Our name, “A Family Tradition” gives insight to our story.  Ada, grandmother to Kandy and great-grandmother to Missy, was a cook for a local high school and prepared fresh baked cookies in large quantities for eager students.  Those recipes and talents for production benefited our family as well.  During Christmas time, Ada would bake dozens of cookies from the recipes passed down through the generations.  On Christmas Eve, not only did we look forward to figs, but also to those cookies! They would be divided and sent home with each family group.  

Ada continued this tradition through her last Christmas season.  That first year after Ada’s death, two of her granddaughters, Sharon and Kandy, and her great-granddaughter, Sharon’s daughter Missy, continued the tradition.  Sharon and Missy, who had lived with Ada and watched the annual tradition, took the lead.  They even made Kandy beat the Springerle egg whites by hand until it could be held upside down over her head and not fall out….because that is what the recipe said.  What Kandy didn’t know is that Ada stopped beating them by hand years ago when she got her nice mixer.  

After that first year, the tradition died out until 1995 when Kandy and Missy found themselves both living in Indianapolis in the same apartment complex.  We decided to start the tradition again; but on a much smaller scale at first.  We made a batch or two of about five different kinds and provided them as gifts to our family.  Over the years, we have received feedback, especially on the Springerlies.