Christmas cookies

Day 17

Flour everywhere, pot, spoon, scales and the sweet smell of cinnamon and cloves. It is not only fun to turn the kitchen into a Christmas bakery – if the result is Christmas cookies, they will embellish and sweeten the festive days. Here is a collection of some traditional pastries. Try and enjoy!

Cinnamon stars

• 3 egg whites
• 250g icing sugar
• 400g ground almonds
• 2 tsp. cinnamon

Beat the egg whites until very stiff, continue beating while gradually adding the icing sugar.

Remove 6 tablespoons of the mixture. Put it in a cold place.

Add the cinnamon and almonds to the main part of the egg white-sugar mixture and put the dough in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough and cut/punch out stars. Put the stars on a baking tray with baking paper. Spread the removed 6 tablespoons of egg white-sugar mass on the stars.

Bake at 150°C for 15-20 minutes.

Vanilla crescents

• 50g ground almonds
• 50g ground hazelnuts
• 300g plain flour
• 100g sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 200g butter
• 2 egg yolks
• some vanilla, e.g. extract
• 40g sugar
• ½ cup icing sugar

Mix the dry first five ingredients.

Add the butter and egg yolks and knead into a dough. Put for around 2 hours in the fridge.

Preheat the oven – 190°C.

Form long strings out of the dough, cut into roughly 4cm pieces and form crescents. Put them on a baking tray with baking paper and place for 10-12 minutes in the oven.

Mix the further 40g of sugar with vanilla and icing sugar. While still warm, coat the crescents in it.

Stollen comfit

• 200g butter
• 75g sugar
• 150g cream cheese/quark/ricotta
• 300g plain flour
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 8g baking powder
• 50g chopped almonds
• 150g sultanas
• some Rum
• some orange zest
• 125g icing sugar

Beat 100g butter with sugar until foamy. Stir in cream cheese and orange peel.

Mix flour, baking powder and cinnamon and stir together with the butter-sugar mass. Stir in almonds, sultanas and as much rum that it becomes a formable but just not sticky dough.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Make balls of dough in the size of walnuts and place them on trays with baking paper.

Bake for 10-15 minutes.

Sift the powdered sugar into a bowl. Melt the butter.

The biscuits should be taken out of the oven when slightly yellow-brownish. Turn them while still warm in the butter and roll them in icing sugar.

Hussar charms

• 200g Butter
• 100g sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 pinch salt
• 300g flour
• 100g ground hazelnuts (alternatively almonds)
• ½ cup icing sugar
• 150g red jam, preferably strawberry or currant

Stir the butter with the sugar, egg yolks and salt.

Knead in the flour and ground hazelnuts. Put the dough in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Shape the dough into small balls and place them on a baking tray with baking paper.

Press deep dents into the balls with for example the back of a knife. Fill those with jam. Put the cookies in the oven for 12-15 minutes.

Alps bread

For the dough:

• 500g plain flour
• 250g margarine/butter
• 250g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 30g cocoa powder
• 1 pinch cinnamon
• 1 pinch ground cloves
• 1 tsp. cardamom

For the icing:

• 150g icing sugar
• 1-3 tbsp. lemon juice

Knead the dough ingredients into a dough.

Divide the dough into six parts and form each into a roll in the length of a baking tray.

Place in the oven at 180°C for 10-15 minutes.

Stir the icing ingredients together.

While the rolls are still warm, spread the icing on them and cut into 2cm strips.

Feature image credit: Paval on Pexels photos

Ida

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