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.