Pryaniki Peril
To properly involve myself in Russian cuisine, I decided to do some hands on research on my pastry of choice, Pryaniki. I started my research by going through many recipes for the popular honey spice cookie and found that each seemed to be different from the last. Each recipe included a line somewhere in the description of how their mom, or grandma, or other family member would always make the sweet treat exactly this way and the recipe had been handed down through the family for years. However, a few things always remained the same; a variety of different spices, lots of honey, and a large quantity of cookies.
After searching through many recipes, I selected this one from a website called Olga's Flavor Factory: http://www.olgasflavorfactory.com/russianrecipes/pryaniki-russian-honey-spice-cookies/
The recipe seemed simple enough, and the ingredients were many that I already had in my kitchen. With recipe in hand, and the promise of nearly 100 cookies in 5 short hours, I started my first attempt at Pryaniki.
At first glance, the recipe appeared to be something the average baker could achieve with little effort. I soon found out it wasn't the baking techniques that would cause me trouble, but the assembly of ingredients and the challenging choice of spices to obtain an original yet traditional flavor. The recipe calls for nutmeg, allspice, and anise; however my baking ingredient stock was lacking in anise. Other suggested spices included cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and ginger; all of which I had readily available.
After assembling the dough, the recipe recommends you let it sit for 4 hours up to a day at room temperature. Once the dough has sat for the allotted amount of time, it is ready to scoop, hand roll into small balls, and bake. When the first batch came out of the oven, I was greeted with an unfortunate surprise. The smaller than golf ball cookies I put into the oven 20 minutes prior came out to be monstrous in size and many had melded together to form one giant Pryaniki. Learning from my mistake, the following batches consisted of smaller cookies that were spaced further apart and they yielded a far better result. After being stored in an airtight container for a few days, I found the time to add the sugar glaze to the cookies and was pleasantly surprised at how they were as fresh as they were on day one thanks to the healthy dose of honey in the batter.
A few cycles of trial and error later, I had produced a unique batch of spice cookies that would fit nicely with other Russian tea pastries. Next came the process of finding which teas these treats would compliment best.
