Departments

Museum Staff’s Holiday Favorites

While there are innumerable reasons to think fondly of the holidays, it’s fair to say the edible side of the season plays a big part.

Mostly sweet, some savory and all scrumptious with an undeniable pull of the nostalgic, four area museum directors are used to curating their spaces, but in this issue, share the special food items from home—it turns out they love cookies!—they look forward to during the holidays:

Matt Carpenter, History Museum at The Castle: Spritz Cookies

“As a child growing up in the Midwest, I ate my share of spritz cookies. My mother (a superb cook) never made them but they were ubiquitous at Christmastime gatherings. I didn’t know they had a name until I fell in love with Beth. Her mother baked prodigious quantities of Spritz cookies at Christmastime. The Spritz Cookie has a long tradition in Germany, but the delicious, buttery biscuit was wholly embraced by and became associated with Scandinavian culture.

“You’ve seen the round blue tins with ‘Danish butter cookie’ stamped on the lid? That’s the commercial version of the spritz cookie more-or-less,” Matt Carpenter, Executive Director of the History Museum at the Castle in Appleton, says.

“My Danish-American mother-in-law was a juggernaut in the kitchen, producing a quantity of cookies that would satisfy the whole family as we gathered at the lake house from Christmas into the new year. In a house chock full of people I was the only one who didn’t boast of Scandinavian heritage. Ufda! They embraced me anyway. But, as a guy of Irish and English heritage I can get behind any baked good that is beautifully executed with love and quality ingredients. That’s the thing about Spritz Cookies. The basic recipe is so straightforward but so deliciously satisfying it blurs the lines of ethnic loyalties. It is also incredibly versatile. Dress it up with almond extract or a pinch of cardamom. Decorate it with garish colored sprinkles or understated white baker’s decorating sugar. Either way, it is close to perfection.”

Spritz Cookies

1 cup margarine or butter, softened

½ cup sugar

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour*

1 teaspoon almond extract or vanilla

½ teaspoon salt

1 egg

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix margarine and sugar. Stir in remaining ingredients.

Place dough in cookie press; form desired shapes on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until set but not brown, 6 to 9 minutes. Immediately remove from cookie sheet. Yields: About 5 dozen cookies. 50 calories per cookie.
*Do not use self-rising flour in this recipe.

Chocolate Spritz: Stir 2 ounces melted unsweetened chocolate (cool) into margarine mixture.
Holiday Decorated Spritz: Before baking, top cookies with currants, raisins, candies, nuts, slices of candied fruits or candied fruit peels arranged in attractive patterns. Or, after baking, decorate with colored sugars, nonpareils, red cinnamon candies and finely chopped nuts. Use drop of corn syrup to hold decorations on baked cookies.

“As my mother-in-law, Connie began to experience an acceleration in the symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease she resisted giving in and giving up on Christmas baking,” Carpenter recalls. “Eventually she complained that the Spritz Cookie press she’d used since the early 1950s ‘was broken.’ She bought another. It, too, ‘was broken.’ When the third cookie press was purchased, it became clear to everyone that it was Connie’s last year to make Christmas cookies. Our family has that last cookie press and each Christmas we produce a fraction of the cookies Connie made. We share some with friends and family and always remember Connie’s generous heart. Truly the best mother-in-law to have graced this earth. Merry Christmas Connie!”

Erica Suchyta, Neenah Historical Society: Date Filled Cookies

“Every Christmas my great-grandma Lorraine Tatro (she was Mimi to her family) baked date filled cookies. I’m not sure where her recipe originated. She was a good German Lutheran, and many recipes were shared between her cousins, church friends and others,” Erica Suchyta, Executive Director of the Neenah Historical Society, says. “We lost Mimi in 2016 but luckily my mom compiled all her recipes into a book for each of us before she passed. It wouldn’t be Christmas without these cookies!

“The Christmas season is usually filled with sugary treats, but the date filled cookies have just the right amount of sweetness. They were made every December, and we’ve spent years trying to make them taste the same as they did when Mimi made them. These cookies are an absolute food memory for me. They instantly transport me back into my great grandparents’ kitchen at Christmastime. The taste feels like a hug.”

“Date Filled Sugar Cream Cookies”

Dough
1 cup sugar

1 cup butter

2 eggs

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup milk

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

*Nutmeg is optional

Beat sugar and butter until creamy. Add eggs and beat well, add rest of ingredients (I always put the 1 teaspoon of soda in the milk, stir and then add to batter. Bake at 375 degrees for 12 minutes.

Filling
1 pound dates (or 1 cup dates and 1 cup raisins or figs)

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Grind up dates and raisins and add sugar and water. Cook until thick.

“I distinctly remember Mimi gently scolding me for over-filling the cookies. Now, as an adult I tend to overfill the ones I make, just because I can,” Suchyta says. “My son leaves out a date filled cookie for Santa every year.”

Amy G. Moorefield, Bergstrom Mahler Museum of Glass: Holiday Eggplant Parmesan

“My husband Chris (Hartleb) made this wonderful dish for me for our first dinner date right after Thanksgiving of 2021,” Amy Moorfield, Executive Director of the Bergstrom Mahler Museum of Glass, says. “I was extra impressed that he grew the eggplants for this dish in his garden. As I married him in part for his amazing cooking (one of his many wonderful attributes), this dish holds a very special meaning for us. We are newly married—June 30th of this year.

“We love cooking together and I have learned a lot about cooking from Chris. I am more of an assembler. Every time we make this dish, I am reminded to slow down and enjoy the cooking process and it is made extra special by the fact that these eggplants are grown in our garden. And the cheese is from one of our many road trips to sample Wisconsin cheese.”

“Amy and Chris’ Holiday Eggplant Parmesan”

Ingredients:

2 eggs

2 cups Italian bread crumbs

½ cup all purpose flour

4 medium sized Italian eggplants (grown in our lake house garden) but store bought are great too!

1 to 1 ½ cups canola oil or olive oil

2 cups marinara sauce

4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese or one sliced large block of mozzarella

You’ll need:

Two large bowls

6 x 9 greased casserole dish

Large cutting board

Sharp knife

Stir-fry pan

Tongs

Wash and cut the eggplants length-wise. (Cut skins off if you don’t like the texture.)

In a large bowl, make breading. Mix 2 cups of Italian breadcrumbs with 1/2 cups of flour. Mix well.

In another large bowl, make egg wash: Crack two eggs and beat together.

Heat oil on medium in a deep pan (like a stir fry depth pan). Sprinkle the breadcrumbs in the pan. If they start cooking, then the oil is hot enough.

Put each slice of eggplant in the egg wash, covering completely. Then dip in breadcrumbs, cover completely.

Then carefully slide the breaded eggplants into the hot oil. Turn the eggplants over when they start to turn medium brown with tongs.

Set oven to 375 degrees.

Pour 1 cup of marinara sauce at the bottom of your casserole dish

Place your cooked eggplants in your casserole dish until you fill the bottom of the dish.

Add one more layer of marinara sauce on top of the eggplants.

Liberally sprinkle mozzarella cheese on top to cover the entire surface of the pan. *We like all types of Wisconsin mozzarella cheese.

Bake in oven at 375 degrees for 25 minutes or until cheese and sauce are bubbly. Serve over pasta or Italian bread. Meatballs on the side are yummy too! Enjoy our dish of love.

George M. Schroeder, Hearthstone Historic House Museum: Press Cookies

“Mom hated to cook. Full stop. It’s not that she couldn’t. Whatever she made was delicious but it generally came from one pot (think stew or corned beef) with a minimum of prep time… Standing 4 foot 8 with close cropped hair the color of steel and a disposition to match, Mom was loving, demanding, a gifted artist, demanding, a meticulous house cleaner (scrubbing the floors on her “hands and knees” she would always add), demanding, caring, demanding, generous. Did I mention she was demanding? Her aversion to all things cooking-related extended to baking, especially during the holidays, with one exception,” George Schroeder, Executive Director of Hearthstone Historic House, remembers.

“Every year Mom loved making what I think are called press cookies or spritz cookies where you twisted or pressed part of a tube thing (officially a Mirro “dial-a-cookie” Cookie Kit) and cookie dough would be extruded out in the shape of Christmas trees, wreaths, angels, ivy, snowflakes, and for some reason, camels.

“And every one of these cookies had to be decorated… individually… by hand.  (Did I mention there were thousands?) That’s where us kids came in. You could always tell what cookie shape Mom was going to make next by the color of the dough she was preparing. Trees and wreaths were always made of green colored dough. The angels and snowflakes were always a pale yellow. The camels, flavored either with chocolate or coffee, were always brown.  (A talented artist, Mom was very representational in her work in this one regard.)  Each had to be washed with egg white and then decorated with multicolored sprinkles (trees), cinnamon flavored red BBs (wreaths and ivy), and the like. (I think we were also to put little eyes on the camels but that memory may be repressed.)”

“Butter Cookies for Christmas”

1 pound butter (soft)

3 egg yolks

2 teaspoons vanilla (or 1 teaspoon almond and 1 teaspoon vanilla)

4 ½ cups flour

1 ⅓ cups sugar

Cream butter, add sugar, add yolks one at a time. Add vanilla, add flour and mix well.
Bake at 370-375 for six minutes (not brown). For chocolate, add cocoa. Can also add food coloring.

“Mom made these thousands of cookies as an expression of love and caring. She wrapped them up in boxes big and small and gave them to our family, friends, teachers, the mailman (you did that in the 1960s). She volunteered at the Outagamie County Mental Health Hospital playing songs on their spinet organ (she was a musician too!) when she wasn’t interacting with the residents. (One year Mom volunteered us to host a resident who had nowhere to go for the holidays… trust me, THAT was a memorable Christmas!)  She brought cookies to everyone out there too. The cookies were a way to say thank you, you’re appreciated, you’re in our thoughts.  

“Making cookies was also something we did as a family.  Voluntarily or not, we were spending time together. Talking. Sharing. Complaining. Laughing.

“When I was asked to contribute to this article, my laughter echoed throughout the museum. Nothing could be funnier as I inherited all of my Mom’s aversion to cooking. I haven’t turned on the stove or oven in my house for at least twelve years. (Literally… but like my Mom, I am a microwave savant!)  

I also haven’t celebrated Christmas for even longer than that. Mom and I simply stopped when Dad passed away 19 years ago and, well, when Mom passed a decade later, there was really no reason at all anymore was there.

But after thinking back on Mom and all those thousands of trees and wreaths and camels and, more importantly, on all that they represented… I think I will make press cookies this year for Christmas.”