An episode with sprinkles on top that feeds the holiday spirit and our inner child. Join us as we reconnect with old memories and playfully enjoy all that the season has to offer. Happy holidays!
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Feed Your Fire Podcast Episode Transcript:
Hello, and welcome to Feed Your Fire. I'm your host, Kim Baker.
We've already had three snow days here in Richmond. Twinkling lights are lining the neighborhood, and I have the remnants of tiny snowmen on my front grass. No matter what your tradition or whether you've been naughty or nice, we're cooking up something today that everyone can enjoy.
Today, we're feeding our inner child, getting in touch with that younger version of ourselves, sharing Christmas cookies that evoke that very spirit, topped appropriately with rainbow sprinkles.
I've got this favorite pair of sweatpants that my sister gave me. They're lavender with rhinestones. And one day, without any thought, I had paired them with this pink tank top, and I caught a glance of myself in the mirror, realizing I was just a set of pig tails and a few age spots away from my eight-year-old self. And it created the sensation that was oddly powerful, a mix between feeling safe and vulnerable. It's like I had found a secret passageway to another place in time. And the reality is that we all have a pathway back to that version of ourselves.
What's yours? Nostalgia is often the doorway. It's what draws us back to that connection.
Old photos and movies, letting our bare feet touch the grass, or the smell of cookies baking. Our inner child is the source and container where these old memories and experiences occurred. We don't just change and grow as we get older. We're kind of like a Google Doc with a revision history. And your inner child is a version of that narrative from 1985. Our brains have been doing a save as. And even though the story's gotten more detailed and complex, that past version has not been overwritten.
Christmas provides the perfect backdrop for that reconnection. Even if Father Christmas can't solve all of our mommy and daddy issues, the season creates an opening. An opening not just to the past, but to play. So with the magic of Christmas in the air, as we near the end of 2025, we're calling out to all of the parts of ourselves, young and old, to partake in the centuries-old tradition of baking holiday cookies. As a show of love and care.
It's believed that the cookie could be traced back to 7th century Persia, when sugar cane was first introduced in the region. And what was once a luxury has now become a mainstay in society, crossing cultures and traditions.
When I was a kid, there were always cookies in the house. And when I went to college, my mother would send me a care package literally every week with cookies from my favorite bakery back home. My roommate found this to be extremely annoying.
Cookies have always occupied a very special place in my heart. My first entrepreneurial adventure was actually a cookie company. I was in my early 20s dabbling with e-commerce. And if you listen to last year's Christmas episode, then you know about my holiday baking tradition that was almost foiled by an ant invasion.
The cookies that we're going to make today were inspired by my childhood. When I was younger, there were always these Italian cookies around the house, pinoli or Italian S cookies. And at the time, I didn't like those. I thought of them as "adult cookies". They were only mildly sweet, and they kind of lacked the playfulness of other cookies. These cookies were the kind you would dip in coffee, not milk. And what's interesting is that now that I am an adult with a more mature palate, I absolutely love these old Italian recipes.
So today, we're going to make anise cookies, which are really simple to prepare, as we reintegrate our old childhood memories with where we are today. Now, most recipes for anise cookies call for the eggs to be at room temperature. But I rarely remember to take the eggs out of the refrigerator in time. So if you're like me, take four eggs and put them in a bowl filled with lukewarm water. That will help bring the temperature of the eggs down.
Place a stick of butter that's been softened in a mixing bowl. Add in a half a cup of sugar and let that cream until it's nice and fluffy. Add in two eggs, one at a time, allowing them to incorporate really well. And with the remaining eggs, you're gonna separate the yolks from the whites, reserving the whites and using only the yolks for this recipe. Take your time letting that get all incorporated.
Then add in a teaspoon of vanilla and the zest of one orange. Now, rather than using an anise extract, I'm gonna use whole anise seeds.
In a separate bowl, I'm gonna combine two and a half cups of flour with one and a half teaspoons of baking powder, a pinch of salt and five teaspoons of anise seeds that you've run through a spice grinder or chopped up finely with a knife. Now, I know five teaspoons seems like a typo, but it's not.
Now, take those dry ingredients and add them slowly into your mixing bowl, allowing the dough to just come together. Then scrape the dough into a ball shape and place it in plastic wrap. Let that sit in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. I often like to do this the night before.
When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Then take about a tablespoon full of the dough that's been refrigerated and rub it together in your hands to form a ball-like shape. Try to get them as round and perfect as possible. They won't grow a lot so you can fit a fair amount on a pan. Maybe like four rows of four. And you'll need at least two pans for all the dough.
Bake them for about ten minutes. The bottom of the cookie will turn just lightly brown. Once they're cool, we're gonna glaze them with a sugar icing and sprinkle them with nonpareils.
To make the sugar icing, you'll want about a cup of confectionary sugar, two teaspoons of water, and about a quarter teaspoon of cream. Mix it all up in a small bowl until it's smooth. Taking the cookies with your fingers, you're gonna dip one side into that glaze. And before that sugar dries, you'll wanna use the sprinkles on top.
Now, regardless of whether you grew up having anise cookies at home, the fact that these are adorned with rainbow sprinkles can transport anyone back to the best moments of their childhood. And this maneuverability, shifting back and forth from something in our childhood and being able to look at it with fresh eyes as an adult is one of the healthiest things we can do for ourselves.
Rather than keep those versions of our past separate and apart, we can integrate them, celebrating the good moments once again, revisiting old stories with wisdom and compassion, and perhaps, like with this recipe, acquiring a taste for something that maybe in the past missed the mark.
You don't have to have some unresolved childhood trauma to benefit from reconnecting with your inner child. Maintaining a sense of playfulness is a transformational tool for navigating life. It's what keeps our fire burning, and it strengthens our experiences with one another. We need to find ways to stay young and vibrant regardless of what we carry.
And this season, I hope you could find a way to reconnect with that spirit. To look at yourself in the mirror and see your eight-year-old self. And to find comfort in it rather than turn away. And whether or not you're leaving a plate of cookies for Santa, bake a batch for yourself, letting them transport you to another time and place. Creating a stamp in this moment that will become tomorrow's nostalgia.
Until our next episode, I say so long. Feed Your Fire, where food nourishes growth.