Swedish Rosettes

When it’s time to make Christmas cookies, it’s time to make rosettes. Rosettes are crispy delicate cookies made of batter and deep fried in shapes like the floral rosettes for which they are named, or stars, snowflakes or concentric circular shapes. They are beautiful and melt in your mouth. People who want rosettes mostly have to make them. People who want results without process are better off eating something else because the road to rosettedom is about process. You aren’t going to do this in five minutes. Dipping those little goodies in hot fat and waiting for them to turn into heaven takes time.

Is it possible to buy rosettes? I haven’t seen them in grocery stores, although at Christmastime I suspect that we can find them at Fosdal’s Bakery in Stoughton, Wisconsin, where the slogan is “here to make life a little sweeter.”

Rosette making is inexpensive and not difficult.  Rosettes are made from everyday ingredients and fried like doughnuts. They are made on an iron, which actually is aluminum. It would seem awkward to call a rosette iron an aluminum. Rosette irons can be bought in some stores or online from NordicWare or (you guessed it) Amazon.com.

Here is how I make them. Required equipment includes rosette iron and deep fryer. Take your time.

Swedish Rosettes                   (about 3 dozen)          

2 eggs                                                  1 cup whole milk

1 tablespoon sugar                             ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt                                   oil for deep frying (I use canola oil)

1 cup all purpose flour                        powdered sugar

Have milk and eggs at room temperature. Beat eggs slightly in a small deep bowl. Blend in sugar and salt. Add flour and milk alternately; add vanilla. Mix until smooth. In your deep fryer heat oil to 375 degrees. Put the rosette iron into the hot fat. When it is well heated, remove it from the fat and immediately dip it into the batter. Do not let the batter run over the top of the iron or the rosette will stay stuck and not be removable. Immediately put the batter coated iron into the oil for at least 30 seconds or until the rosette is crisp and beginning to brown. Remove it from the oil and let it drip, then slip the rosette off the iron and drain it on absorbent paper such as paper toweling. Put the iron back into the oil for a few seconds before making the next rosette. Sprinkle the rosettes with powdered sugar.

Some things to know:

That iron isn’t ready to go right out of the new box. It must be seasoned first. I learned this the hard way rather than from my mother, who never made rosettes. If your iron is already seasoned, you may disregard this paragraph. To season it, coat the shaped frying part with oil and put it into the oven (in a dish) at an unspecified temperature (I don’t remember what temperature) and let it bake for a half hour or so. At this point the iron should be ready for rosette making. If you don’t season the iron, the batter will become stuck on the iron. The first rosette onto the iron might stick anyway, so don’t give up.

If rosettes drop from the iron after cooking, the fat is too hot. If they are soft when cooked, they have been cooked too quickly. If they have blisters, the eggs have been beaten too much.

My source says the rosettes will keep for about two weeks, but in my home they have never lasted that long so I make no guarantees. I keep them in a covered container until the wild hordes discover them and start to eat.

Wash the iron in water but do not use soap or dish detergent, or you will undo the seasoning.

It is ok to use cream or diluted evaporated milk in place of the fresh whole milk.

My source for this recipe is The Electric Company Christmas Cooky Book, which I acquired in about 1962 from The Wisconsin Electric Power Company in Milwaukee, the city where I lived for about a year with my new husband Rick. The booklet shows no author and no publication date.

Another source for rosettes is Swedish Food: 200 Selected Swedish Dishes, The Smorgasbord, Traditional Party and Everyday Menus, published in Gothenburg, Sweden, 10^th edition, undated. I got it from my mother, who was not Swedish but loved to cook during her life. Fortunately, the book is written in English.

A third source is a departure from the others. It is a recipe on the back of the package of an angel rosette iron piece that I got from one of my daughters. It suggests use of beer in place of milk. I haven’t tried that. Also, it suggests that you purchase ready made rosette batter. I don’t stand behind that suggestion and have never actually seen any.

Christmas and Cookies

The Christmas season reminds me of family, and that reminds me of cookies. My grandmothers were the champions of cookies. My mother was perpetually fighting the battle against weight gain, so I have few memories of her making cookies at any time. She specialized in other dishes.

My maternal grandmother, whom we called Sweetie Pie, made the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, and she had a batch ready almost every time we went to see her when she lived in Chicago. Late in her life she tried to give us cookies made from grocery store cookie dough, but we immediately noticed the difference and let her know about it. After she realized that we weren’t fooled, she went back to the originals.

My paternal grandmother, known as Grandma, produced many cookies for us, but the ones I remember best were pinwheel cookies. Pinwheel cookies are small cookies with chocolate and vanilla spirals. They melt in your mouth. It was impossible to eat just one. I learned to make them after Grandma became old and stopped making them. Now my daughter Libby makes them every Christmas and brings them to the family gathering.

Pinwheel cookies are easy to make. Just find a refrigerator cookie recipe in your big fat cookbook. You say your big fat cookbook doesn’t tell you how to make refrigerator cookies?  It seems to me that some of the best concoctions get forgotten by cookbook writers. That’s why we have public libraries and the Internet. But don’t despair. Here is my recipe, revised from my old Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, 1953 edition:

Pinwheel Cookies

½ cup shortening or butter

½ cup sugar

1 egg yolk

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons milk

1- 1 ounce square unsweetened chocolate, melted

Cream shortening and sugar. Add egg yolk, milk and vanilla. Mix flour, baking powder and salt; add to shortening/sugar mixture and mix. Divide the dough in half. To one half add chocolate; mix thoroughly. Chill both halves. Roll each half into a long rectangle 1/8 inch thick on waxed paper. Turn the white half onto the chocolate half. Let chocolate extend a half inch beyond the white part on the edge toward which you roll. Remove paper and roll as for jelly roll, into a long tube. The size of the cookies will depend on the shape of the rectangles you roll together. Wrap in waxed paper. Chill for several hours or overnight. Cut the tubes into thin slices, about ¼ inch thick. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 375 degrees about ten minutes. Makes about 4 dozen small cookies.

Thanksgiving--Our National Holiday

Thanksgiving is almost here.  It is one of our two major national holidays, the other being Independence Day, July 4. We have more, but these seem to be the two primary ones.

I think of Thanksgiving Day as part of an interesting progression of secular to religious holidays in American culture. July 4 is political without religious overtones. Thanksgiving is technically national, with thanks given, to God, for the blessings of being Americans in the most wonderful nation on earth. Christmas is technically a religious holiday, with celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, and much secular activity.

I see something going on here.  Our national constitution long ago set the stage for separation of church and state. The first amendment clearly states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”  Today we have two religious/secular holidays that celebrate the Christianity of our nation, while celebrating secular issues such as turkeys, Santa Claus, home decoration, gift giving and much enhancement of our economic system.

Thanksgiving Day is a big day of patriotism. Schools are closed. People travel to be with their families. Big dinners are prepared and eaten. Sometimes we think about what Thanksgiving is about and why our nation celebrates it. The national mythology tells us that it is about the European settlers sitting down in peace with the Native Americans, to have dinner in friendship. Friendship prevails.

Well, maybe. The Europeans came to our continent with the assumption that they “discovered” it and it was theirs. Yes, but they discovered that people were already here. Here is a quote from a history book by James W. Loewen, in Lies My Teacher Told Me:  “Thanksgiving celebrates our ethnocentrism. We have seen, for example, how King James and the early Pilgrim leaders gave thanks for the plague, which proved to them that God was on their side. The archetypes associated with Thanksgiving—God on our side, civilization wrested from wilderness, order from disorder, through hard work and good Pilgrim character traits—continue to radiate from our history textbooks.” (pp. 95-96, paperback edition)

Thanksgiving is about giving thanks. Thanks for making us white, for our land takeover from the original owners (native tribes), for our immense wealth, and for our being the greatest people on earth (empire). It’s about a huge dinner, usually turkey. It’s also about shopping. The day after the holiday is the biggest shopping day of the year, the inauguration of the Christmas shopping season.

I notice that we have a group of candidates who want to be our next President. I see that religious credentials seem necessary for a President, and in particular, “acceptable” Christian credentials. Some people made much over the myth that President Obama might be a Muslim; he isn’t. Some people are worried about Mitt Romney being a Mormon.  People like to believe that our founding fathers were all members of established churches. I ask, why is faith being dragged through a country that has separation of church and state? Might some people rather want to see our national leaders acting on Christian principles rather than giving lip service to church membership while advocating violence such as two needless wars?  Is this what Thanksgiving is about?

Individually we have much to be thankful for. I am thankful for my family, my deceased parents and husband, and my children and grandchildren. I am thankful that we have enough to eat and a roof under our heads. I am thankful that I have enough money to sustain my life. I am thankful that we live in a society that doesn’t oppress me, although it oppresses some other people. Many Americans are not this well situated.

Bring on our next religious/secular holiday: Christmas.

Christmas Wish List 2009

This is my Christmas wish list. I mean Christmas, not the euphemistic "holiday" that seem to be in vogue. The Freedom From Religion Foundation may be in Madison, but it isn't in my heart.

I would like to enjoy peace on earth somewhere besides on a greeting card. That means that President Obama should end our two wars and bring home all the people involved in them, including the military, private contractors and Blackwater. It means that the various factions in the world should stop arguing and fighting. I believe that peace is not achieved by war. Peace is a condition in which national and self actualization are possible because people are working freely for the good of all. Cessation of military violence is not the definition of peace. Women and various minorities should be greated with respect.

I would like to see the recession end and world economies flourish. In the US, I would like to see everyone have an adequate income. Corporations should bring manufacturing jobs home, and people in India should not be the people to tell us how to run our home technologies when Americans can do it. Financial institutions should operate in the public interest. I understand that these ideas are not the backbone of capitalism, but I believe that capitalism should not be ruling American decision making.

I would like to see in the US a medical care delivery system that benefits people. It should be available to everyone affordably, and it should deliver quality care to all effectively and efficiently. The system should recognize that Standard of Care might not be the only way to provide the best outcomes. The people in our national government should vote in favor of this, whether it is government or privatly operated.

Related to this, I would like to see our pharmaceutical companies operate in the public interest. It is ok to operate at a profit, but not necessarily for a profit. Drugs that do harm along with good, and drugs that do more harm than good, should be advertised as such, truthfully, if advertised at all. Drugs should be affordable. Doctors should spend enough time with patients to understand their situations and, when possible, give lifestyle advice along with advice on pharmaceutical solutions. We need to have unbiased medical studies. There seems to be a lot of deception in the name of profit.

I would like to see compassion and truth in food systems. Our food producers should provide food that is nutritious and not packed with harmful chemicals. Unhealthful foods abound, and their advertising recommends eating them; this needs to be turned around. News stories repeatedly tell us that junk food makes people fat and sick. It makes sense to be locavores, to eat food that is grown nearby, or at least in the United States. In many stores, people do not know where food comes from because labels do not tell them. Factory farms need to treat animals humanely and fed them their natural diet rather than compensating by filling them with antibiotics after the factory diet makes them sick. Those antibiotics in meat and dairy products are passed on to people.

I would like to see less environmental damage so that our descendants can enjoy our beautiful earth. We can learn to live without oil (with some help from science), and we can reduce pollution. Our standard of living should not destroy the earth.

I would like to see fluoride removed from American water supplies. I have read and believe that fluoride interferes with thyroid function. There is plenty of fluoride in toothpaste and some mouthwashes. We don't need to dose the whole population.

I think that all this is more than Santa Claus can handle.

Nut Tarts

Now that everyone is anticipating the gustatory delights of the Christmas season, and the resulting corpulence, here is the recipe for my world famous nut tarts. I got it from a spiral bound booklet published without date or copyright in the 1960s, called The Electric Company Christmas Cooky Book. It came from the Wisconsin Electric Power Company in Milwaukee. I picked it up during the year of my residence there. These tarts are very good and easy to make.

Nut Tarts

3 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon melted butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Blend room temperature cheese, butter and flour; chill for 1 hour. Divide into 24 equal parts; shape each part into a small ball. Press onto bottom and 1/2 inch up the side of small buttered (2 inch) muffin cups; chill. Blend remaining ingredients; place one teaspoonful of mixure in each pastry shell. Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes. Makes 2 dozen small tarts.

The Closing of an Era

Rick is slowly exiting this world. It is a strange Christmas season.

At about 10:00 p.m., December 23, he fell at home and broke a hip, a wrist, and cut his head. John picked him up. The paramedics came and then the ambulance came. We went to the hospital emergency center. Libby accompanied me. At about 2:00 a.m. Christmas Eve he was admitted to the hospital. December 26, after considering facing several weeks of rehabilitation in a nursing home, he told the doctor that he would have no more dialysis.

Friday, December 26, he went to Hospice Care, a beautiful facility. Today he is very tired. We are wondering how long he will last. His kidney doctor had estimated that he would survive up to two weeks.

Many people have given love and sympathy to him and me. He has had visits from area clergy. I received many hugs and much sympathy from friends, mostly members of the church. People are saying very complimentary things to and about him. It is a positive sendoff. Four of our five children have been able to spend some time with him. The fifth will be with us soon.

He is ready to leave us but we will see him tomorrow. He says he is expecting to see a lot of people on the other side.