Pepernoten

Tomorrow is Sinterklaas. I don't actually really even like to celebrate this holiday. It includes spoiled children, nasty poems, surprises with gook and paper maché, and a national excuse to celebrate slavery.
But, I have the newfound identity of an expatriate, so I felt the urge to go Dutch. Real Dutch.
I decided to bake pepernoten, the tradition sweets that come with the festivities. You know, Saint Nic's slaves hand them out.
Now I haven't baked a real anything since, say, 1996. I didn't have an oven for the larger part of my life and I don't have a sweet tooth. I looked up the recipe on the internet, and set myself to work.
Here goes.


I started out real neat om my batches, making them really orderly. And cute, might I add.


It failed pretty miserably. The were flat, uncooked or overcooked, and altogether gross.


My second batch went extremely well, after I had googled 'cookies too flat' and got some advice from my fellow online housewives. Too bad they didn't tell me to cut down on the baking paper, which decided to set afire in the oven, making me slightly panic, and having to throw my second, perfect, batch in the sink.


But you live you learn, and as we speak I have made batch after batch of pepernoten, to hand out tomorrow to anyone who will eat them.

I was so ridiculously happy I made it work, I did a little dance for you guys.

Hahaha!

So, who wants some?