My favorite holiday treat: Idaho Buckeyes

Last week, while writing about reducing sugar intake, simultaneously I was preparing for the annual cookie party I host with my dear friend, a dietitian and fellow kitchen extraordinaire. I love cookies, sure, yet eating cookies is not why I love the cookie party. Besides an excuse to gather and celebrate the season with friends, it’s an opportunity to remain committed to one my favorite holiday traditions: making buckeyes. Buckeyes aren’t really cookies, as they’re not baked, but making them for the party has become a favorite holiday tradition.

The recipe I use has been modified from the one my aunt features in her cookbook – a collection of recipes from years cooking at our family’s backcountry ranch in the Frank Church Wilderness and decades afterward, caretaking a ranch on the South Fork of the Salmon River. She attributed the buckeye recipe to Mildred Truppi (my grams). For the latter half of my paternal grandparents’ lives, they resided on the border of Pennsylvania and Ohio. I never heard the story about how my grandmother was introduced to “Ohio Buckeyes” yet, growing up, I incorrectly assumed buckeyes were an Italian tradition brought to this country with my great-grandparents. Peanut butter, apparently, is not Italian – it’s American.

We grew up out West, making buckeyes each Christmas with my mom, an Idahoan through and through. Every December in our own home – whether living in Idaho, Nevada or Washington – my mother initiated the assembly line of peanut butter ball mixing, cooling, rolling, freezing, spearing, chocolate plunging, refrigerating. Hence, buckeyes have been an integral part of my upbringing.

When I became a mama, I was enthusiastic about carrying on the tradition. I have a photo of my son at two, standing at the stove on a stool (in his underwear), dipping. My kids love buckeyes, too, and as they grow up, I still pretend they enjoy making them with me. I prepare the filling on my own – it takes mindfulness and focus to alter the recipe ever so slightly, aiming for optimal texture and subtle essences. Then, my kids help with the messy, finger-licking endeavor of rolling the filling into balls. The final step – chocolate dipping – is the most challenging for me, as I lack the patience to watch and wait for excess chocolate to drip slowly off each PB ball back into the makeshift double-boiler. Simply, there’s too much to do! Instead, I prefer my kids’ imperfect creations with dark chocolate oozing over the silicone baking mat.

Naturally, as a nutritionist mama, I cannot make gramma’s recipe using two pounds of powdered sugar. Or margarine. I say no to 1/8 square of paraffin wax and vegetable shortening. So, I’ve reinvented the recipe to make what I call “Idaho Buckeyes.” I replace the aforementioned questionable and unnecessary ingredients with more natural ones that taste amazing, too. I may use chunky peanut butter one year or fold in almond butter the next. I’ve added cinnamon, cardamom and ginger, though not all together. I’ve tried unsweetened coconut flakes, pulverized coconut sugar, and melted coconut concentrate in lieu of butter. I’ve tried agar for thickening during my vegan years, too. For me, the tradition isn’t making the same recipe as gramma Truppi or my mama – or even my recipe from the previous cookie party. The tradition is the two-day, all-family buckeye-making event – and tasting!

This year, my mom came over to help. She was the primary filling-maker when I was a kid, and happily jumped into the task of rolling sticky, nutty balls between her hands. We laughed about the innuendos I didn’t understand when I was young as she tried to help me repair the snafu (soft, warm filling – I got busy, okay?). Mom cautiously asked me about the chocolate (“No wax? How do they harden?”), and kindly suggested the filling wasn’t firming up well enough (“No powdered sugar? How do they set?). I described the modifications that usually worked. This year, though, I didn’t have enough of one, key ingredient, so I chose to proceed without it. That made for tricky timing, sticky filling, and a morsel of pre-party stress. But I knew the buckeyes would still taste like buckeyes and I knew I had to finish them in time for the party – my girlfriends were expecting them! In truth, they were a staple.

One year, I made something more Italian than buckeyes – pistachio biscotti! Though they turned out aromatic and nutty, perfectly firm yet not crumbly, my friends were not happy about the buckeye void. Now, the cookie party has only one rule: Truppi makes buckeyes. Sometimes I double-up and make something in addition to buckeyes – cappuccino flats dipped in chocolate, peppermint patties, rosemary shortbread. Otherwise, we suggest that everyone brings an empty holiday tin. We play a white-elephant-esque exchange game, and each of us returns home with a new tin – filled with a delicious assortment of cookies and, if we didn’t devour them at the party – a few buckeyes!

Our cookie exchange party isn’t for obtaining feedback on the newest recipe combination or making the perfect cookie. It’s for friends to gather and share our family cookie traditions; to ensure individual traditions remain a part of each family; and to extend traditions to our greater family. We do, of course, enjoy exchanging – and eating – each other’s sweet treats.

Originally written for my column, “Clean Food, Messy Life,” published by 5bGazette.com