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Sweet Spicy Cookies for Christmas

I've been trying out various cookie recipes during the past week or so, but one of my favourites remains my mother's Christmas Spice Cookies. Here we call them Soetkoekies (like Sootcookies)- Sweet Cookies, with never a mention of all the spices in the dough. They are closely related to Dutch Speculaas. This cookie was baked in large amounts as the staple Christmas cookie (it keeps well), with other more expensive specialities baked in smaller amounts to swell the cookie tray. I am afraid my mother's recipe is long lost, but I found a very good version at Recipezaar on the net - my mother's version would have contained considerably less cloves and no ginger, and although she baked them with rendered mutton fat in early days, when we moved to the city (shortly after my birth) the fat became more and more difficult to get hold of and the family grew used to the blander flavour of cookies made with butter only. For myself, I can now get mutton fat from a nearby halaal butcher, and I am reviving the traditional style - it makes for a fine crumb and a delicious tang behind the spices. I make no excuses to my mother for introducing more spices, simply because I used to nag her to put some more cloves in for a spicier flavour, but she refused point blank. They come out crackly-crispy if you roll them out very thin, and slightly chewy on top if you bake slightly thicker cookies. Some decoration or a small amount of drizzled icing (made with the same wine used in the cookie) does not come amiss. The aroma while they're baking spells true Christmas to me. South African Traditional Soetkoekies (Sweet Cookies) Recipe #187261 This is an ancient and very beloved cookie recipe, which my grandmother made in large quantities before the December beach holidays. Remember, it's summer then, down here! There are slight variations on this recipe, as is usual with traditional recipes.There is again a Cape Malay influence evident with the spices used. DO try and get or make the rendered fat -- it's worth it. by Chef Zee 5 cups cake flour 2 cups brown sugar 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon ground cloves [reduce to 1/2 teaspoon if you like it less spicy-T] 1 teaspoon allspice 2 teaspoons ground ginger [optional - T] 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional) 2½ teaspoons salt ¼ lb soft butter ¼ lb rendered pork fat or ¼ lb mutton fat ½ cup sweet wine, but may need up to ¾ cup (use a muscatel or sweet sherry) 2 jumbo eggs, whisked well The fat: often one can buy raw pork or mutton fat from a butcher or supermarket butchery dept. Cut this fat into small blocks, put (in batches) in a heavy-bottomed pot, and leave over low heat for the fat to "melt out". Pour off the fat at frequent intervals into a container, to prevent the fat browning in the pot. Do this before you start baking, and save the fat in the fridge in a closed container. Pork fat should be white or pale cream in colour. If darker, the heat you used was too high. 1. Preheat oven to 375°F/190°Celsius. 2. Grease cookie tins. 3. In a large container mix the flour, brown sugar, all the spices and the salt. 4. Rub in the butter and fat with your fingers and palms until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. 5. Whisk the eggs, add just ½ cup sweet wine to the eggs, then stir into the dry mixture. 6. Add more of the sweet wine to form a fairly stiff dough. (The alcohol will bake out!). 7. Knead, then roll out thinly on a floured surface. 8. Press out large round cookies, carefully place on the greased tins, and bake in batches in the preheated oven. 9. Check cookies after 10 minutes; don't let them burn.[If they are very thin they burn before 10 minutes have passed - T] 10. Remove with an egg-lifter, and let them cool and harden on wire racks. 11. Store in airtight tins. Can be made weeks before using. 12. Although I give an approximately number of cookies, it will depend on your cookie cutter. This is Chef Zee's recipe - I used rendered lard and butter for the first lot and a good sweet Port as fluid; the next lot will be mutton fat and a good medium cream sherry. The mutton fat I have rendered is from around the kidneys (caul fat), but on my grandmother's farm they would have used fat rendered from the tail of a large-tail sheep - unusual sheep with a huge big tail consisting almost entirely of fat. They work quite well as refrigerator logs to be sliced and baked over more than one day but less than four.