Springerle and the Fine Art of Swearing

Once upon a time, I was chatting on the phone with my mother-in-law, when my eldest son came jumping into the room on one leg shouting, “Dammit! Dammit! I can’t get my damn underwear on!”

I stood there, waffling between mortification that my mother-in-law heard evidence of the example I was setting for her grandson, and pride that my little boy was making proper use of the expletive.

Hey, I’m not morally or spiritually opposed to some well-placed profanity. It’s just sad when it’s coming from a two-year old. I tend to think that like many things, context is key. And while I believe that considered cursing can add immeasurable emphasis and offer great cathartic satisfaction,  I also think gratuitous overuse dilutes the effect and coarsens everyday discourse.

When I was growing up, my mom used to say that my grandmother wouldn’t say the word sh*t even if she had a mouthful of it. Although my mother wasn’t similarly constrained, in the 1960’s, my formative years, it wasn’t good form to drop four letter words in polite company. A single parent to young girls, my mother was quick to instruct us on the parameters of ladylike behavior. But I’m here to tell you she could make judicious use of a four-letter word now and again. And again.

Don’t get me wrong, references to my father aside, she didn’t have a potty mouth or stroll through life making sailors blush. No, the finer points of my mother’s swearing were adjunct lessons to her cooking. Casting aspersions on the parentage of food stuffs or appliances…consigning fallen souffles and lumpy gravy to the fires of hell…invoking Jesus using his middle initial (“H”, who knew?) when the stove wouldn’t light. That was where I learned to swear.

Every December when my mother made Springerle, the traditional German Christmas cookie handed down through her father’s side, it wasn’t just Elvis singing about a Blue Christmas.

Ho-Ho-Holy &%@!

It’s a lot of work, this Springerle. Mixing dough was arduous and time consuming. Rolling and cutting was a minefield. Transferring cookies to prepared cookie sheets (greased and sprinkled with anise seed), finding room to let them dry overnight…it was all a royal pain in the…patoot.

I never liked Springerle as a kid. I mean, come on…no filling…no icing…no chocolate?! You call that a cookie? It’s really just a plain ol’ biscuit with lemon and anise flavoring. Meh.

But I liked the idea of it. I liked the smell of them baking and swiping scraps of dough as my mom swore and rolled her way to forming perfectly imprinted cookies. I loved listening to her Christmas stories. Like, when her Dad was away at Christmas during WWII, how her family read a special poem on Christmas Eve at the exact time my grandfather was reading it. And how her Mom made them put the tinsel on the tree One Strand At A Time. And her Springerle stories,  like how the woman who cooked for her grandparents and made Springerle would let my mom sit up on the kitchen table and help. My mom always referred to her as ‘B’Gon’. It wasn’t until my mother wrote the memory down in a letter that we understood her name was Ann, Big Ann. I don’t know if she was big, but she must’ve been strong as an ox to mix this batter without a KitchenAid.

Making Springerle is a multi-step process, and each step offers a new test of character, a new level of profane vocabulary. My mom started by beating the hell out of the eggs for five minutes before adding 2 cups of sugar, in two tablespoon increments, beating well after each addition and then for a solid ten freaking minutes after all of the sugar was in. I could read War & Peace faster than she could whip up a batch of Springerle.

The dough was then refrigerated and divided to be rolled out a section at a time. She’d flour the work surface and the rolling pin…not too much or you toughen the dough, then carefully make a pass over it with her carved Springerle rolling pin, imprinting individual designs and marking the cutting lines. If they weren’t just right, she’d swear and roll it out again, eventually transferring the cookies to the cookie sheets and leaving them to dry overnight.

imprinted springerle dough

Baking them the next day offered yet another opportunity for epithetical expression. A temperamental oven was called every name in her playbook. She often guesstimated doneness by the aroma issuing forth from the oven and we held our collective breath when we heard her open the oven door.  Would the oven be lauded for finally working the way it bleeping should, or consigned to eternal damnation? Once baked, the cookies were stored in a large crock with a piece of bread or half an apple and given a couple of weeks to ripen or mellow.

Excuse me just a sec….there’s no filling, no icing, no chocolate and they aren’t even ripe? WTF?

Thanks, but no thanks.

So maybe it comes as a surprise that when my mother died almost 27 years ago, I fought my sister and brother for her Springerle rolling pin. I wanted the heritage, the memories, the sense of connection to her. They could enjoy all those things if I made the cookies. Win, win.

Three things happened the first year I made the Springerle. One, I felt a deeper sense of connection, respect and understanding for my mother and her tenacity. Two, I surprised myself with the depth of my cursing vocabulary.  And three, I developed a taste for Springerle.

In the years since, my skills have improved and I have mellowed. Undoubtedly due to the secret weapon my mom never had…the interwebs. Recipes, tips, tricks and tools are readily available and every year I try a little something new to improve the process or the product. Several years ago I discovered a site that sells molds and I ordered one that was a game changer. So much easier to form the cookies, I no longer use my Mom’s Springerle rolling pin. Last year my sister gave me rolling pins that regulate the depth of the dough. This year’s innovation is a huge silicone mat. It’s not as non-stick as advertised, but the size works quite well with the rolling pin - and less rolling and flour makes for a more tender cookie.

This year I’ve been tweaking the process a bit. My go-to recipe calls for the dough to be refrigerated overnight, then rolled, then left out 24 hours to dry, but skipping the refrigeration day has shortened the timeline and I find the dough much easier to roll.

I prefer the cookies fresh out of the oven. I don’t think they need to ‘ripen’, although I like how the licorice flavor deepens with storage. I like Springerle so much now that it’s my main food group in December. And it’s become a profanity free process.

Until I step on the f&%#!^g! scale.

The OG Springerle Rolling Pin