Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Eat like a German...Zimtsterne


Snow has fallen, X'mas trees decorated, lights are up......and I am sure, the german homes have begun baking too( I do get the aroma of freshly baked cookies when walking by some homes). As I had mentioned in my previous post, I am keen on preparing a few german goodies. The supermarkets are all loaded with oh so many baking ingredients, it would be a pity if I never tried out something different.  When this particular recipe came up on the Live like a german website, I thought it would be the ideal cookie to start with.

     Zimtsterne or Cinnamon stars are classic German Christmas cookies. The mixture of almond and cinnamon dough are rolled out and cut into star shapes and maybe topped with white sugar icing. I was a apprehensive when trying these out, cause it was my first time with cookies. To my surprise they turned out awesome(though they didn't look as good, got to improvise on it though..)


Ingredients :

  • 300g almonds with skin
  • 3 egg whites
  • 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 250g powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • Powdered sugar for rolling
  • 1 tbsp vanilla sugar or few drops vanilla essence
Method :
  1. Grind the almonds with skin to a fine powder.
  2. Beat the egg whites along with the lemon juice till very stiff.
  3. Gradually add the sugar, mixing well until fully dissolved.
  4. Reserve three fourth of this mixture aside.
  5. To the remaining mixture, fold in the ground almonds, cinnamon and vanilla essence.
  6. Cover and allow to sit in a cool place for 30 minutes.
  7. Heat the oven to 150 degrees celsius. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
  8. Sift powdered sugar over a working surface.
  9. Roll out half the dough to approximately quarter inch thick.
  10. Cut into stars using a star shaped cookie cutter.
  11. Place the stars on the baking tray. Brush them with the set aside egg white mixture. Take care that it does not dribble down to the sides.
  12. Bake stars on the lower and middle racks for 25 minutes, switching the sheets about halfway through baking time.

The above recipe makes 36 cookies. If you have a family like mine who gobbles up the cookies the moment they are out from the oven, then you need to definitely bake more or time your baking accordingly.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the recipe May!! The cookies tasted awesome except that I tried my hand at baking them in the oven (for the first time ever..without an accurate preheating time) and the first batch was ruined (base got burned). Baked the rest of them in my trusty microwave & they tasted great. I didnt have a star shaped cookie cutter, so they were pretty much round in shape & yeah, need tips on how to get the white glazing...somehow they got melted while they baked...and i applied the glazing on one cookie after it was baked & cooled off...and that was white...how did u get ur white glazing to remain intact? Do let me know..thnx!

    ReplyDelete