Pepernoten / Pumpkin Spice Cookies

I am sitting behind my computer, staring at the keyboard wondering what to write for hours. My baby girl helped me out as she mixed and kneaded and baked while I wrote. My only contribution to this post are the pictures. 🙂

This post is about giving thanks and being grateful for being alive and well. It is also about giving thought to who we are. Especially today.

Life is hard and I have been sad about it for days. I’m not depressed, but I am hugely sad. And, when I am like this, I freeze. Not as in I-can’t-get-out-of-bed kind of freezing, but it is that dark-cloud-hanging-over-head-and everything-around-you-in-slow-motion sort of freeze.

In school, in India, we are all taught the story of Lord Buddha and how Siddhartha became Buddha. The story is of how a prince one day looked at all the misery around him and wondered why it was all happening. Why do we live and why do we die? Why some have a lot and most don’t. I know to question your existence is normal and certainly something to expect in your 40’s, but, I have questioned my place in the world even as a teenager and it never stopped.

We know it all stops one day, that empty feeling when someone dies when you had just been talking to them the day before. The feeling of loss and also of celebrating someone’s life. The knowledge that you will never see the person ever again. How does the world keep spinning when one energy source stops?

As Albert Camus says, “Likewise and during every day of an un-illustrious life, time carries us. But a moment always comes when we have to carry it. We live on the future: “tomorrow,” “later on,” “when you have made your way,” “you will understand when you are old enough.” Such irrelevancies are wonderful, for, after all, it’s a matter of dying. Yet a day comes when a man notices or says that he is thirty. Thus he asserts his youth. But simultaneously he situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it. That revolt of the flesh is the absurd.”

To understand the concept of a ‘future’ and a ‘tomorrow’ that we know has an end is a mind-messing concept. Like trying to understand how big the space is, in which we float. We are all taught and brought up with the implications of a future and a tomorrow. Everything is relevant because of it.

For Camus the biggest revolt is in living life to the fullest. THAT is denying death its satisfaction. “A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.” And therefore can only belong to the present. We often hear about ‘living in the present as that is the only moment that exists’, but how many of us really understand it or give it thought?

Pepernoten/gingerbread/pumpkin spice cookies, whatever you may call them are true Dutch treats. It is that time of the year when Sinterklaas (Saint Nicolaas) comes bearing gifts and as a sign that he has been to your house, leaves these beautifully small spicy cookies behind.

250 grams self rising flour
3 tbsps pumpkin spice
200 grams maple syrup
100 grams cold butter, cut into cubes
pinch of salt

to prepare
Mix the flour and pumpkin spice. Next add the syrup and the cold butter into the flour mix.

Knead till the dough comes together nicely into a ball. The dough will be a little sticky. Cover in plastic wrap and keep int he refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile preheat the oven to 340°F/170°C.

Take the dough out of the refrigerator and cut into 4 pieces. Roll each piece out into a long string of about .5 inch.

Cut the dough string into pieces of about .5 inch thick. Roll each piece into a ball and place on a baking tray lined with a baking sheet. Press ever so lightly down on each ball.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Let the cookies cool down completely before storing.

 

This is a fabulous activity to do with your tiny tots over this festive season.