Parties and Patterns

HOW MUCH DOUGH CAN MY FRIDGE HOLD?

How hard is it to make a recipe that you have made for years? Not that easy. One would think that one would keep a great Norwegian recipe in a very safe place, so that one could use it year after year. Well, of course, my safe place is in the back of a telephone book. Really now, you can't get safer than that. Every year when I need that recipe I just go get that old telephone book. Not this year, when I desperately wanted to include the recipe in one of my theme dinners. Apparently, someone needed that page with my Pepperkake recipe and tore it out of the telephone book.

Not to despair, I have a Norwegian cook book at the cabin. Nope, the Norwegian cook book is not at the cabin, or anywhere for that matter. I have looked high and low at least 4 times, and it is not high, low, or anywhere. I did however find a recipe in another, not so good, Norwegian cook book. I gave it a go.

Attempt #1: Not good, the dough didn't have a very good flavor. That's okay, we'll just put the dough in the refrigerator. If we didn't like the cookies the first time, then certainly it will be good another day, right?

Attempt #2: I changed a few ingredients around, still pretty nasty, but we'll just save that dough too. There must be some way to recycle it.

Attempt #3: let's use a gingerbread recipe from a regular cook book and add some pepper. Not good. The cookie was not crisp, thin, or good to eat. Into the fridge it went.

Attempt #4: Let's ask a Swede for the coveted recipe. Brilliant! They will have a great , authentic recipe. It probably was great except somehow the conversions did not translate. Dad was trying to convince me that he had it right. Let's see... 6 1/2 cups karo syrup, 5 1/2 cups flour, 3 eggs and some melted butter. Sounds to me like we are making soup. Two cups syrup and 8 cups of flour later, we were ready to roll out the dough. I have to admit that I thought, this really would be the recipe. You melt the syrup, butter and spices together and it was yummy. Almost a ginger caramel. Unfortunately the dough was better than the cookie though the grand-babies loved them. Also, they spread all over the pan and you couldn't tell they were gingerbread men. (That might have been because the only cookie cutter I had was a bunny!!!) I'm not going to experiment with that recipe again but now we have 4 batches of dough in the fridge with a purpose yet to be determined.

Attempt #5: found another recipe that claims to be thin and crisp, but too much ginger and a bad, after taste.

Attempt #6: Using the recipe from attempt #5 I decreased the ginger by a teaspoon, added an extra teaspoon of cinnamon, added a teaspoon of cloves and two teaspoons of pepper. Yes, you heard me, two teaspoons of black pepper. When I returned to the kitchen the plate of cookies was gone along with the milk. The recipe is perfect! Nice, crisp, thin and yummy.

Now, we have 5 batch's of gingerbread cookie dough that nobody ate the first time. There must be some way to recycle that dough! The neighbors?