Mostkekse (Upper Austrian Cider Cookies)

The Mostviertel is orchard country. Rolling hills covered in old pear and apple trees, some of them two hundred years old, and every farmhouse has a cellar full of Most, the slightly cloudy fruit cider that Upper Austrians drink the way other people drink water. On our childhood trips through Austria, Gretel always insisted we stop at a Mostheuriger, those rustic farmhouse taverns where the cider comes straight from the barrel. I remember drinking Apfelsaft while the adults drank Most, eating Jause platters of smoked meat and dark bread, and watching the orchards bend under the weight of fruit in late summer.

Mostkekse take that cider and reduce it down to something thick and dark and deeply fruity. You start with half a liter of Most and end up with a few tablespoons of concentrated orchard. It smells like caramel and autumn and every Bauernhof kitchen in Upper Austria. That reduction goes into a spiced butter dough, and what comes out of the oven are cookies that taste like no other Weihnachtskeks in the tin. They're tangy where Vanillekipferl are sweet. They're dark and warm where Linzer Augen are bright and nutty.

These belong to the Weihnachtsbäckerei, the Christmas baking tradition that Austrian families take as seriously as the tree itself. My grandmother Eva and Gretel would start in late November, filling tins that lined the kitchen counter in Deal. Mostkekse were always in the mix because Gretel knew the Mostviertel recipes. She'd reduce the cider on a Tuesday and bake on a Wednesday, and by Thursday the kitchen smelled like spice and butter and everything good about December.