Holiday Kipferl Cookie

Another week. Another set of sunrises over Lake Superior. Another set of meals cooked for one and eaten at a table set for two. The two-place setting is the thing the kids have stopped commenting on. They used to remark when they came to visit. They used to gently suggest, in the way grown children gently suggest, that perhaps it was time to set just one. Now they set their own additional plates around mine and they let Paul's plate be Paul's plate. The setting is the love. The setting is the staying. Elsa called from Voyageurs. She had a sighting of a wolf — a single gray adult crossing a frozen bay at dawn, fifty yards from her cabin. She had a sighting of a moose two days later. She is happy in the woods. I am glad someone in this family is happy in the woods. I have always loved Lake Superior, but the deeper woods are not for me. Elsa is for the deeper woods. The match is right. Anna sent photos from Minneapolis — the kids in their school uniforms, David's new bookshelf, the dog (their dog, not mine; their dog is named Cooper, and Cooper is a Bernese mountain dog who weighs more than Anna and who is, by all accounts, the most relaxed dog in the upper Midwest). I printed three of the photos and put them on the fridge. The fridge holds the family that is not currently in the kitchen. Julbord prep is in full force. The list is on the fridge. The pickled herring is ordered (three varieties — mustard, dill, onion — from Russ Kendall's, delivered next week). The meatballs are scheduled (Wednesday before Christmas Eve, sixteen pounds of beef and pork, the kind of cooking marathon that requires water breaks). The kitchen is at war with December and December is losing. The kitchen has been winning this war since 1990. The kitchen will win again. I cooked Cardamom coffee bread this week. The braided loaf for Christmas morning. Sliced thick. Buttered. Thursday: soup. Always soup. Gerald said, "You are the most reliable woman in Duluth." I said, "I am the most reliable woman in this kitchen." He said, "Same thing." I do not think that is the same thing. I think that is a kindness Gerald gives me because Gerald is kind. I take the kindness. I do not argue. I lit a candle in the kitchen for no particular reason. Maybe for Mamma. Maybe for Pappa. Maybe for Lars. Maybe for Paul. Maybe for all of them. The candle is a tall white tapered one, set in a brass holder Mamma had on her dining room table for forty years. I let it burn down. The dripping wax made a small white pool on the brass. I cleaned it off. I lit another one the next night. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. I have learned, slowly, that there is a kind of competence that comes only with age. Not wisdom, exactly — wisdom is a word too grand for what I mean. Competence. The competence of having watched many things go wrong and many things go right and having developed an internal database of which is which. The competence is, perhaps, the only thing that improves with age in a body that is otherwise declining. I will take the trade. It is enough.

The cardamom coffee bread gets the braiding and the glory on Christmas morning — sliced thick, buttered, set out while the candles are still lit. But the Kipferl are what I make in the days before, the ones that go into the tin on the counter, the ones Gerald takes two of without asking because everyone takes two without asking. They are small enough to feel like nothing and somehow they are never nothing. I have made them every December since Mamma first put the recipe card in my hand, and I will make them every December I have a kitchen to stand in.

Prep Time: 30 min | Cook Time: 15 min | Total Time: 1 hr 15 min (includes 30 min chill) | Servings: 28 cookies

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar, plus 3/4 cup more for rolling
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup finely ground blanched almonds
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon fine salt

Instructions

Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and 1/2 cup powdered sugar together on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and beat to combine.
Mix the dough. Add the flour, ground almonds, cardamom, and salt. Mix on low speed until the dough just comes together — it will be soft and slightly crumbly. Do not overmix.
Chill. Turn the dough out, press into a flat disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Cold dough holds its shape when you form the crescents.
Preheat oven. Set oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Shape the crescents. Pinch off a scant tablespoon of dough and roll it between your palms into a short log, about 2 1/2 inches. Gently curve the ends to form a crescent. Place 1 inch apart on prepared sheets. They will not spread much.
Bake. Bake one sheet at a time in the center of the oven for 13—15 minutes, until the bottoms are just barely golden and the tops are set but still pale. Watch closely after 12 minutes; they go from pale to over-baked quickly.
Roll in sugar while warm. Spread the remaining 3/4 cup powdered sugar in a shallow dish. While the cookies are still warm (but not hot enough to break), lift them carefully and roll gently in the sugar until coated. Set on a rack to cool completely. Roll a second time in powdered sugar once fully cooled for a thicker coat.
Store. Layer the finished cookies in a tin between sheets of parchment. They keep at room temperature for up to 10 days and improve after the first day as the almond flavor deepens.

Nutrition (per serving)

Holiday Kipferl Cookie — The Small Sweet Things We Make for Christmas Mornings