Bubbat and Peppernuts:

By Helen Rose Pauls

What would Christmas be without the smell of something wonderful baking in the oven: peppermint cookies, bubbat, and peppernuts? Mystery filled the house in December as mother baked mountains of cookies, only to store them away in crocks from eager little (and not so little) hands so that they could mellow for Christmas. The following recipes are taken from the "Mennonite Heritage Village Cookbook."

Peppermint cookies:

Cream together 1 cup lard, 2 cups sugar, 2 eggs. Add I cup milk, 5 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. baking soda, dash of salt, 2 ½-3 cups flour, 15 drops peppermint oil.

Roll ¼ inch thick and cut with a round cookie cutter. Bake 10 minutes at 375. When cool, use plain white butter icing.

Peppernuts:

Cream a cup of butter and 2 cups sugar. Add one egg and a cup of molasses. Mix in ½ tsp. oil of anise, 2 tsp. baking powder, ½ tsp. each of cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, salt. Add 2 cups thick cream and 3 cups flour (more if needed to make a stiff dough.) Some bakers rolled these out paper thin and used a thimble to cut rounds. Others rolled them into little balls and pressed them flat. Bake at 350 for 7 minutes, and store in a sealed container for a few weeks to bring out the flavor.

Bubbat:

Oma Pauls at 96, still brings bubbat to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners to the delight of the grandchildren. Now she bakes it in pans, but she used to pour it into the turkey where the dough absorbed the drippings and the fat….a Mennonite version of Yorkshire pudding. Mix together 4 cups flour, 4 tsp. sugar, 1 tsp. salt, 4 tsp. baking powder, 4 tbsp. shortening, 2 cups raisins, 2 beaten eggs, 3 cups cream. Bake at 350 for 1 ½ hours.