Christmas Cookies

The whole house smells like Christmas - wood burning and spices. 


The signature Christmas cookies are served - some hanging on the tree, some in a nicely decorated box. What I love the most about these cookies is not so much preparing them, not even baking them, although the heat helps all the aroma to gently fill every corner of the house. The strongest tease to all my senses is opening the cookie box. After few days of aging in the air tightly closed container, the cookies exude the most perfect aroma - the combination of the spices blooms the nicest smell. No need to have a bite even - so satisfying! 

I kept the old tradition this year of making the old-fashioned Lebkuchen cookies. I am on a journey to make it a family tradition of baking these for every Christmas. While I was growing up in Bulgaria, they were simply called honey cookies. In North America a variation of these is popular under the name of gingerbread, or 'spicy bread' in France, but everywhere they are baked, they bring the sense of Christmas with their warm aromatic flavour. I stick to the German name, out of respect towards the origin of this recipe. And because this particular one is unique to this certain region of Europe.

Grab your favourite winter cookie cutter(s) and treat yourself and your family and friends with a recipe easy to perform, and so satisfying.


for the cookies: 

490 g all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp powdered anise
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger

225 g honey
160 g light brown sugar
134 g unsalted butter
1 large egg

1. Sift the flour in a bowl.
2. In another bowl, sift all the spices.
3. Heat the honey, sugar and butter in a heavy bottomed pan over a low heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Do not allow to boil.
4. Remove the butter from the heat and stir in the spices.
5. Beat in the flour, reserving a handful of it in the bowl. Let the dough cool a little bit.
6. Lightly beat the egg and add to the dough. 
7. Knead the dough with hands, using the reserved flour.
8. Wrap the dough in clean foil and let it rest at room temperature overnight.


Tailoring:

Follow the instructions for tailoring the Lebkuchen cookies.

Have wonderful Christmas day and warm tasty cookies with family and friends!

♥ IN

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lebkuchen Houses

Image
Traditions are sculpted by the memories of the people. For some traditions is particularly easy to cross time and geographical borders, because of the taste. The well known gingerbread houses today are the young ancestors of the lebkuchen houses, born in Germany two hundred years ago, when Brothers Grimm wrote "Hansel and Gretel". German bakers were inspired by the descriptive story and freed their imagination into baking differently shaped and coloured small and big delicious houses.  Decorated with candies, small cookies, chocolate pieces and lots of icing, the houses are extremely appealing not only because of their whimsical appearance, but because of the heavenly aroma of the spices as well. Make this in advance and you will have Christmas feeling all season long.  I chose to bake lebkuchen houses because of the variety of spices used in the recipe . My houses are gently decorated with white royal icing and I did not use any candies. I like this way of decor
Read more

Rustico Buttergipfel

Image
55 g unsalted butter I 225 g unsalted butter II 30 g flour 15 g cold water 7 g dry yeast 20 ml lukewarm water 160 ml col water 14 g malt syrup , or 30 g dark honey 12 g salt 1 large egg 380 g flour My Grandma used to "toast" the butter for almost every pastry - either at the time of preparing or just before serving. It gave just a small "intonation" of difference to the colour but such a complete finish to the taste. At the time I did not care what and why she did that - to me it was just an extra unnecessary work. Later on at the university I realized how the separation works and what a difference it makes to the taste. French call it beurre noisette and use it mostly for pastry and savoury hot sauces, Indians call it ghee and cook mainly with it, in Germany and in the German part of Switzerland, chefs use this "toasty" butter for the buttergipfels .  The process is a simple separation into butterfat and milk solids, called clarificat
Read more

Old-fashioned Lebkuchen Stars and Hearts

Image
This is the classic recipe for Christmas Cookies from old Germany, or Switzerland (if you'd prefer). A recipe, I was hoping to find for a long time. Thanks to Sara Kelly Iaia and her fine memories, collected in the book "Festive Baking", I am happy to bake the first cookies for this Christmas. The honey and the quantity of the fragrant spices make these cookies unique. I would advise not to skip any of the spices or to change their quantity. I am pretty conservative when it comes to perfumed spices. I think the simpler ingredients make one dish tastier. But here, the spices are in perfect unison.   for the cookies: 490 g all purpose flour 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp baking powder 1 Tbsp cinnamon 1 tsp cardamom 1/2 tsp ground cloves 1/2 tsp powdered anise 1/2 tsp grated nutmeg 1/2 tsp ginger 225 g honey 160 g light brown sugar 134 g unsalted butter 1 large egg 1. Sift the flour in a bowl. 2. In another bowl, sift all
Read more