Onion cookies

Last night my sister called with the annual reminder that it's time to bake the onion cookies. This family recipe was handed from my grandmother Mary Neuer Cohen to my father, and from him to my sister and I. It's our special way to break the fast after Yom Kippur. You can find the recipe here. I baked a half-batch because we only have 12 people coming over to break the fast, and a full batch yields 40+ cookies.

There is nothing quite like an onion cookie fresh from the oven and slathered with butter or cream cheese. Think of it as a savory Jewish biscuit, complete with chopped onions, black pepper and poppy seeds.

(I almost forgot to add the onions; they were on a cutting board on the other side of the sink and not in my direct line of sight. I had to put all the cut cookies back into the bowl and knead the onions into the dough. Fortunately they still came out fine!)

I bake them a day ahead to serve after the fast. The cookies can get soft after a day in a baking tin, even with a piece of bread placed in the tin to take up the moisture form the onions. I have figured out how to improve upon the piece of bread in the tin. You heat the cookies briefly on a baking sheet in a low oven to restore crispness. Still delicious!


I also baked four loaves of crown challah to bring to the pre-fast meal this afternoon and a chocolate-zucchini cake for the break-the-fast tomorrow night. I'm on a baking roll! (Pardon the unintentional pun.)

Wishing all gmar hatima tova, a good conclusion to the days of awe. We should all be written and sealed in the book of life for the next year.