Book of Days Tales

The Nutcracker was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg on this date in 1892. It was a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (op. 71). The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It was featured on a double-bill with Tchaikovsky’s opera, Iolanta. Although the original production was not a success, the 20-minute suite that Tchaikovsky extracted from the ballet was. The complete Nutcracker has enjoyed enormous popularity since the late 1960s and is now performed by countless ballet companies, primarily during the Christmas season, especially in North America. Major North American ballet companies generate around 40 percent of their annual ticket revenues from performances of The Nutcracker.

Both Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” and “The Night Before Christmas” have imprinted sugar plums indelibly in the Christmas consciousness of many people unaware of what sugar plums actually are. One hundred years ago and more, they were standard Christmas fare, but now they are not found much outside eastern Europe. I made them every year as Christmas presents. They are very easy to make, and are a delightful treat. They are nothing more than dried fruits and nuts ground up with spices, then rolled into balls, and coated with sugar. There are many, many variations depending on the fruits used, and you should just use your imagination here. Often my mix was currants, raisins, figs, and almonds but feel free to experiment. Nowadays it’s simplest to make the sugar plum mix in a food processor by pulsing the ingredients until they are finely chopped but before they are reduced to an homogenous mass. I always used a meat grinder with a coarse blade, running the ingredients through twice – first to chop them and second time to mix them thoroughly. It doesn’t hurt to add a little brandy, but be sparing because you don’t want the mix to be too wet.

Ingredients

6 oz slivered almonds, toasted
4 oz dried plums
4 oz dried apricots
4 oz dried figs
¼ cup powdered sugar
¼ tsp anise seeds, toasted
¼ tsp fennel seeds, toasted
¼ tsp caraway seeds, toasted
¼ tsp ground cardamom
pinch kosher salt
1 cup coarse sugar

Instructions

Grind all the ingredients, except the coarse sugar, to form a mixed blend that is not too homogenous, using a meat grinder or food processor.

Shape the mix into balls about the size of a small walnut. Roll them in coarse sugar and present them individually wrapped in decorative foil or frilly paper container or on their own.

If you need to keep them for a few days, refrigerate the whole mass, and then roll the balls and coat them in sugar when you are ready to serve them.