"RobtE" > wrote in message
...
>I had a collection of aunts that made Bertie Wooster's look like a vicar's
>tea party. Every year about this time Great-Aunt Myrtle would descend upon
>us with a batch of her annual baking. We could conclude only that she was
>intent on wiping out the rest of the family so that her daughers could
>inherit /everything/. Her German Christmas cookies were like concrete.
>Honest, if George W decided to drop these things on Iraq the war would be
>over in a matter of days. The only way you could even bite through her
>cookies was to plunge them into your coffee and leave them there until the
>coffee had gone cold.
>
> Rumour had it that she had a special rolling pin that shaped her cookies
> into their traditional rectangles, with their raised shapes of knights and
> damsels. She apparently made these WMDs in the autumn and then
> intentionally left them to go stale and hard.
>
> Yes, I know Google is my friend, and I've no problems Googling for a
> recipe, but I need a name for these things to Google on. Anyone have any
> ideas? As I remember them, they were vaguely anise-seed flavoured, if that
> helps any.
>
> RobtE
Springele -- they should have been made last month and kept in a jar with
some sliced apple to soften. As I recall, the dough is made up, rolled out
with the springele rolling pin (or alternatively, there are individual
squares of cut wood with elaborate patterns that are pressed onto the
dough), and then the dough is allowed to dry on the counter overnight before
baking the next day. They are anise flavored and hard as rock when new. If
you don't have time to age them now, you make them up and use them as coffee
dunkers.
Janet