 Home | Recent News | Newton | Peppernuts | Printme | Printme | Printme 07 Jan 2008 Retired rancher’s peppernuts in high demand for ChristmasRetired rancher’s peppernuts in high demand for Christmas
Bob Baker is an expert peppernut maker. He does not just make the spice-dense cookies at Christmas time, but anytime the weather turns cold. He has to in order to keep up with the demand for his version of this traditional Mennonite treat.
“I give them away mostly,” said the retired, third-generation farmer and cattle rancher from rural Elbing, Kan.; he and his wife, Betty, now make their home at Presbyterian Manor in Newton. “This year I’ll probably make about 50 pounds of flour (worth). That’s quite a few peppernuts.”
He’s been baking peppernuts (Pfeffernusse in German) for 30 years. His recipe (and there are many, many recipes) includes anise, mace and cinnamon.
The cookies are a bit labor intensive. Baker estimates it takes about an hour to prepare a batch. He cuts the dough into bite-size pieces before it is baked. The finished product must then cool at room temperature for several more hours.
“It’s quite a job. That’s the reason there’s not very many people who bake them,” he said.
He first ate the cookies as a boy growing up on a farm near Elbing. “My mother made them occasionally, but not much. I went to a country school with some kids who used to bring them,” he said.
Bob has fine-tuned his recipe over the years and concedes turning out a great peppernut is an art form. “If you cook them one minute too long, they get kind of burnt,” he said, adding, “I’m going to have to go check my oven right now.” Yes, he had Peppernuts baking.
Peppernuts are well-loved by coffee drinkers, who delight in dipping them in the hot beverage. Or, in the case of Baker’s cookies, they are just as good alone. One recipient said even an overcooked batch by Baker (extra dark) yielded the best peppernuts she had ever eaten.
Baker rarely has any peppernuts lying around unspoken for as Christmas draws closer. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be persuaded to share a few.
“If somebody really comes around and gives me a sad story that they have to have some, I will sell a few,” he said.
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