For years, I’ve been hearing about the delicious merits of cracklings and how they can be used to make a crackling biscuit. Now with a fresh batch of cracklings on hand, I searched the Internet for the perfect recipe. There are so many. Some are made with yeast, not my idea of a biscuit, which is supposed to a quick bread, so no time to raise them with yeast. Some recipes called for leavening with eggs instead of baking powder or baking soda, not my preference. Many other permutations, including the addition of fresh cracked black pepper or cayenne. I will try adding one of those the next time. In the end, I mentally aggregated several recipes in relation to the proportion of dry ingredients and cracklings to milk for my first stab. My husband says he’d like a little more cracklings in them, so I will probably up the cracklings to 1½ cups next time. But overall, my first batch got thumbs up all around. Makes 6-12 biscuits, depending on the size of your cutter.


             2 cups white flour
             1 cup cracklings
             1 tsp. sea salt
             1 Tbsp. baking powder
             ¼ cup leaf lard
             2/3 cup whole milk


Add the cracklings to the flour and pulse in a blender until the cracklings are spread throughout the flour. Pour the flour/crackling mixture into a medium-sized bowl; add the sea salt and baking powder. Sift the dry ingredients  together and cut in the lard until it looks like cornmeal. Add the milk and stir. Quickly form the dough into a ball and knead lightly on a floured board. Pat dough 1/2-inchthick and cut with a 3-inch biscuit cutter. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 450ºF for 12 to 15 minutes.

These pig-shaped ginger cookies are very popular in Mexican bakeries throughout the Southwest. I found them in an Hispanic bakery in Albuquerque, NM. Unfortunately, they were using hydrogenated vegetable shortening instead of lard for the fat, which really makes no historical sense, especially for a pig-shaped cookie. You can find piloncillo in any Hispanic market in the United States and pig-shaped cookie cutters from many online sellers. These cookies don't spread out as they bake and are delicious with a tall glass of milk.

Main Ingredients

10 oz. piloncillo
1 cup water
2 pieces star anise
1 Mexican cinnamon stick
½ tsp. ground cloves
1 Tbsp. ground ginger
4 cups all-purpose white flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. sea salt
¼ cup lard, preferably organic
¼ cup white sugar
For egg wash:
1 egg
1 Tbsp. water


Directions

Chop up the piloncillo a little bit and place in a small saucepan with 1 cup water, star anise, and cinnamon. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove saucepan from heat and allow to cool completely, stirring the mixture as it cools so that the sugar dissolves.

Whisk together cloves, ginger, flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the lard and strain the piloncillo syrup in until the mixture comes together to form a dough. If too much liquid has evaporated from the syrup, you might need to add a bit more water. Divide the dough in half.

Working with half the mixture at a time, roll out to 1/3-inch thickness and cut out with a pig-shaped cookie cutter. Place the cookies to an ungreased baking sheet. Whisk egg with 1 Tbsp. water for egg wash; brush each cookie with the egg wash. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes at 400°F. Cool on wire racks. Makes 2 dozen.

Want to learn more: Listen to this fun NPR audio file below about Pati Jinich's search for piggy cookies in Mexico. Her recipes calls for butter, but when I communicated with her she confirmed that traditional recipes would have used lard. Enjoy listening and exploring!