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 13: Saint Lucy's Buns

Yesterday I didn't bake anything for my reverse advent's calendar. The reason is - I had the honour of doing the catering for my godson's birthday party! So I spent the whole day in the kitchen cooking and baking for the big event.

But around midnight I prepared the dough for today's project. I wanted to bake Saint Lucy's buns, which are a tradition in Sweden - and increasingly so in Finland as well. I've baked them a couple of times, only this time I wanted to use sourdough starter only instead of yeast. The result was incredibly soft and tasty - my starter seems to be in good form again!

Traditionally, these buns contain saffron which lends them a very beautiful yellow colour. Well, I had forgotten to buy saffron, and by the time I wanted to make the dough, it was already too late to buy any. So mine were white this year.. but very tasty nonetheless (and much cheaper, of course ;) ).

This is what I needed for 13 buns:

• 100g stiff sourdough starter


• 250ml liquid (I used a mix of water, cream, and quark)


• 50g sugar (this is very little, and the buns were just slightly sweet - feel free to add more)


• 1/3 tsp salt


• 100g butter, softened


• 1 egg


• 0.5g saffron (which I had forgotten to buy...)


• about 400g all-purpose flour

Combine all ingredients in a baking bowl. Knead until the dough is smooth, or about 10 minutes. Cover with a damp kitchen cloth and place in a warmish place overnight (or about 8 hours) to ferment.

When the dough has more or less doubled in volume, place it on a baking surface and punch the air out. Divide the dough in about 13 parts. Roll each part about 20cm long and form buns in a shape of S.

Place the buns on a baking tray covered with parchment paper. Cover with a kitchen towel and proof about 20-30 minutes. Brush the buns with egg yolk and decorate with raisins (place them deep enough so that they don't burn!). Bake in a preheated oven (220C) about 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

Enjoy your buns just as they've cooled enough!

I froze five of my buns for Christmas.. let's see if they are still so soft when defrosted ;)

P.S. After having read the story of Saint Lucy in Wikipedia, I can't look at these buns without thinking that those two raisins symbolize the poor girl's eyes.. a very macabre story indeed!

 

Day 11: A Total Panforte Disaster

Panforte was among the new recipes I wanted to try this year. It's a traditional Italian Christmas cake, combining candied fruit and different kinds of nuts with honey, sugar, and spices. As the name suggests, it's very rich - and it keeps well, even several months.

I had a stash of different nuts I had bought still back in Germany, and I thought this would be an ideal purpose for using them. I had read that the traditional panforte from Sienna combines 17 different ingredients, because the city of Sienna has 17 districts.

So I chose the following 17 ingredients: pine nuts, pistachios, almonds, hazelnuts, chocolate, cocoa powder, flour, sugar, honey, butter, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, cloves, and Cointreau and adapted my recipe from that of Nigella.

All seemed to be perfect - the batter, the smell, and the taste and texture of my panforte just after I'd taken it out of the oven (I made four small ones and thought we'd eat the first one right away). It was like chocolate fudge and different nuts married with ginger bread! Heavenly indeed...

...until the disaster happened: as soon as the three other panforte cakes had cooled, it became clear that they could only be eaten by a robot or anyone else having their teeth replaced by chain saws.

I even tried to soak one of them in hot water with some honey in it, but the only thing that happened was that some of the chocolate dissolved in the water - and the panforte itself was still totally inedible (at least for a human being with a normal set of teeth).

The mistake might have been that I kept the panforte too long in the oven  - although they were still very soft when I took them out; anyway, too many precious ingredients are now on their way to a landfill site for me to try panforte any time soon :(

 

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 8: Little Josephines

Last weekend I baked two Chocolate Mousse Cakes, so I had a lot of egg yolks that I had to use as soon as possible. Luckily I didn't have to wait long to get an inspiration.

In the morning I was reading one of my favourite baking books Underbart är gott, and happened to see an interesting recipe that only required four ingredients: egg yolks, butter, marzipan, and almond flakes. That sounded so crazy I just had to try these little cakes called Josephines. I was almost sure this could only result in a disaster - I mean, what kind of a batter would you get using only those ingredients?!

But weirdly enough, the batter was smooth and the Josephines themselves.. well.. I feel like repeating myself, but they are like almonds gone to heaven!

I don't think they will keep well, though; they are very moist - maybe in the fridge they'd keep up to a week or so, but I think I'll make a second batch just before Christmas and serve these first ones asap ;)

For 10 small-cupcake-sized Josephines you need:

• 300g marzipan


• 170g butter


• 90g egg yolks


• about 10g almond flakes


• plus some extra butter for the forms

This is how you make them:

Grate the marzipan into a baking bowl. Add softened butter and stir until well combined. Then add egg yolks and stir again until smooth. Prepare the cupcake forms: I suggest you use silicon ones - I tried in both silicon and aluminum ones, but although I had buttered the aluminum forms really well, the Josephines wouldn't come out of them well. Place some almond flakes into each form, then fill with batter and bake in a preheated oven (150-170C) about 15 minutes or until well set.

Let the Josephines cool before taking them out of the forms.

Serve immediately!

P.S. I have no idea where the Swedish name Josefiner comes from: a quick Google search in English and French didn't result in any similar recipes... so I'll call them Josephines until I find out what they really are called in English :)

 

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!