Arnhemse Meisjes

  Well, hello there! Merry Christmas (belated)! We are still away visiting family, but we'll be heading home today. 
   Our time away has been good, bad, and itchy. Yes, itchy. As in chicken pox itchy! 
   We had barfers, skooters, accidental double bookings for Christmas dinners (which left us driving back and forth through town to be at both parties). Then there were chicken pox (which meant another family gathering got altered because some of my siblings who have younger babies didn't want them exposed). 
   I'm griping a lot here...but the truth is, it was still good to come "home for the holidays".  I went to the opening night of "Into the Woods" with my sister, ate some great food (3 full-on Christmas meals at 3 different family get-togethers!), had some great conversations, stayed up late, slept in, sang carols, laughed and was merry. 
    I had to give myself a little pep-talk after our first day or two away. I was feeling overwhelmed and seriously blue. I talked to myself about my attitude, and how no matter what I get to choose how I react to situations, how I feel about the situation. I can be crabby and sad, or I can feel grateful for what I have and who I have in m life. 
   So, all that to say, I had a pretty good time away. The things making up my time might not have always been the best, but there was always something worth enjoying in every place we were in. 
    Now, onto the cookies I am sharing today! Christmas brings out a lot of memories from my childhood, and my Christmas childhood memories involve Dutch traditions and Dutch treats. So, here's another for you!
   Arnhem is a city in the Netherlands, the capitol of it's Province, actually. And "meisjes" means girls, so, these are "Arnhem Girls", and not the "lady of the night" kind of girl, but it's meant as a sweet little girl. And that's just what these cookies are, sweet little cookies. 
   Some people think you can just get store bought puff pastry, cut out a circle, cover it in sugar and bake it. But that's not really quite right.
   Puff pasty is made by folding a simple dough over butter, and doing more and more folds, while rolling the dough flat in between each fold over. That gives you a very layered pastry.
   These little darlings are simpler than that by far! They turn out with a slight poof, and a few layers, but the dough is bread-like and buttery. In fact, as you bake these the house will smell like you are baking bread.
   They are a wonderful coffee cookie (just ask any Dutch person), and you will be happy to have them! :)  

Arnhemse Meisjes
The dough needs at least 2 hours fridge time


Ingredients:

• 1 Cup of all-purpose flour 
  
• pinch of salt
  
• 1/2 cup of milk, warm (but not hot!)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon of active dry yeast & a pinch of sugar
  
• 4 drops of lemon juice (about 1/4 tsp-ish)
  
• 1/2 Cup butter, room temperature, cut into 1 inch cubes
  
• Sugar in a shallow dish (enough to roll each cookie)
  

Method:

1. Mix the flour and the salt together
2. Stir the yeast in with sugar and the warm milk and let it sit for a about 10 minutes so the yeast can be activated 
3. Stir the yeast mixture into the flour, then add the lemon juice and stir it up again! 
4. Now add the butter in small chunks while you knead/squish/mix until everything comes together. 
5. Wash the dough off your hands, and get out a piece of plastic wrap and place it onto the counter-you'll need it for this next step-
6. Shape the dough into a log. The dough will be really sticky, and this task will be tricky. That rhymed!
7. Place your dough log onto the plastic wrap you got ready, wrap it up and refrigerate for at least two hours.
8. .......Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock........
9. After the minimum 2 hours, take the dough out of the fridge and cut into (roughly) 16 equal parts. 
10. Roll each section up, and drop each ball into the dish with white sugar in it and roll the dough around to cover it in sugar
11. Place all the sugar rolled balls back into the bowl, cover and put back into the fridge while you heat the oven.
12. Turn on the oven to 350 Degrees and prepare some baking sheets with parchment paper
13. Get the sugar covered dough balls outta the fridge and sprinkle some sugar onto the counter
14. Place a dough ball into the the sugar and use a rolling pin to roll each ball into an oval-ish shape, about 3 inches long. Turn it over and press the cookie into the sugar, making sure that both sides are well covered. 
15. Place each cookie onto the prepared cookie sheet
16. When all cookies are made, sprinkle some more sugar over the cookies
17. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until lightly golden

The cookies will puff up, the sugar will caramelize and you will have a wonderful and unique cookie to serve with coffee, Dutch style! 

   These cookies require some work, but really nothing that is too complicated or difficult, and the end result is very much worth it! Trust me! 

 Look at the inside of this fantastic cookie! Yumm! 
   Alright, well, I hope everyone has a good Monday. I am looking forward to the drive home and getting settled into "normal" life again. 
   You'll hear from me again this week, so you had better look forward to that! :)