Pizzelles
I could swear I've posted about these before ... I know that I brought them to the Childhood Favorites dinner with my dinner club. But since I can't find a hint of them in my archives, away we go ...
Every Easter, every baby shower, every bridal shower, every wake, these wafer-y, golden cookies grace the table. They look like doilies. They look like snowflakes. They smell of lemon with a puff of licorice, or licorice with a twist of lemon, depending on which great-aunt you listen to in the Ongoing Battle of the Correct Pizzelle Recipe.
They don't always make an appearance during Christmas, probably because the Family Ladies are too busy hand-rolling pasta dough (which I have written about and pictured before), pulling preserves out of the root cellar, knitting scarves for all the cousins, or, these days, biting their nails as they sit in their office counting the minutes to a mad-dash lunch hour in which they can brave the mall for last minute gifities. (Oh, how times have changed.)
This year, prompted by my Fabulous Sister-in-Law K, who honored us with her desire to learn the craft and share stacks of Pizzelle goodness with her own relatives, we dusted off the irons and ... mmmm. It was so, so good to have that smell, rising in the little wisps of steam escaping the edges of the iron, drifting through my house.
The recipe is old, and not really written down (until I transcribed a phone call to my grandmother onto a recipe card). It calls for a lot of eggs, butter, sugar, and flavourings, with flour added until it "sort of slumps off the spoon."
The first few are always burnt and off center. And then, you hit the zone. Your batter is placed perfectly, your nose prickles at just the right moment, and the lid is lifted to reveal beautiful, scalloped, sunny circles of lace.
The stacks fill the table, and shrink as little fingers steal them away, nibbling.
Every Easter, every baby shower, every bridal shower, every wake, these wafer-y, golden cookies grace the table. They look like doilies. They look like snowflakes. They smell of lemon with a puff of licorice, or licorice with a twist of lemon, depending on which great-aunt you listen to in the Ongoing Battle of the Correct Pizzelle Recipe.
They don't always make an appearance during Christmas, probably because the Family Ladies are too busy hand-rolling pasta dough (which I have written about and pictured before), pulling preserves out of the root cellar, knitting scarves for all the cousins, or, these days, biting their nails as they sit in their office counting the minutes to a mad-dash lunch hour in which they can brave the mall for last minute gifities. (Oh, how times have changed.)
This year, prompted by my Fabulous Sister-in-Law K, who honored us with her desire to learn the craft and share stacks of Pizzelle goodness with her own relatives, we dusted off the irons and ... mmmm. It was so, so good to have that smell, rising in the little wisps of steam escaping the edges of the iron, drifting through my house.
The recipe is old, and not really written down (until I transcribed a phone call to my grandmother onto a recipe card). It calls for a lot of eggs, butter, sugar, and flavourings, with flour added until it "sort of slumps off the spoon."
The first few are always burnt and off center. And then, you hit the zone. Your batter is placed perfectly, your nose prickles at just the right moment, and the lid is lifted to reveal beautiful, scalloped, sunny circles of lace.
The stacks fill the table, and shrink as little fingers steal them away, nibbling.
posted by miss tasty | 1/01/2007
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