just let the butter cool for 10-15 minutes, and then mix up the cookie dough. However, the texture and look of the cookies will change. In my opinion, it’s worthwhile to let the browned butter solidify before mixing the dough.

Words and photo by Sarah J. Hauser.

Sarah J. Hauser is a writer and speaker living in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and four kids. Through theology, stories, and the occasional recipe, she helps others find nourishment for their soul. She loves cooking but rarely follows a recipe exactly, and you can almost always find her with a cup of coffee in hand. She is the author of All Who Are Weary: Finding True Rest by Letting Go of the Burdens You Were Never Meant to Carry. Check out her monthly newsletter or find her on Instagram.