Bow Tie Cookies (Kichel)

Websites for Food Lovers

Favourite Food Blogs

Bow Tie Cookies (Kichel)

Here is a cookie that is all dressed up in a bow tie and ready to party. You can party at home with icy lemonade and fresh fruit or set up a fragrant pot of hot tea to sip with these dainty, light bisquits. This festive cookie won my allegiance with its crisp, airy bite, scoring high marks for crunch. Because the dough is rolled in granulated sugar before baking, each bow tie glistens with sweet crystals, raising the texture bar way up high. This is not your stodgy, doughy drop cookie that has its place in the repertoire but is trumped here by its prettier, fancier cousin.

Don't save these for special occasions. Every day is special enough for a lovely cookie. Make these with children, as they will love rolling out the satiny dough and cutting it into rectangles. Each rectangle then gets dipped into sugar and gently twisted in the middle to form a little bow. I recommend baking these cookies more rather than less, as they seem to develop more of a carmelized crunch with longer baking, as well as dryer, crisper centres. Underbaking leaves them a bit too soft and chewy, not what you are looking for here. Your goal is cookies that crumble slightly on the tongue, shattering into sweet little shards with every nibble.

Bow Tie Cookies (Kichel) from Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook

5 large eggs; 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract; 2/3 cup vegetable oil; 1 tsp. sugar, plus 1 cup for rolling cookies in; 2+1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour; 1 tsp. salt.

Place eggs, vanilla, oil, 1 tsp. sugar and salt in a bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle and blend on low speed until well blended. Beat on high for 5 minutes. Remove the paddle and scrape the batter down the sides of the bowl. Rest the dough in the bowl, covered, until soft and spongy, about 1 hour. Then remove it from the bowl. It will be sticky. Make a ball out of it.

Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease two baking sheets. Sprinkle work surface with 1/2 cup sugar, about 1/8 inch deep. Place dough in the centre, flatten it slightly with a rolling pin, and sprinkle the dough liberally with the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar. Don't hesitate to use all the sugar here, as the cookies benefit in texture and taste. Roll the dough into a rectangle about 18 x 12 inches and 1/8 of an inch thick. Using a pastry cutter or a knife, cut the dough into strips 3/4 of an inch wide and 2 inches long. Lift each strip, twist in the middle to form a bow tie shape, and place on the cookie sheets, leaving 1/2 inch around each strip.

Bake the bow tie cookies 25 - 30 minutes on the middle rack of the oven golden brown and hard to the touch. Test for doneness by breaking a cookie in half. It should be firm and crisp, not soft or doughy. Makes about 70 cookies.

The Yiddish name for these cookies is Kichel, a word that comes from the same root as kuchen, meaning cookie. They are a traditional, old-fashioned Sabbath treat made with vegetable oil, not butter, in compliance with the rules of a kosher kitchen. I find them fun any old day of the week. How special for me to find charming foods from the old world of my ancestors in eastern Europe and to continue to love them today.

Find more Yiddish delights to charm and entertain you in these books:

A treasury of Jewish holiday baking by Goldman, Marcy.