Saturday 6 December 2014

Christmas cookies

German 'Spitzbuben'

A tradition in my family is to start baking Christmas cookies as soon as December starts. It's one of my favourite things to do as it puts me in the Christmas spirit and I spend some fun time with my family who I normally don't see that much due to work and other stuff.
We have some recipes that have been in our family for several generations and this is one of them. It is a traditional German recipe of Christmas cookies that are called 'Spitzbuben'. Sounds slightly weird but I can't tell you how amazing they are. Sooooo delicious! Anyway, lets get started (Warning: Lot's of pictures are going to follow!)


You'll need:
  • 200g butter
  • 125g icing sugar
  • 1 egg white
  • a pinch of salt
  • 10g vanilla sugar
  • 350g plain flour
  • Black currant jam (if possible without fruit pieces in it)

Mix the butter,icing sugar and egg white together. Then add the salt and Vanilla sugar.


Now add the flour and use your hands to make it into a smooth dough. Form a ball out of it and put it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

My sister and I got a bit carried away while forming the ball ;)
After 30 minutes take the dough ball out of the fridge and put it on a clean surface that you cover with a bit of flour to prevent the dough from sticking to it. At this point you preheat the oven to 200 °.


Now roll out the dough to a thickness of about 2mm (mine was a bit thicker it really doesn't matter that much).



Now you need cookie cutters of the same form in two different sizes, one has to be about 1/4 the size of the other. I used hearts, stars and weird circles. For one cookie you need to cut out two of the bigger sized forms and then cut out the middle of one of them with the smaller one.

I'm sorry for the bad explanation but this picture should make it clearer. Make sure you have one complete cookie half for each one with a cut out middle.
Put baking paper onto a baking tray and place your cookies on it. Put it in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes or until they are golden brown.


These aren't quite ready yet.
Then take them out and put them somewhere to cool down before you add your jam. I accidentally bought jam with bits in it which made the next part a lot harder so make sure you buy jam of a jelly like consistency. It doesn't even matter what fruit jam it is but I like it with black currant.

This is the colour they should be when you take them out.

Now spread the jam on one of the hole free cookies. Make sure you use a generous amount so you can taste it in the end. Then place the matching cookie with a hole on top of it. (This is the worst description ever but basically just stick the two cookie parts together)

Don't they look so yummy?
Finally you can sprinkle a bit of icing sugar on top to make them look all fancy.
I hope you enjoyed this post, I am really sorry I am so bad at describing the different steps but the only guideline I had was a really old recipe in German.
If you decide to recreate it send me pictures on twitter:
 https://twitter.com/fashionblogbell
Love you lots!


3 comments:

  1. These look delicious! Need to try the recipe :)

    Thanks for sharing,

    X Emma | www.missemmacharlotte.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. These look so delicious! I want to make some cookies for Christmas this year!

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    Replies
    1. You should, theyre like the best part of christmas ;)

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