Rosettes: A Family Tradition

Who would ever want to make a recipe that took 45 seconds per cookie to make? And I don't mean 45 seconds in the oven! 45 seconds where you have to stand doing nothing but hold in hot oil an iron mold that has been dipped in batter.

Well, my family would. And we've done it every Christmas season for the past 25 years.

My husband is a graduate of West Point and we spent the first three years we were married living in Germany. Every Christmas we would visit the wonderful Christmas markets around the country. They were filled with bright colors and delicious smells. At least one booth would sell Rosettes, which we had never tasted before. They looked like snowflakes and tasted like crispy funnel cakes.

As we were getting ready to move back to the states we decided we had better buy a rosette iron so we could continue to have these every Christmas.

The first few years back in the states, I would make the batter, sprinkle the cookies with powdered sugar and after they had cooled, pack them up to leave room for more cookies on the kitchen island. My husband, who has always been more patient then I would dip the iron into the batter and time the frying on his watch. Not a second more or a second less!

I remember the year I was expecting, the smell of grease did not sit well with me, but I wouldn't have skipped making the rosettes for anything. By this time we were known for bringing plates and boxes of them to every Christmas party we went to. We usually triple the recipe.

When my daughter was little she took over the sprinkling of the powdered sugar, while I, who somewhere along the way had developed some patience, timed the frying process. My husband became the sampler. Eventually my daughter was the fryer. The one thing that never changed though was we would always make them as soon as the house was decorated for Christmas and we always watched a Christmas movie while doing it.

The past two years my daughter has been at college so my husband is back in an active roll. As soon as she walks in the door for Christmas break we pull out the rosettes and share some while getting caught up with each other.

Rosettes