Day 18: Stars, Moons, and One More Log

Today, I baked two of the most beloved Plätzchen: Vanillekipferl and Zimtsterne. Vanilla crescents and cinnamon stars, that is! For the stars I used the recipe from last year, but for the vanilla crescents I tried a traditional German recipe that I couldn't make work last year. Only this time, I was equipped with a special form for this kind of cookies, and that made all the difference; the cookies turned out impeccable!

So here's the recipe to try if you've got that Kipferl form at your disposal:

In a bowl, combine 100g ground almonds, 50g sugar, 150g all-purpose flour, 8g vanilla sugar, and a pinch of salt (if the butter you're using is unsalted). Add 150g butter cut in small cubes, and rub the flour in the dry ingredients until you can form a ball with the dough! Take small amounts of the dough (about 12g) and form long sticks. Bend them to fit in the Kipferl form. Bake in a preheated oven (150C) about 20 minutes or until well cooked but not brown yet. Let the cookies cool a bit and very, very carefully transfer them on a serving plate. They break very easily at this point! Sprinkle some confectioner's sugar on top and enjoy one of the best things ever invented in Germany ;)



In addition, I felt confident enough to make one more Christmas log; the feedback this morning was overwhelmingly positive! This time, I added 1 Tbsp extra strong instant coffee in the butter icing - sublime! I also used potato starch in the batter instead of all-purpose flour (a bit less than half the amount) and the Swiss roll came out just the way it should. I was planning to freeze the log, but my kids convinced me to serve it tomorrow for their dad's birthday. Oh well, maybe I'll have to make a third one this year..

 

Day 16: Zedernbrot, or a Happy Marriage Between Lemon and Almond

The first time I tasted these very lemony, very almond-y Christmas cookies was at a friend's place. They were made by her mother-in-law, and the recipe was top-secret. I managed to convince my friend to convince her mother-in-law to give me the recipe, and the plan worked!

But here's the thing - I lost the paper on which the recipe was written.

The other recipes I've found give a good result as well - like this one I posted last year. This year, I used 100g roasted ground almonds and 100g plain ground almonds (last year only roasted almonds because that was the only organic variety I could find). I also reduced the amount of lemon juice, because last year the dough was a bit too liquid.

And I decorated my Zedernbrot cookies with some finely chopped candied lemon peel!

 

Day 15: Linzer Cookies

Ten days to go, and I still hadn't baked almost any of the iconic German Christmas cookies - Zimtsterne, Spitzbuben, Zedernbrot, Linzerschnitte...

So now it was time to get back to the track. I decided to bake Linzer cookies, the recipe of which I was almost sure I already shared last year - but I didn't... So now it's time to share it!

These sandwich cookies taste a bit like gingerbread but they are much softer! Fill them with any red jam that you like - my favourite is a mixture of raspberry and redcurrant jam.

This is what you need:

• 150g softened butter


• 50g sugar


• 1 egg


• 150g all-purpose flour


• 75 ground almonds


• 75g ground hazelnuts


• 1/3 tsp baking powder


• 1/2 tsp cinnamon


• 1/4 tsp cloves


• 1/4 tsp cardamom


• a pinch of ground nutmeg


• a pinch of salt (if using unsalted butter)


• red jam (raspberry, redcurrant...) for the filling


• some confectioner's sugar to decorate

This is how to proceed:

Beat butter and sugar until the mixture is creamy. Add the egg and stir until well combined. In another bowl, combine all the other dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the butter-sugar-egg-mixture and stir until you get a smooth batter. It is a bit liquid at this point, but don't add any flour!

Let the dough rest in the fridge about 2 hours.

Now, preheat the oven to 180C. Roll the dough out and cut hearts (or other forms of your liking) with a cookie cutter. Bake the cookies until the start to get some colour.

Once out of the oven, let the cookies cool down. Then spread jam evenly on the flat side of half of the cookies. Sandwich with the rest of the cookies. Sprinkle with some powder sugar and serve!

If you're planning to keep the cookies longer, do the sandwiching part only just before serving them.

Day 14: Orange Cookies with Almond and Rosemary

Ever heard of the Flavour Thesaurus? If not, do take a look at it! It's a great source of inspiration, suggesting which flavours pair well one with another. And it's an entertaining read, too!

So I had already decided to adjust my Rum Raisin Cookie recipe and to use homemade candied orange peel instead of raisins, and I was exploring the different options of other ingredients to go with. Rosemary seemed a good candidate, due to its fresh taste and the small surprise effect it would create.

And it sure was a good choice! This recipe will yield about 25 incredibly tasty cookies!

What you need:

• 100g homemade candied orange peel, cut in small cubes


• 50ml Cointreau (the alcohol will disappear during the cooking, but if you want, replace with orange juice)


• 1 Tbsp orange syrup (from the candied peel)


• 3 twigs of fresh rosemary


• 100g butter, softened


• 50g sugar


• 1 egg


• a few drops of vanilla extract


• 50g ground almonds


• 200g all-purpose flour


• 1/2 tsp baking powder


• (a pinch of salt, if you're using unsalted butter)


• plus some confectioner's sugar

Preheat the oven to 175C. Combine the candied orange peel, Cointreau, orange syrup, and two of the rosemary twigs in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat, and cover until the rest of the dough is done.

Beat the softened butter and the sugar in a baking bowl until white and fluffy. Add the egg and the vanilla extract, stir well, then add the almonds and the flour in which you've mixed the baking powder (and the salt, if using). Add the orange peel mixture (remember to remove the rosemary twigs!) and stir until well combined. The batter should be soft but not too liquid - add more flour if needed.

Use a teaspoon to place small heaps of batter on a baking tray covered with a parchment paper. Leave some space between the cookies as they spread a bit in the oven. Now you need the third twig: hide one rosemary leaf in each cookie! Bake them until golden brown, or about 15 minutes.

Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar and serve immediately - or hide well ;)

 

Day 10: Anisplätzchen, after all!

I had planned to bake something completely different today, but in the morning, I found myself looking for Anisplätzchen recipes - remember those famous German aniseed cookies that even the professional bakers might not get right?

The recipes didn't look too complicated, just that they advised to beat the batter 45 minutes with a kitchen machine, which I don't have, so I had some doubts whether I could manage to make the batter just with a spiral whisk.

Maybe I had beginner's luck or maybe these cookies are not that hard to make after all, because they turned perfect the first time! Or maybe I have to thank the Finnish weather conditions - dark, cold, extremely windy ;)

This is what you need to make 17-20 small cookies:

• 1 egg


• 75g confectioner's sugar


• 1 tsp ground aniseed, plus some entire seeds to decorate


• a few drops vanilla extract


• 75g all-purpose flour


• a pinch of baking powder

This is how to do it:

Combine sugar, egg, vanilla extract, and ground aniseed in a baking bowl. Turn your TV on, sit comfortably on your sofa, take a deep breath - and start beating. I did this for about 30 minutes. The mixture should be fluffy, creamy, and honey-like. (Honestly speaking - I think mine was all that even after 10 minutes, but I continued beating, just to be sure!) Now add the flour in which you've added the baking powder and stir until well combined.

With two teaspoons, place small drops of batter (about 1 teaspoon) on a baking tray covered with parchment paper. My initial batter was too liquid - the eggs I use are rather large - so I had to add more flour at this point. The batter should be firm enough so that the cookies don't go totally flat! Sprinkle the cookies with some entire anise seeds.

Let the cookies dry 6-12 hours in room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 175C and bake the cookies until they are hard but not yet getting any colour. If you've done everything right, a miracle will take place: those initially quite flat cookies will rise and get what the Germans call Füßchen, or "small feet".

You can't imagine how happy I was when I took a look at my cookies after 10 minutes or so and saw that the miracle had indeed happened...

Now I'm sipping some coffee with two different aniseed cookies and can't decide which ones taste better :)

 

Day 9: Aniseed Cookies

Last year a friend of mine told me that if I wanted some real challenge in my Plätzchen baking, I should try Anisplätzchen - they are almost impossible to bake right, even if you're a professional baker; whether they succeed or not depends namely on the humidity of air, among other things.

The seed of this challenge got planted in my brain, but I don't feel up to it just now. Maybe next year...!

But I wanted to try something with aniseed, and luckily there is a variety of other Christmas cookies that feature this little liquorice-tasting seed!

This seemed an easy recipe, and it was. The only tricky part is when you take the cookies out of the oven: you have to be really quick to stretch them over a spoon to get the right shape. They are elastic only about 1-2 minutes once they're out, after that they harden and can't be shaped any more.

For about 35 cookies you need:

• 2 eggs


• 120g sugar


• 1 tsp ground aniseed


• 60g all-purpose flour


• a pinch of salt


• entire aniseed seeds to decorate

Preheat the oven to 200C. Combine eggs, sugar and ground aniseed in a baking bowl. Beat until the mixture is creamy and fluffy. Then add sifted flour (in which you've added the salt) and stir until well combined. Place small drops of about one teaspoon on a baking tray, covered with parchment paper, and bake in the oven about 7 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown in the middle and a bit darker from the sides.

While the cookies are baking, take out as many tablespoons as you have cookies in the oven. Once you take the cookies out, you need to be fast: with each spoon, take one cookie from the baking tray (be careful, don't burn your fingers!) and stretch in on the outside of the spoon. Place on another tray and let cool completely. Repeat with the rest of the cookies.

Enjoy with a glass of mulled wine, for example!



P.S. As you can see in this picture, I also baked some rum raisin cookies today.... They are my son's all-time favourite cookies!

Day 7: Greek Almond Stars

This is a recipe I’ve wanted to try for a long time, and I’m glad I finally did! These almond stars, flavoured with brandy and vanilla, are among the prettiest cookies I’ve ever baked! They are very tasty and easy to make.

The original recipe is from Rena Salaman’s The Greek Cook. I had to change the measures a bit - especially the amounts of sugar and flour. Here’s my version:

For the dough you need

• 225g butter


• 125g sugar


• 8g vanilla sugar


• 2 egg yolks


• 3 Tbsp brandy


• 1/2 tsp baking soda


• 160g ground almonds


• 350g all-purposed flour


• a pinch of salt (only if using unsalted butter)


• plus about 100g confectioner’s sugar for dusting.

Set the oven to 175C. Combine softened butter, vanilla sugar, and sugar in a baking bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon or spatula until creamy and white, then add the egg yolks and stir until well combined. Add the brandy in which you have dissolved the baking soda. Lastly, add almonds and flour and work the dough with your hands until you can form it into a ball.

Roll the dough about 1cm thick (the original recipe suggested 2,5cm but for me it was just too much and my cookie cutter is only a bit less than 2cm deep…). Use a cookie cutter to cut small stars. Bake the cookies until they almost start to get some colour - be careful, they burn very easily!

Once out of the oven, sprinkle some confectioner’s sugar on top. Take a big plate and sprinkle its surface with confectioner’s sugar, too. Let the cookies cool a few minutes, then transfer them on the plate and dust them with more confectioner’s sugar so that they are totally white.

Serve your stars with a cup of strong coffee!

Day 5: Hallongrottor - the Best Cookies in the World

When I was a kid, my grandmother used to bake cookies that we called the Best-in-the-world. They were small round sandwich cookies with raspberry jam in the middle. Unfortunately, I don’t have the recipe anymore.

But maybe I wouldn’t need it, either: looking at my family devouring the first batch of Hallongrottor yesterday, I could see me and my cousins devouring the Best-in-the-world-cookies. The first batch was gone before I even found the tin box in which I had planned to store them. But luckily, they are extremely easy and quick to do! So today, I baked again ;)

Here’s a revised recipe from last year. This time, I added egg yolk in the dough, to make it more manageable. (I used to add a bit of water if needed, but it's not a very good idea: the cookies tend to spread more in the oven...)

For 25-30 hallongrottor you need

• 225g butter or vegan margarine


• 85g sugar


• 250g all-purpose flour


• 60g marsánpulver (or other vanilla pudding powder)


• 1 ⅕ tsp baking powder


• 1 pinch of salt (only if using non-salt butter)


• 2 egg yolks


• raspberry jam

Preheat your oven to 180 C. Cut the butter into small cubes and place in a baking bowl. In another bowl, combine sugar, flour, vanilla pudding powder, baking powder, and salt (if using). Work the mixture with your fingertips until fine and crumbly, then add egg yolks and work the dough until it's easy to form it into a ball.

Divide the dough into 25-30 parts (mine weighed 20g). Roll each of them into a small ball and place on an oven tray covered with parchment paper. Press a hole in the middle of each cookie, using your finger, and fill the holes with raspberry jam. Bake about 12-15 minutes, or until well cooked but not brown yet.

Store them very soon after baking if you want to have any left for Christmas!

Day 4: Gingerbread with Rye Flour

For today, my son had scheduled Finnish gingerbread cookies. Which I did bake, following the recipe I posted last year.

Well, almost. I made a small change: I used a mixture of rye flour and all-purpose flour, inspired by Biberli cookies from yesterday.

This resulted in the most perfect gingerbread dough ever! Well, apart from the greenish colour before baking the cookies, that is. But otherwise, the dough was smooth and very easy to roll even very thin – and thin is what I like my gingerbread cookies to be! My very biased jury said these were the best gingerbread cookies ever.

So here is the recipe from last year, re-posted, but with different flour. At least my rye flour was thirstier than other flour types, so I used slightly less flour.

This is what you need (it’s impossible to say how many you’ll get, it depends on the size of the cookie cutters you’re using - but one portion gives you one big plate full of them):

• 50ml molasses


• 125g butter


• 90g sugar


• 0,5 tsp cinnamon, ground ginger, cloves, bitter orange peel, each


• 0,2 tsp cardamom and allspice, each


• 1 egg


• 450ml flour (more or less 280g) - half rye, half all-purpose


• 0,3 tsp salt


• 1 tsp baking soda

Place butter, sugar, molasses, and the spices in a pan. Warm until the butter has melted, then let cool to room temperature. In the meantime, measure the flour, salt, and baking soda in a baking bowl. When the butter-spice-mixture is cool enough, beat it until pale brown, add the egg, and beat one minute more. (I do this using a twirl whisk.)

Pour the mixture into the flour mixture and stir well. Note that the dough is quite soft at this point, but do NOT add more flour. Now, place the dough in the fridge for a couple of hours, or preferably overnight. This will allow for the flavours to develop to their full potential!

When your dough is ready, roll it out on a flour dusted work surface until about 2-3 mm thin. Cut out cookies, using cookie cutters of different shapes. Place your cookies on an oven tray covered with parchment paper.  Bake in a preheated oven (200 C) 6-8 minutes. Note that size matters here: on each tray, place cookies of more or less the same size - otherwise the small ones will burn before the big ones are done.

I suggest you make at least double portion of this dough and keep it in the fridge. It keeps easily one week, and then you can bake cookies whenever you feel like it - and enjoy that heavenly smell of freshly baked gingerbread!

Day 3: Biberli, or Swiss Gingerbread with Almond-Kirsch-Filling

Biberli is what happened to me when I let the kids decide what I should bake next. They chose a recipe I had never heard of before, with no picture, and with a name that didn't tell me anything at all: Biber is German for beaver, -li is a suffix that the Swiss love to add after all possible words, it seems.

But good that they did, because these gingerbread cookies are absolutely gorgeous, with a soft almond-kirsch-filling wrapped in crispy, spicy gingerbread crust.

And after a quick look at the best dictionary in the world I found out that the name for this type of cookies the most likely comes from a dialectal variant of Pimpernuss, or bladdernut (!), that was used as a spice in Biberli. Speaking of which: instead of the spices in this recipe, you can use a ready-made gingerbread spice mix.

This is what you need for the dough:

• 120g honey


• 50g sugar


• 30g butter


• 1 tsp cinnamon


• ½ tsp ground cloves


• 1 pinch of the following: dried orange peel, ginger, cardamom, coriander


• 1 pinch of salt


• 100g all-purpose flour


• 100g rye flour


• 1 tsp potash (or baking soda)


• 1 Tbsp kirsch or similar

..and for the filling:

• 1 smallish egg white


• 100g ground almond


• 40g sugar


• 1 Tbsp kirsch or similar

…and for the wash:

• a bit of milk


• 1 Tbsp honey


• 1 tsp cornstarch


• 1 Tbsp water

Combine honey, sugar, spices and butter in a saucepan. Heat until sugar has melted, then remove from heat. Dissolve potash in the kirsch. Place flour in a baking bowl. Add salt and the honey mixture and the potash-kirsch-mixture. Work the dough with your hands until it’s smooth. The dough looks and smells awful – don’t be scared, that’s normal :) The greenish colour comes from the rye and the weird smell from the potash (baking soda doesn’t smell that strong!). Let the dough rest 2-3 hours in the fridge.

For the filling, just combine all ingredients until you get a somewhat firm paste.

Roll the dough into a long rectangle about 8 cm wide. Work the filling into a long roll – it should be as long as the dough rectangle is. Place the filling roll in the middle of the dough. Pull both sides gently towards the middle, so that the filling stays fully covered. Press the seam together and turn the roll so that the seam faces down (see the picture below).

Now, use a sharp knife to cut small triangles out of the roll, like when baking cinnamon rolls the Finnish way. Brush the Biberli with milk and bake in a preheated oven (175 C) about 15 minutes, or until they start to gain some colour. In the meantime, prepare the liquid for the second wash: combine cornstarch, cold water and honey in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil and remove from heat. Once the cookies come out of the oven, brush them with the warm honey mixture. Let cool completely, then either enjoy – or store!

I’ve noticed that this kind of Lebkuchen (or gingerbread) tastes a bit bitter on the first day. Miraculously, the taste improves a lot in one or two days!



 

 

 

Raspberry Rugelach with Hazelnuts

These croissant-shaped little sweet pastries are my new favourite! They are easy and quick to make, they look pretty, and taste fantastic. I first baked rugelach with a chocolate filling, but didn’t like them at all. The dough was great, though, so I made a new attempt with raspberry jam and hazelnuts as filling - and this time I hit the jackpot...!

For 24 rugelach you need:

• 120g butter


• 170g whole-grain spelt flour


• a generous pinch of salt (less generous if using salted butter)


• 120g quark or sour cream

For the filling:

• 200g raspberry jam


• two handfuls of coarsely chopped hazelnuts

To decorate:

• 1 Tbsp vanilla-scented confectioners’ sugar

Cut the butter in small cubes and place in a baking bowl. Add flour and salt, and work with your fingertips until the texture is like fine crumbles. Then add quark or sour cream and work with your hands until you can form the dough into a ball. Then place the dough in your fridge for at least 30 minutes, but you can make the dough even several hours before.

When you take the dough out of the fridge, set your oven to 190 C. With a rolling pin, roll the dough out into two 25 cm diameter circles. Cover both circles evenly with raspberry jam and chopped hazelnuts. Cut each circle into 12 triangular pieces, as if you were cutting a pizza. Roll each triangle and form a small crescent. Bake for about 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Let your rugelach cool some 10 minutes. Then sprinkle them with confectioners’ sugar and enjoy!

P.S. To make vanilla-flavoured confectioners’ sugar, take a glass jar with a lid. Cut one vanilla pod lengthwise into two pieces and place in the jar. Now fill the jar with confectioners’ sugar, cover, and wait one week or so – and voilà, you’ve got your own vanilla powder sugar!

Easter Bunny's Favourite Cookies

I’m back, folks! With a lot of new energy and loads of new recipes and ideas.

Every year we’re asked to bake something to the Easter Market that my kids’ kindergarten organizes. This year I volunteered to bake Easter Bunny Cookies, among other things. Unfortunately, the recipe I got from another Mom last year somehow got lost in the meanwhile (what a surprise!), so I had to come up with a new recipe. I decided to combine all of my favourite cookie flavours in one, and here’s the result: almond-lemon-vanilla-butter cookies!

I baked the cookies with whole-grain wheat flour. Not just because of the health benefits, but because I’ve found the perfect whole-grain flour! It’s organic; it’s ground with a special lava-stone mill that grinds it really very fine, so that the texture is just like all-purpose flour; and it tastes WONDERFUL. Not “I-know-this-is-healthy-so-I-decide-it-tastes-good-although-it-actually-tastes-like-hay” kind of wonderful, but really delicious! Now if you don’t find that kind of whole-grain flour, I suggest you either use all-purpose or a mixture of whole-grain and all-purpose.

For about 60 small bunnies you need:

• 250g butter


• 300g flour


• 80g ground almonds


• 90g sugar


• 8g vanilla sugar


• 1 tsp baking powder


• a generous pinch of salt (less if using salted butter)


• grated zest of an organic lemon


• 2 egg yolks (keep the whites to make a Pavlova, for example! Recipe will follow…)


• 3 Tbsp cream

First, cut the butter in small cubes and place the cubes in a baking bowl. Add lemon zest. Combine together flour, sugar, vanilla sugar, salt, almonds, and baking powder. Pour the flour mixture in the bowl. Work butter and the flour mixture with your fingertips until the texture resembles fine crumbles. Then add egg yolks and cream and work with your hands to form a ball. Add more cream (or water) if needed. Place the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Set your oven to 200 C. Roll the dough out about 4mm thin and cut out cookies using a bunny-shaped cookie cutter. Place the cookies on a oven tray covered with a baking sheet. Bake about 8 minutes or until golden brown.

For an even prettier result, decorate your cookies with sugar cookie icing!

Orange Chocolate Cookies

I have to apologize - these are no Plätzchen! But I was craving for something with chocolate to finalize my Christmas cookies selection, so I came up with these quadruple chocolate cookies with lot of orange in them. Besides, the recipe is 100% vegan  - it’s always good to have at least one vegan (and thus also lactose free) option when receiving guests :)

For about 25 small cookies you need:

• 125g vegan margarine


• 1 cup all-purpose flour


• 1,5 tsp baking powder


• 3 Tbsp sugar


• 3 Tbsp cocoa powder


• a pinch of salt


• 8g vanilla sugar


• 1 tsp dried orange peel powder


• 3 Tbsp candied orange, in small cubes


• 100g vegan chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used a mixture of rice milk chocolate, vegan white chocolate, and dark chocolate, about 35g each)


• 2 Tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice


• about 100g dark chocolate with orange flavour for the coating

Combine all dry ingredients in a baking bowl. Add margarine, cut in small cubes, and work with your fingertips until fine and crumbly. Add orange juice and work the dough into a ball. With your hands, take about walnut-sized pieces of dough and form them into round cookies. Bake in a preheated oven (190 C) about 15 minutes, or until firm from the outside but not too dry form the inside.
Let the cookies cool on a rack. In the meantime, melt the orange-flavoured chocolate in bain-marie or in the microwave. Dip one side of each cookie in the melted chocolate and place on a plate. Let dry before eating or storing!

Linzer Schnitten

I first tasted Linzer Torte in Vienna some years ago, and immediately became a fan. The combination of hazelnut, spices, and jam together with the crumbly sticky texture is just heavenly. This recipe brings you the same flavours and texture but in a miniature size!

These cookies are much easier to bake than one might first think. You just make the dough, roll it out, cover first with jam, then a criss-cross-pattern of dough stripes, bake, and cut into small cookies. That’s it! Be careful with the clover, though; better use a bit less than too much, or the other flavours don’t stand any chance.

For about 50 cookies you need:

• 300g flour (I used spelt 1050)


• 100g ground hazelnuts


• 80g sugar


• 1 tsp baking powder


• a pinch of salt


• 1 tsp cinnamon (Ceylon, if possible)


• 1 pinch of ground cloves (or more, if you like a stronger taste)


• 200g butter or vegan margarine


• about 50ml (vegan) milk


• 100g red currant jam


• 80 g raspberry jam


• one egg yolk and 1 Tbsp milk for the wash (optional)

Combine flour, hazelnut, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and cloves in a baking bowl. Add butter (cut in small cubes) and work with your fingertips until fine and crumbly. Add enough milk so that you can form the dough into a ball.

Take about ⅔ of the dough and roll it out into a rectangular form (mine was 25cm*35cm). Place the rectangle on an oven pan covered with a parchment paper. (If you want, you can roll the dough out on the parchment paper already - that way, you don’t need to worry about whether it will break when you move it!) Combine both jams in a bowl and spread them evenly on the dough.

Now, roll the rest of the dough about 3 mm thin. Cut out long stripes about 0,5cm wide with a knife or with a pastry wheel. Arrange the stripes to form a criss-cross pattern as in the picture. If you want, you can brush the stripes with egg yolk and milk - this gives a very beautiful colour to the cookies!

Bake in a preheated oven (190 C) about 25 minutes, or until thoroughly cooked. Let cool, then cut into long rectangular cookies, about 2cm wide and 7cm long.

P.S. I first tasted Linzer Torte in Café Goldegg, a coffee shop in Vienna that just might have the best coffee in the world. The cakes were awesome as well. Service was impeccable. And yet: I’ll never go to Café Goldegg again. Why? Because happy children are not welcome there. Every time we went there with a crying child, it was just fine. But when we once managed to have five happy children with us, it was a problem. The owner came personally to tell us that loud laughter was not allowed in a coffee shop. I mean, REALLY. How screwed-up is that?

Zedernbrot - Almond Cookies with Lemon Icing

These cookies with a very misleading name might just have reached my top 3 of best Christmas cookies ever! The name is deceiving, since Zeder is actually German for cedar, yet (luckily!) the cookies have no cedar in them. Instead, Zeder refers to Italian, where cedro stands for citron (citrus medica) - and yes, there’s a lot of lemon in Zedernbrot!

Zedernbrot cookies are very easy to do, they are not too sweet, and they combine two of my favourite flavours - almond and lemon. Besides, the consistency is very pleasant - like chewy marshmallow. (If you do it right, that is. I forgot to check on my second batch and it stayed too long in the oven - and they got too dry..)

For about 30 small rectangular cookies you need:

• 1 egg white


• 125g powder sugar


• a pinch of salt


• 200g ground almonds


• zest of 1 lemon


• 3 tsp lemon juice


• a bit of flour for rolling the dough out

For the icing:

• 100g powder sugar


• lemon juice

Beat the egg white with a pinch of salt until soft peaks form. Add sugar and continue beating until glossy and firm. Add lemon zest, lemon juice, and almonds, and stir with a wooden spoon until all ingredients are well combined.  Place the dough in the fridge for one hour or so.

Roll the dough out about 1cm thick. Originally, these cookies are cut out with a moon-shaped cookie cutter, but I couldn’t find mine, so for my first batch I used a rectangular cutter. The dough is sticky and quite tricky to cut, so for the second batch I rolled the dough out into a square and used a sharp knife to cut out small rectangles.

Dry your Zedernbrot in a preheated oven (150 C) for about 20 minutes, or until their surface isn’t sticky to touch anymore. While the cookies are in the oven, you can prepare the icing: add as much lemon juice in the powder sugar as you need in order to get a mixture that is easy to stir with a spoon. Let the cookies cool a bit, then spread some icing on top of each, using a small spoon. I wanted mine extra lemony, so I squeezed a couple of lemon juice drops on each cookie before spreading the icing. Let the cookies dry, then store them.

P.S. So, two more days to go! If I don’t change my mind in the last minute, there’s going to be still something fruity and something chocolatey on the list ;)

Kaffeemakronen - Coffee Macaroons

A friend of mine was asking for me to bake hazelnut macaroons, which are a must in any self-respecting Plätzchen assortment, but I was craving for something with coffee. That’s how I came up with this recipe that combines both wishes -  and it worked! There’s not enough coffee to my taste, but then again, will there ever be? ;)

German macaroons are very easy to do compared with their French counterparts. Just beat the egg whites, add the rest, and bake. Most recipes tell you to wait a couple of hours before baking them, but today I didn’t have the time for that, and they turned out good even so.

For about 28 macaroons you need:

• 2 egg whites


• a pinch of salt


• 85g sugar


• 145g ground hazelnuts


• 30g all-purpose flour


• 3 tsp instant coffee - make it as strong as you can!


• 2 Tbsp molasses


• 28 chocolate covered coffee beans

First make the coffee: dilute as much instant coffee as you can in about 2 Tbsp hot water. Note that you'll only need part of this - the rest you can drink, provided you add  a lot of sugar ;) (This is how I did it, maybe there would be better methods.)

Beat the egg whites together with the salt until they form soft peaks. Then add gradually the sugar and continue beating until shiny and firm again. Then add hazelnuts, flour, and 3 tsp of that strong instant coffee you made. Stir with a wooden spoon until all ingredients are well combined.

Now, drop batter by teaspoonfuls on an oven tray covered with a parchment paper. It’s best to use two spoons - in one, you have the batter, and with the other one, you help the batter to land on the oven tray.

Bake your macaroons in a preheated oven (160 C) for about 20 minutes, or until they are not sticky anymore form the outside but still soft from the inside. Glue one coffee bean on top of each macaroon, using molasses as glue.

Crunchy Caramel Hearts with Cashews

Caramel and salt is a match made in heaven. These crunchy cookies topped with salty cashew caramel are so far the favourites of two test persons- and I don't blame them! The recipe comes from a little book called Weihnachtsplätzchen, and the only thing I changed was the amount of caramel - I made a bit more for the cook to be able to savour some of it as well ;)

For about 35 hearts you need

Caramel:

• 90g sugar


• 55g cashews


• salt to taste

Cookies:

• 180g flour


• a pinch of salt


• 2 Tbsp sugar


• 16g vanilla sugar


• 120g butter or margarine


• 50ml (vegan) cream


• a bit of milk for brushing

First, make the caramel: in a pan, heat the sugar until it melts and gets light brown - but be careful! Caramel burns very easily. Then add the cashews, turn a couple of times with a spatula to make sure all cashews are coated with caramel, and take away from heat. Pour the caramel onto a surface covered with parchment paper and let cool.

In the meantime, prepare the dough: in a baking bowl, combine flour, salt, sugar, and vanilla sugar. Add butter (cut in small cubes) and work with your fingertips until fine and crumbly. Then add cream and form the dough into a ball. Place the dough in the fridge for 10 minutes or so.

Now, it’s time to cut the caramel. I used a sharp knife to cut it into small pieces, but you could also use your food processor. Add salt to your taste and stir well.

Take your dough out of the fridge, roll it out to about 3mm thin, and take out heart formed cookies with a cookie cutter. Place them on an oven pan covered with a parchment paper. Brush each cookie with a bit of milk and sprinkle caramel on top.

Bake in a preheated oven (190 C) for about 12 minutes, or when the cookies are golden brown. Let cool on a rack - and enjoy!

Kathrinchen - the Gingerbread That Opens the Christmas Season

So a Roman emperor asks you to marry him, and your answer is “No, thanks.” Better think twice! Catherine of Alexandria turned down a marriage proposal coming from the emperor Maxentius in year 305, and guess what happened? Maxentius tried to kill Catherine using a breaking wheel (hence the wheel in this picture) - but didn’t succeed and had her beheaded instead.

In memory of that event the Germans traditionally start their Plätzchen season on the 24th of November, on the eve of St. Catherine’s day, and bake a special form of Lebkuchen, or gingerbread, called Kathrinchen. I only found about this tradition today, but next year I’m definitely going to serve these lemon-scented gingerbread cookies on that day. And bake them a couple of days in advance: these cookies need 4-5 days to get softer and to better reveal their nice lemony taste.

This recipe is again from Feinste Weinachtsbäckerei. I don’t have a proper Kathrinchen cookie cutter, so I used another rectangular cookie cutter, about 4cm wide and 6cm long.

For about 40 of  cookies that size you need:

• 100g honey


• 50g sugar


• 25g butter


• 1 egg yolk


• 30g sugar


• 2 tsp gingerbread spice mixture


• zest of one lemon


• 1 Tbsp rose water


• 1 tsp potash


• 250g all-purpose flour (I baked mine with spelt 1050)


• 1 pinch of salt

Plus for the icing:

• 4 Tbsp sugar


• 2 Tbsp hot water


• 1 Tbsp lemon juice

Place honey, 50g sugar, and butter in a pan and heat until sugar has melted. Mix egg yolk, 30g sugar, spices, and lemon zest together in a baking bowl. Mix potash with rose water and add to the egg-sugar mixture. Now add honey mixture and flour (I added a pinch of salt in the flour, although it wasn’t in the original recipe) and stir with a wooden spoon until all ingredients are well combined. Place the dough in the fridge for one hour or so.

Roll out the dough 0,5cm thick and cut it into rectangular cookies either with a knife or with a cookie cutter. Bake about 15 minutes in a preheated oven (180 C).

Once the cookies have cooled a bit, brush them with lemon-sugar icing (just mix all ingredients together). This makes the cookies sprinkle like they had a bit frost on them!

Coconut Balls with Almonds and White Chocolate

My advice is - do NOT try out this recipe. I did, and there’s no turning back. These crunchy almond coconut cookies dipped in white chocolate and rolled in coconut flakes are highly addictive.

The recipe is from a small booked called Weinachtsplätzchen, and had to be somewhat modified - I had to add a bit of water in the dough, and the amount of white chocolate (100g) just wasn’t enough. That’s why half of my cookies are covered with dark chocolate (which didn’t work as well as white chocolate, though). You can also leave the coating out - the cookies taste great even without it.

For some 35 cookies you need:

• 300g all-purpose flour


• 100g ground almonds


• 100g desiccated coconut


• a pinch of salt


• 100g sugar


• 250g butter or vegan margarine


• about 50ml water

For the coating:

• 200g (vegan) white chocolate


• 100g desiccated coconut

In a baking bowl, combine together flour, almonds, coconut, salt, and sugar. Add butter or margarine in small cubes and work with your fingertips until fine and crumbly. Add enough water so that you can form the dough into a ball.

Divide the dough into about 35 pieces. Roll each piece into a small ball. Bake in a preheated oven (180 C) about 15-20 minutes, or until cooked but not brown yet. (Lower the temperature if needed.)

Once the cookies are baked and cooled a bit, melt the white chocolate - add some (vegan) cream if needed. I’m too lazy to use a bain-marie, so I melted mine in a pan - it worked, too, but I needed to add a bit of milk. Drop a couple of cookies at a time into the chocolate, take out with a spoon and roll in the desiccated coconut. Let dry on a plate and transfer into an air-tight container.

I’m going to bake a second portion of these cookies and coat them only just before Christmas. My guess is, even well-hidden, they won’t keep as well as other Plätzchen types.

Spitzbuben

“Quite good, but not as good as the ones my mother-in-law bakes”, was the honest judgment of a friend of mine when she tasted my Spitzbuben (= rascals), these little sandwich cookies that are amongst the most popular Christmas cookies in Germany. And she was right. The recipe I found in Feinste Weinachtsbäckerei results in very decent Spitzbuben - but not the best I've eaten.

While I’m waiting for my friend to convince her mother-in-law to reveal her secret recipe, I’ll share this one with you. Spitzbuben are not difficult to make, but you need to count with at least 2 hours to get 40 cookies. I was lucky today to have some baking company, so it went faster - and was a lot more fun!

For 40 or so you need

• 125 g butter or margarine


• 100g sugar


• 8g vanilla sugar


• 1 pinch of salt


• 1 Tbsp rum


• 1 egg


• 60g ground almonds


• 250g all-purpose flour


• plus some jam (raspberry, apricot..) and powder sugar to decorate

Beat butter, vanilla sugar, and sugar together until pale yellow and fluffy, then add the egg and rum and mix well. In a bowl, combine almonds, flour, and salt together, and pour the mixture on the butter mixture. Use your hands to combine all ingredients well together. Form the dough into a ball and place in the fridge for an hour or so (or even overnight).

Roll the dough out about 0,5 cm thin. Cut out stars (or circles) with a cookie cutter. In half of the cookies, make a hole in the middle (I used an apple corer). Bake your cookies in a preheated oven (180 C) for about 10 minutes, or until cooked but not brown yet. Set aside to cool and bake the rest of the cookies.

Spread about ½ espresso spoon of jam on top of each hole-less cookie and place a cut-out cookie on top. Place on a plate. When all your sandwich cookies are done, sprinkle some (vanilla-flavoured) powder sugar on top.