Day 22 ish: Baking madness
November 28th, 2011Ok so first advent has arrived! This means I want to make Christmas cookies. This year my willing helper was my cousin, who also very kindly provided her very well equipped kitchen. Obviously we can’t possibly eat 6 different kinds of Christmas cookies so therefore they will also serve as presents!
Here are the varieties we made:
- Vanille Kipferl (my favorite)
- Marzipan potatoes
- Gingerbread
- Mandelsplitter
- Butter cookies
- shortbread
Then we decorated them maybe not in the most elegant way but in a fun way and put them in lots of little bags and boxes and are now ready to be shipped to various friends and family!
Vanille Kipferl:
210g butter
100g ground almonds
80g sugar
1 Table spoon vanilla sugar
Icing sugar with 1 table spoon of vanilla sugar for turning after baking
Mix all ingredients to a smooth dough and refrigerate for an hour. Then form the dough into half moon shapes and bake in a preheated oven at 180C for about 10 minutes (until they are just about to get slightly brown)
Then let them cool for 10 minutes and then turn them in the prepared icing sugar/vanilla sugar combo.
Marzipan potatoes:
Marzipan:
400g very finely ground almonds
400ml water
1kg sugar
and some rose water
Bring the water to the boil and add the sugar and let it become a syrup. Add the rosewater and then mix with the almonds and mix to form marzipan
Now form little balls of marzipan and roll them in chocolate powder
Mandelsplitter:
200g chopped almonds
200g dark chocolate
200g milk chocolate
roast the almonds until slightly brown and pour into heated chocolate (100g per chocolate flavour) then arrange them in little piles and let them cool
Gingerbread:
250g Honey
250g brown sugar
100g butter
1 sachet of ginger bread seasoning
zest of 1 lemon
2tbsp of coco powder
2 eggs
1tsp potash (potassium carbonate)
2cl cherry liquor
Heat the honey and sugar and add the butter. Then add the spices and lemon zest. Let cool a little bit and add to the flour and kneed with a dough hook. Mix the potash and liquor until it dissolves and add this to the mixture. Once cooled a little more, whisk the eggs creamy and add them. All this should be done with continuous stirring. (you may need to add some more flour if the dough is a little to moist it should be slightly sticky but manageable) Now the dough is ready and you can decide what you want to do. If you did a lot of advance planning you can leave the dough in the fridge for up to two months (apparently!!) or the minimum of one night. Then roll it out on a floured surface and use any kind of cookie cutters you like. (or even make them into a ginger bread house). The dough shouldn’t be rolled any thicker than 2cm as it will rise a lot! Bake at around 180 degrees between 10-20 minutes depending on the thickness of your dough.
Shortbread (the German Christmas way):
250g butter
350g flour
200g sugar
1 sachet of Plaetzchen spices
1tbsp coco powder (optional)
Mix everything together and let the dough rest in the fridge for half an hour. I did two batches one dark one (with coco powder) and a light one. Then roll the dough with a rolling pin on a floured surface and cut out which ever shapes you want your cookies to be in. The bake them at 180 degrees for about 10mins or until they are just getting brown.
Buttercookies:
250g butter (soft)
250g sugar
2 eggs
500g flour
1tsp baking powder
icing sugar and lemon syrup for icing
mix ingredients and follow the instructions of the shortbread (again a dark version with coco powder is optional)
