Pfeffernusse Spice Cookies

Years ago, I hosted an annual holiday cookie swap at a local nonprofit community center in San Francisco. Friends and members of the community gathered with large quantities of homemade cookies. Everyone walked around trying cookies and grabbing a few of the ones we loved.

Each person left with a tin of different cookies, along with a slight sugar rush.

What are gingerbread cookies?

The nonprofit’s executive director, Rosie, grew up making gingerbread nuts. Pfeffernusse Biscuits are a traditional German holiday biscuit; The name means “peppernut”. They contain no nuts, but white pepper.

I’d never eaten one before, but I knew the minute I tried one that I wanted to learn how to make it!

Unfortunately, I never got Rosie’s prescription before she left San Francisco. Since then, I’ve collected and looked at countless recipes to find out what made them so special. It turns out there are numerous variations of pfeffernut cookies, all claiming to be authentic. (And as with all “authentic” things, everyone thinks theirs is the most authentic!)

The version I finally landed on doesn’t use baking ammonia, a type of leavening agent that predates baking soda and that some people claim is important to the authenticity of the ginger nuts. It’s available online, but the idea of ​​baking with a compound that doubles as a smelling salt just didn’t appeal to me.

I also refrained from coating the cookies with powdered sugar, which many recipes call for. To me, traditional pfeffernusse cookies are covered in a thin glaze, not powder.

Spices in Peppernut Cookies

Peppernuts contain a mixture of warm wintry spices, sometimes sold under the name in Germany Ginger bread spice. Think of it like a German version of a pumpkin spice mix. Since gingerbread spice difficult to obtain outside of Germany and the actual content of the spice mixture varies, I have listed the individual spices below.

If you don’t have all of the spices or have an aversion to some of the spices, feel free to play around and replace them with what you have in the pantry.

However, the one spice that’s fairly consistent with most pfeffernut recipes is white pepper. So it might be worth tracking down some for this cookie if you want the authentic experience. (White pepper also pairs well with fish and potato dishes.) Otherwise, a simple substitution of black pepper works well.

Regardless of whether this recipe isn’t what you call “real pfeffernuts,” these cookies will fill your home with the scent of the holidays. After my partner AJ took a bite of these, without prompting he said, “These taste like Christmas!”

Take these to your next holiday cookie swap and watch others explain the same thing!