I used to date a man with strong German roots. His grandmother would always send incredibly delicious cookies and baked goods and his mother would always make a few more in her kitchen. They were so delicious that I grabbed a few recipes from recipezaar.com and have made them throughout the year long after I broke up with that man. Here are some of my favorite German Holiday cookie recipes for you to try with your family this year.
Orangen-Schokoplatzchen (Orange-Chocolate Cookies)
These delicious cookies with such a long name would always come in wrapped in tissue paper every year during the holidays. I am so glad that recipezaar.com had a recipe for them. The original recipe used the metric system and I have converted them to US measurements.
3 1/4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate baking squares
4 ounces butter or margarine
4 ounces sugar
1 egg
1 orange rind, shredded
6 1/3 ounces flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 1/4 ounces icing sugar
1 7/8 teaspoons orange juice
1. Grate chocolate.
2. Cream butter or margarine and sugar. Add egg and shredded orange peel.
3. Sift flour and baking powder, and add to creamed mixture along with the grated chocolate.
4. You may knead the dough together by hand.
5. Form into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate 2 hours.
6. Preheat oven to 400 F. degrees.
7. Roll out dough to about 1/8 thickness, and cut with cookie cutters of desired shape.
8. Transfer cookies to cookie sheets and bake 8 to 10 minutes.
9. Remove from sheets to a rack to cool.
10. Sift icing sugar. Stir in enough orange juice to make a glaze.
11. Glaze the bottom of each cooled cookie.
Makes about 30 cookies.
Another one of my favorite traditional German cookies were the vanilla cookies that would arrive at our door cut into whimsical star and bell shapes. I found this recipe on recipezaar.com and the results are almost identical to the cookie Christmas gifts I used to receive.
Vanilla Stars (Vanillesternchen- German Christmas Cookie)
Dough
4 ounces cold butter
8 ounces pastry flour
3 ounces sugar
1/16 teaspoon salt
5/8 egg
Flour, for rolling
Topping
2 ounces butter
1 1/8 vanilla beans
1 5/8 ounces powdered sugar
2-3 ounces quince jelly
To Make Dough:
Cut the cold butter up into small pieces and mix together with the rest of the ingredients in a kitchen mixer with a kneading attachment. Later knead with hands into a smooth dough (could also use fork if you don’t have a food processor). Wrap the dough in Saran wrap and let rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
Vanilla Topping:
1. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
2. Melt butter.
3. Slit the vanilla beans with a razor lengthwise and scratch out the insides with the tip of a sharp knife.
4. Stir half of the vanilla essence and one hollowed vanilla hull into the melted butter.
5. The rest of the vanilla and the other hull mix with the powdered sugar.
6. Sprinkle work space with flour and roll the dough until it is even and about 1/8 inch thin. With a small star cookie cutter (4 cm) cut out stars and lay them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
7. Bake cookies in oven for about 10 minutes (try not to let them get brown).
8. Immediately after baking brush or dip the surface of every star with the vanilla butter sauce and let them cool.
9. Warm up the quince jelly in a small sauce pan on the stove and stir until smooth.
10. Brush half of the stars with quince jelly and thickly sift the vanilla powdered sugar mixture over the other half.
11. Store in an air-tight container. These cookies take a few days to fully ripen so it is a good make-ahead cookie.
Makes about 42 cookies.
Almond Cookies
I have not yet found the German Name for these cookies, but with a search for German Almond Cookies, I found this recipe on recipezaar.com and they are wonderful.
3 1/4 ounces ground almonds
7 1/8 ounces marzipan
7 1/8 ounces sugar
1/2 cup egg whites
1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Knead the marzipan with the almonds, the sugar and 2 tablespoons of egg white to a smooth dough.
3. Mix in the remaining egg white without over beating or causing foam.
4. Line 3 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
5. Put 1 teaspoon heaps of batter on the sheets about 2 – 2 1/2 inches apart, as the cookies will spread (maybe you want to bake a sample cookie to check for the spacing).
6. Bake on middle rack for 15-20 minutes till golden brown.
7. Let cool on the paper and peel off.
8. Store in metal tin with parchment paper layers in between. (I have stored mine in Tupperware with wax paper in between and they were fine)
Makes about 54 cookies.
These traditional German Holiday cookies always bring warmth of tradition and heritage to my heart. I am sure that my ex boyfriend’s grandmother still sends boxes of her delicious cookies every year. I hope that you will find them just as delicious as I have and enjoy them with your family this year.
