One of my most favorite Christmas traditions is making Pfeffernusse with my Mama. They’re the cookies she made with her Mama forever and ever, and the recipe came out of a recipe book containing all of my Grandma’s special recipes.

Peffernusse, or Pefefferneffies as we call them, are a little German cookie. They taste kind of like a cross between spice cake and mild gingerbread. They are crunchy and bite-size and delicious!

We make the dough the night before as it needs to sit, and then we bake them while we watch White Christmas – and sometimes wine or margaritas appear too! These are majorly time intensive, so it typically takes us all afternoon.

You see, my traditions didn’t stop when I found out I have celiac disease. All I had to do was swap out the flour. Sure there was some experimenting, but I’ve got it down now! They taste just as I remember.

The moral of the story? Don’t let food restrictions steal your joy. Every recipe can be modified, and the truth is that most of the time…it’s not actually about the recipe anyway. It’s everything else that comes with the tradition. 

Ok, back to the cookies and the recipe. Listen, these aren’t for the faint of heart. This dough is a pain to make and a little finicky, and they are very labor-intensive.

The first thing you’ll do is make the dough the night before. It has a lot of ingredients, but the flavor will be amazing, I promise! Follow the instructions very carefully. I find it’s helpful to pre-measure the spices, have your zest ready, etc. so that once you start boiling the butter, milk, and sugar, you’re ready to go.

When you’re ready to make the cookies, be sure to set aside at least 3 hours. These cookies are meant to be very small, bit size little things – which means you have to get a very large amount of dough into small, bite-size things too!

These cookies make fantastic gifts in little jars (if you’re willing to part with them!) and freeze very well, so you can eat them all year round! I didn’t count but as you can see by the picture, it makes a fair amount.

Good luck and enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb butter
• 1 cup milk
• 4 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp white pepper
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 grated lemon zest
• 1 grated orange zest
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp hot water
• 8-9 cups 1:1 gluten free flour (I like King Arthur). Do not scoop the flour – use a spoon to measure it out into cups.

Dough Instructions:

Boil butter, milk, and sugar in 2-qt saucepan for 2 minutes. Do not cover, and watch to make sure it doesn’t boil over.

Pour into very large mixing bowl. Add cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, almond extract, vanilla extract, salt, and white pepper.

Allow mixture to cool and then add the beaten eggs, lemon and orange zest, baking soda, and water.

Finally, add the flour, a little at a time. By the time you’ve gotten to 8 cups, your dough should be VERY hard to continue mixing. Place a damp paper towel on top of the dough and cover the bowl tightly. Refrigerate overnight.

Baking Instructions

Let dough come to room temperature (take out of refrigerator at least 4 hours prior to baking). Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Test your dough by using a large spoon to scoop some out. You may need to add more water or more flour to get it to a consistency that you can handle without it being too sticky or too dry. There may be some trial and error!

Using spoonfuls of dough, roll into long pencils and cut into bite-sized pieces. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake 10-12 minutes. You will need several batches, and it works best to have 3-4 cookies sheets (and 3-4 sets of hands!) in play so that you can continually cut the dough and line them up on the sheets while others are baking.

Roll your dough into long pencil or snake-like shapes and slice into desired size. They should look like little pillows. Use a dusting of flour if the dough is too sticky, and feel free to add a tiny bit of water if it’s too dry and cracking when you are rolling or slicing it.

These tops of these cookies don’t really brown, so you may want to pick one up at the 10 minute mark and see how brown the bottom is getting. The longer they cook, the harder cookie you will have. I like mine a bit under cooked so they stay softer.

Once done, dump cookies onto large sheets of paper towels or parchment paper to cool completely, and then transfer to Ziploc freezer bags or storage containers.