Sunday 6 December 2015

Traditional German Christmas cookies

Christmas is approaching super fast, hence my family and I have been doing what we do every year around this time: bake Christmas cookies. When I first moved to Britain I was shocked to find out that they did not seem to know what proper Christmas cookies were (apart from Gingerbread men). In Germany people bake a variety of different sorts of cookies and biscuits around Christmas time. I believe my nan makes up to 30 different ones every year and they're all delicious. Anyways, I thought I would introduce one of the easiest and cutest recipes to you which always takes me back to my childhood.


What you need
For the cookies (makes about 60):
  • 500g flour
  • 250g butter
  • 150g icing sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 small packs of vanilla sugar
  • a pinch of salt
  • rolling pin
  • cookie cutters
For the icing
  • 350g icing sugar
  • 4-5 tbsp of lemon juice
  • tons of sprinkles
  • food colouring

First you need to combine all the dry ingredients for the cookies and mix them really well. Then mix the (softened) butter together with the eggs and slowly add this to the dry ingredients. Its best to use a spatula to combine everything to begin with and then make it into a dough ball using your hands. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place it into the fridge for 2 hours. 

After the 2 hours take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out to a thickness of about 0.5cm. At this point you should preheat your oven to 175°. Use your cookie cutters (if possible christmasy ones) to form your cookies and place them on a baking tray lined with non stick baking paper. Place in the oven for about 12 minutes or until golden brown.

These are a selection of the best decorated ones ;)
Now comes the fun part. Wait till your cookies are completely cooled down and mix your icing (you can add food colouring if you want). Spread it onto your cookies and go crazy on the decorations. The more sprinkles the better. And voila - you have made a delicious batch of Christmas cookies! I hope you try out this recipe, if you do make sure to send me a picture on twitter. Have fun!

Social media links:

No comments:

Post a Comment