Eastern European cookies – Page 2 – Heritage Cookies of the Old and New World

ORESHKI (FAUX WALNUTS) – Eastern Europe’s Cookie Of Childhood

Confession: I love crossword puzzles, and I’ve done enough to learn certain words that writers can’t seem to do without. Here are some examples of recent clues I’ve seen:

Clue: “Treat that is often twisted”
Clue: “Crispy, pull apart snack”
Clue: “Cookie eaten from the inside out”

Oreos! Duh. Everyone knows that, right? Yes… if you’re from the U.S.A. People who grew up in Ukraine, Russia, Poland, or other countries of central and eastern Europe might well stare at a clue like that with nothing but bewilderment that “Oreshki” doesn’t fit in the grid. What else could the writer possibly be thinking about?

As always, skip to the bottom if you only want to read the recipe. And what the heck. This link will take you to the Dulce de Leche recipe in the middle.

Oreshki are a classic treat that are known and loved from Russia to the east, through Poland and the Czech Republic to the west, all the way down to the Crimean Sea. The formula is easy to describe: start with a very basic cookie dough, shape it into hollow nuts, and then fill the nuts with something gooey that children will love. Subtle? Bah. Sophisticated? Hah! Adult with a capital “A” like spice cookies or ginger snaps? Not in the slightest.

Nice, sweet, and simple. That’s your ticket. This is the cookie of childhood.

Working On The Cookie

If you’re here doing research, let me give you a tip as someone who’s actually read through and pondered several dozen online recipes. Don’t overthink it!

Your problem is easy to state: natives adore their Oreshki to the point that innumerable Eastern European families have now shared their “secret” methods to get them just, exactly right. There’s a lot to go through. The wonders of online translators, combined with a wife who can translate what those will not, allowed me to put together a humongous file of different trips, tips, options, and formulae. It was a true brain buster! But do you know what I found when I averaged things out, and then compared the results to other cookies?

Your target crust is a plain, light, crispy wafer that won’t fight with the filling. Period. Keep that in sight and you won’t have any problems.

Yes, you will be a little confused by how some of the common ingredients get used. I certainly was. But there is a pattern to the strangeness: those “touches” all add up to (i) a hint of acid, and (ii) a bit of “other” fat to supplement the butter. I don’t know why they do it. The amounts are so small that it’s hard to see how these additions could change the result. Nevertheless, it is a clear pattern, our work is about “heritage” just as much as “right,” and so I made a point of testing the variations.

The most common version marries a touch (½-1 tsp.) of vinegar with a tablespoon of mayonnaise, and then uses baking soda instead of powder. I ended up going with 1 tbsp. of sour cream paired with baking powder. Feel free to pursue either route as you wish. The differences will be subtle at best because you aren’t really supposed to notice the crust in the first place. It’s the filling that make Oreshki special.

These crusts get cooked in a special stovetop mold (electric versions being available in some countries). Here is ours, which is made from aluminum and available for a very low price from various sources:

You’ll need to fidget a bit to get the timing right. We ended up at 65-70 seconds per side on our average-sized burner with the gas set to a “2” out of “9.” Don’t expect that to match up with your burner! We also noted that molds filled with fewer cookies toasted faster than ones which were completely full.

Make an effort to keep the inside cookie-tan, like a shortbread, rather than nut brown. That was the one critique we got from our taste testers, and when I went back to do the final batch with that correction all of us noted that the new and lighter-colored cookies were also a bit airier and crisper when eaten.

Finally, you’ll need to trim the shells when they come out of the mold. It’s impossible to get the sizes right every time! A sharp paring knife is the perfect tool. Just don’t throw those trimmings in the trash! Most people simply add them into the filling for a bit of texture. We prefer to recycle them into crumbs for a leftovers-cookie or pie crust (think of how many recipes you know that begin with the instruction, “Grind up some vanilla wafers and then use the crumbs for…”). Do as you will, but please don’t waste what ought to be used.

These shells are too dark. Don’t throw them out, of course. They’ll work well enough. It’s just that lighter colored shells will be crisper, airier, and that much better.

These are what you want. The outsides are darker, the insides are “light tan shortbread”. BTW, do you see that one untrimmed shell on the top right? That’s the norm, and where your extra crumbs come from.

Nailing Down The Filling

The all time classic Oreshki filing is a peculiarly addictive caramel made from dulce de leche. More on that below. But honestly, anything that’s sweet, sticky, and a little bit runny will do. Nutella^® works like a charm. So does lemon curd. It’s hard to go wrong, and none of my native taste testers had anything bad to say about those variations. Playing with your filling is fair game. But there’s that ‘heritage’ thing again, so we really ought to discuss the original version that left so many millions of 8 year old addicts in its wake.

Let’s start with an overview. You’ve seen this flavor profile before! When push comes to shove, this is just another plain shortbread being paired with rich, gooey caramel. In South America that takes the form of Alfajores. In the U.S. it’s a Twix^® bar. In the U.K. it’s Millionaire’s Shortbread. Western Europe has it’s Stroopwafel. Got it? There’s nothing complicated about it. We’re only going to tweak things a little to match the Eastern European palate.

You can start from a true caramel if you wish, but native recipes follow the South American approach by starting with tins of sweetened condensed milk, and then boiling them for a few hours.

After that it’s easy. Soften this up with a bit of butter, add some cream cheese for a mild sour tang, and you’re done. Most recipes suggest the addition of crumbs from the crust-trimmings, and some will also add ground nuts, but those are both optional steps. It really comes down to whether you’re after pure, luscious smoothness on the inside, or luscious smoothness offset by a little bit of crunch.

How To Fill Your Oreshki

It took a few tries, but I’ve now got the system down pat.

Take one shell. Top it off completely with your filling. Use a second shell to scrape that level. Set aside for the moment.
Add filling to the second shell, and scrape that level with a third shell.
Put shell half #1 on top of shell half #2, and then repeat the process until all your shells are done.
NOTE 1: It’s not a bad idea to overfill a bit, and then squeeze the halves together so the excess filling will squish out the sides. Wipe it off with a finger, and then set aside your perfectly filled nuts for further decoration as desired. [What do you do with your filling-dirtied finger? Come on. Really? Being the baker has its upside!]
NOTE 2: Oreshki with a runnier filling may want to go in the fridge to set up.

The only question left is, “to seal or not to seal.” These shortbread-and-caramel treats often come with a chocolate coating. Think of the aforementioned Twix^® bars and Millionaire’s Shortbread. Heck, it’s common to coat Alfajores too in recipes that don’t add coconut. So it makes perfect sense to seal those two halves together with a bit of chocolate, right?

The answer is both yes and no. We liked the caramel ones better with a chocolate seal. No doubt about it. And every one of our native tasters expressed the same preference. “That’s a great touch!”

But then they’d add something like this: “My grandmother never did that. Of course, she didn’t have much access to chocolate back when I was a little girl.”

Again, it’s entirely up to you. A simple dusting with powdered sugar works just as well for chocolate-free versions, and better for those with an alternative filling.

With the ends sealed in chocolate. Very tasty, but not entirely traditional because chocolate was hard to obtain back in the day.

Conclusion

This is a really fun cookie so long as you don’t try to fight its basic core. Oreshki are designed for children, and adults who loved them as children. Sharing them with those children, old and young, is why American bakers will want to make them.

That said, you really, really do want to make them. I can pretty much guarantee a downright special reaction from the actual children in your life, and an even stronger one from adults who grew up in the Oreshki Zone. It’s like dropping a puppy in the lap of their inner child.

First comes the delighted grin. Then the delighted cry, “Oreshki!” Then some insight into a delighted childhood soul. Everyone who eats Oreshki has his/her own special technique. Some pop them in whole and crunch. Others twist them in half, and then crunch. There’s a twist-and-stretch school too; twist, scrape, and crunch; twist, stretch, and lick in midair… You get the idea. Pure, childish glee.

Think that’s going too far? Head on back to the beginning of this article, and the analogy to Oreos^®. Imagine your typical American expat who has moved overseas and built a life somewhere that knows nothing about their childhood treats. Get him or her in a friendly environment, like visiting your home or receiving a tin as a gift. Now open it up and reveal a crispy, black-and-white, twist-apart cookie. What will happen? The exact same thing.

That memory is what Oreshki are really about. That, and creating a similar memory for future generations. It will work, I promise. There’s nothing that Littles enjoy more than something gooey, sweet, and crunchy that looks like something it isn’t. Oreshki are flat out fun at every level.

Enjoy!

NUT HORNS (a/k/a Kipferl a/k/a Hornchen a/k/a Mexican Wedding Cookies, Russian Wedding Cookies, Italian Wedding Cookies, Greek Kourambiedes, etc.)

This is a sample drawn directly from our book Heritage Cookies of the Old and New World. The first part is our favorate “Cookie Nerd Moment” of the entire tome. This is where we stop and take the time to discuss particular tricks, tips, and historical bits that provide a lot of the “why” behind the recipe’s “what.”
You can skip to the bottom if you really want only the recipe, but this is one case where I need to recommend the full read even if you know what you’re doing. The refresher course on Tips and Tricks never loses its value.
Enjoy,
Scott Pavelle

COOKIE NERD MOMENT

Anyone who makes 20 or 30 different cookies each Christmas gets used to two common questions: “What are your favorite cookies” and “What is the favorite cookie in general?” There is no answer. Everyone has his or her own favorite and there isn’t a single cookie that would touch the 10% mark if we kept track of who voted for what.

You probably could have guessed those two if you’d given it a bit of thought. But the third most common question might surprise you: “Do you know how to make [Nut Horns]?” We put that in brackets because the same basic cookie is loved with fervor and devotion across a huge part of the world with very minor changes. In Central Europe the cookie’s known by some word that translates as either Nut Horns or Nut Crescents (Kipferl in Austria and Hörnchen in Germany are two examples). Eastern European bakers shape them into balls, often with a heavier percentage of walnuts, and call them Russian Tea- or Wedding Cookies. Move south and west and the name turns into Italian Wedding Cookies, also ball shaped but with a tilt toward almonds. The south and east features ball-shaped Greek Kourambiedes, which have slightly fewer nuts but include some brandy. The New World knows them best as Mexican Wedding Cookies, which usually feature pecans. We could go on.

Simplicity plays a big part in the cookie’s charm. It’s all about the nuts, with vanilla to heighten their impact. Powdered sugar goes on top – a heavy coat that may also have a hit of vanilla. The Greeks stand out by adding a single whole clove for decoration.

There’s also a common structural theme: you’re after a cookie so tender that it will shatter to fragments at the slightest excuse, and will dissolve in your mouth with a burst of buttery, nutty goodness. That’s the hard part – getting them just tough enough to wait for an excuse without losing that meltiness.

We spent many years fidgeting and playing with this recipe to get it just right. The final product incorporates a number of subtle tricks that will add up to make the best [Nut Horns] you’ve ever eaten. Better even than Grandma’s!

TRICK #1 (for flavor): Toast the nuts in advance. It gives you a longer, deeper flavor.
TRICK #2 (for texture): The textures from your nuts matter as much as the flavors. We strongly prefer to mix that texture up to give the full experience from meltingly soft in most parts to recognizable bits sprinkled here and there. We always start by using a rotary grater to reduce at least half the nuts to a point just short of where you’d start calling them “nut flour.” Maybe even a little short of “nut meal.” The other half should be a mix of textures ranging from “finely ground” to “finely chopped”. If push comes to shove we suggest a 50/50 mix of nut flour for the first half and ground nuts for the second. Grandma may have ground all the nuts for convenience but even she would agree that mixing the textures adds something extra.
TRICK #3 (for flavor and texture): We also favor a mix of nuts. This particular trick may cause Grandma to start muttering about upstarts and heretics when you mention it, but trust us: a little hint of walnut will make your pecans taste more “pecany”, just as some almond and hazelnuts will make your walnuts more “walnutty.”
TRICK #4 (for flavor): A hefty pinch of salt also enhances the nut flavors. Just make sure to use so little that no one can tell it’s there.

TRICKS #5.a to 5.c (to counter fragility): Our recipe hovers right on the edge of falling apart into a 50% casualty rate from being too tender. There are several tricks and options designed to pull it back from that horizon. You’re going to need at least one of them:
- A spoonful of water in the flour adds just enough gluten to hold it together. This trick doubles as a way to customize for your particular kitchen and flour.
- An egg yolk in the dough works too and is more traditional, but can make the cookies caky if it goes too far. This was the “cheat” that Grandma used in secret because her best friend, the one she wanted to bake like, didn’t need to.
- Working the dough as you form the crescents can also add a little gluten, but it comes with a real warning: the heat of your hands can melt the butter in your dough, which turns the cookies oily and guarantees they’ll be too tender.
TRICKS #6.a to 6.c (to counter toughness): Our recipe uses so many nuts that fragility tends to be the bigger problem, but sometimes you have to go the opposite way. We ran into this when we lived in Boston and used the high protein King Arthur as our house default. Here are some techniques that will add tenderness without changing the basic formula:
- Remove any extra water or flour from your dough.
- Refrigerate the cookies on their tray for 30 minutes before baking. This will relax any built-up gluten.
- Remove a tablespoon of flour from the recipe.
TRICK #7 (for flavor): It’s a little counterintuitive but this particular cookie actually tastes better if you narrow the “horns” of your crescents toward the ends. Yes, the easiest way to make a crescent is to form the dough into a rope and then bend it in the middle. Yes, that is a typical way to ensure even baking by creating an even thickness. Yes, you can even treat this as a roll-and-cut cookie with fine results. But this isn’t a typical cookie. Having some parts toastier and others tenderer will only add to the sense that you’re eating something made from [nuts!!!].
TRICK #8 (the post-oven danger zone): You must cool these cookies on the tray until they are only warm. They are ridiculously fragile when hot from the oven and will fall apart if you even stare too hard.

TRICK #9 (for a final touch): We aren’t big believers in fancy chancy “touches” like scenting the powdered sugar for a few days with a more-expensive-than-gold vanilla bean bought for the purpose. This is the one recipe where we sometimes make an exception. Not always… but sometimes. There’s something about the wafting smell of vanilla that seems to stimulate a person’s specialized nut detector taste buds. [What, you never heard of those? Try a proper Nut Horn and you’ll see the proof for yourself!]
TRICK #10 (coating with enough powdered sugar): Warm cookies are fragile cookies, but nevertheless you must coat them with the powdered sugar while they are warm because the outgassing steam helps the sugar to stick. Kate likes to move the whole sheet of parchment onto a cooling rack, dust them there, wait 5 minutes, and then turn them over to dust what had been the bottoms.

HONEYCAKE MASTER RECIPE, Balkan Medenjaci, Ukrainian Medivnichky, Russian Pryaniki, etc.

As always, you can skip to the bottom if you’re only here for the recipe.

I began this recipe looking at the Baltic version, and finally realized that Honey Gingerbread a/k/a Honeycakes are a category unto themselves. They’re particularly common in the Slavic nations of Europe’s center (bottom to top) and east. I’ve seen so many other versions from the Czechs, Poles, Russians (and all the ethnic subgroups), the Baltic States, Ukraine, etc… Might the the talented Southern Slav bakers have something really unique?

I pinned those hopes on the simple lack of spice. All those beautiful and famous Honeycakes from the Slavic nations to the north? Czech Pardubice Gingerbread, Polish Pierniczki, etc.? They’re all variations on a basic formula that differ mostly with the use of some subtle and sophisticated spice blend developed by that particular region. Balkan bakers vary their Medenjaci by playing with the structural part of the cookie – particularly when it comes to the use of eggs.

So was it really different? Sort of… but not in some fundamental way. Leaving out the spices works. It yields a relatively pure, easy to access flavor that’s worth the experience. And adding extra egg yolks plays with texture in a radical way that’s almost a revelation. We fully intend to play with it over the next many years. But what you really have here is an expansion kit to the mix-and-match options that all those other recipes have in common too.

In other words, this is an article about pure, baker’s geekery. Read on and you’ll learn how to seize control of that traditional recipe from your Baba, and convert it like a chemist into exactly what you want.

As always, skip to the bottom if all you’re after is the recipe.

The Basic Honeycake Formula

Every one of those famous cookies uses one or more of those variations, so they really do come out as distinct individuals, but the family kinship is there.

Medenjaci differ in two ways. First, they tend to use a much simpler spice mix, and less of it. Two tablespoons in a 3-cup recipe would be a lot, and it is rare to include more than a healthy dose of cinnamon with a touch of ginger, nutmeg, mace, or clove. I suppose you could argue that they tend to be heavier on the citrus too.

The bigger difference is in the eggs. Our recipe adds four(!) egg yolks to the one whole egg, and we aren’t the only ones. Scott compiled the following table of online recipes to provide some idea of both the variations and the consistency.

Flour	Butter	Leavener	Sweetener	Spices	Eggs
5⅔ cup (805 g) mix of AP, Cake & Whole	1 cup	1 tsp. soda	255 g honey 285 g brown	2 tsp. cinnamon ½ tsp. ginger ½ tsp. clove ½ tsp. nutmeg	3 whole 1 yolk
5¼ cup (750 g) mix of AP, Cake & Whole	1 cup	1 tsp. soda	250 g honey 180 g brown	2 tsp. cinnamon ½ tsp. ginger ½ tsp. clove ½ tsp. nutmeg	3 whole
4¼ cup (600 g)	¾ cup	1 tbsp. soda	200 g honey 200 g sugar	6 tsp. cinnamon 3 tsp. vanilla	2 whole
3 cups (425 g)	½ cup	1 tsp. soda	170 g honey 70 g brown	1 tsp. cinnamon ½ tsp. ginger ½ tsp. nutmeg ¼ tsp. clove	2 whole 1 yolk
3 cups (425 g)	½ cup	1 tsp. soda	170 g honey 100 g brown	1 tsp. cinnamon ½ tsp. ginger ½ tsp. nutmeg ¼ tsp. clove	2 whole
3 cups (425 g)	½ cup	Pinch soda	225 g honey 100 g sugar	2 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. ginger ¼ tsp. cloves ¼ tsp. nutmeg 1 tsp. vanilla	1 whole
2¾ cups (390 g)	None	None	255 g honey 200 g sugar	1 tsp. cinnamon ½ tsp. clove	4 whole
OUR VERSION
3½ cups (500 g)	¼ cup	1 tsp. soda 1 tsp. powder	255 g honey 0-100 g sugar	2½ tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. ginger ½ tsp. clove ½ tsp. nutmeg Extra as an option	1 whole 4 yolks

Our Version of Medenjaci

Let’s be honest for a moment: we’ve been doing this for a long time, and have a lot of Honeycake (a/k/a honey gingerbread) recipes. All this research said two things: Medenjaci were pretty middle-of-the-road from a flavor point of view, but some of the recipes used extra eggs to create really unique textures. That led in turn to two options: we could “fix” the spices to make something more appealing to our (admittedly) Northern palates, or we could embrace the egg-centric approach and see how far it could go.

We went with the latter. So let it be said up front. Our version of Medenjaci is dead-on true to what you’d find in Belgrade, Zagreb, or Sarajevo from the flavor point of view, and on the cakier side from the textural perspective.

The result is a cookie that comes off as a light, honey-centric gingerbread with a rounded flavor and a chewy, meaty texture like nothing else in our repertoire. Easy to like, hard to hate, and really entertaining if you happen to be a baking nerd.

A Final Note: Looks Can Be Deceiving

Yes, the photos look like Pfeffernusse, the famous Dutch/German cookie. And yes, Pfeffernusse are a honey-spice cookie. But that is where the similarities end. A good half the bulk of Pfeffernusse comes from almond or hazelnut meal, which is often combined with chopped softer nuts such as walnuts or pecans. They also have a bare minimum of leavening (¼ tsp. of baking soda), and are bound by two whole eggs. That combines to give them a nut-cake texture, and often a crispy one because many people prefer to add a few minutes to the baking time. Medenjaci? No nuts at all, just flour; half the amount of butter; and much more in the way of leavening and eggs. They may look alike, but no one would ever confuse the two after even a single bite.

MANDELHORNCHEN a/k/a “Almond Horns”

Here’s a recipe that many readers will know because they’re very popular at certain upscale supermarkets. They have a lot going for them, starting with a very pure hit of almond and chocolate (two flavors that love each other), and continuing through the fact that they’re naturally gluten- and dairy-free, which suits a lot of people with allergy problems. They’re also very generous and fairly dense, which means that anyone who’s willing to eat baked goods for breakfast can get by with 2-3 “cookies” and a nice cup of Joe. (A meal that Scott has admittedly enjoyed as he writes this article).

The other benefit? Almond Horns are incredibly easy to make. The basic recipe couldn’t be simpler: (1) put everything in a food processor; (2) grind until it’s smooth and begins to ball up; (3) roll each piece in almond flakes; (4) bake; and (5) coat the horns or bottom with chocolate. The issues come up with the little details that avoid problems in each of those steps.

As always, please skip to the bottom if you are only here for the recipe.

Step 1 – Choices About Ingredients

Classic European recipes typically start from Marzipan rather than working from scratch. Take Marzipan, blend with egg white(s) to loosen it up, and you’re basically there. Convenience cookies!

Marzipan isn’t as common in the U.S., costs more, and the different brands vary in their dedication to the cult of sugar and the abuse of almond extract. We’re also a nation of people who take food processors for granted. That tool converts Marzipan from a painstaking process into a walk in the park. If cooking from scratch is cheaper, just as easy, more reliable, easier to customize, and lets you use a little less sugar… well, cook from scratch.

We recommend that you start from almond meal because it’s become easy to obtain and ensures an even result. In the ideal world you’d start from whole or slivered almonds, toast them to enhance the natural flavor, and then reduce that to meal during the grinding stage. It’s really up to you. But from one obsessive purist to another? We just get the almond meal. There’s so much extract that the toasted flavors get lost anyway.

Step 2 – Grind It All Together

No kidding. That’s all you do. Put everything in the machine except your coatings (toasted almond flakes and chocolate). Process, scraping down the sides from time to time, until it comes together into a smooth dough that balls up around the blade. Done.

That couldn’t be any easier, but there are a couple of tricks because the dough changes with (a) your kitchen’s level of humidity, and (b) whether your Size Large egg whites are closer to mediums or closer to XL’s. They do vary within each range you know. It isn’t a problem if you keep the target in mind: “Dough that is just sticky enough to hold on to toasted almond flakes.” Too sticky and it will be hard to work with. Not sticky enough, and your coating will fall off.

If the mixture seems too dry, add in a tablespoon or two of water. This happens every time in a Pittsburgh winter, and almost never in our summers.
If the mixture seems too sticky, add a tablespoon or two of extra almond meal. Extra sugar works too.

For what it’s worth, we actually get a kick out of these little customizing steps. They make you feel like a Real Expert who knows the secret cheat codes.

Step 3 – Form the Cookies

A few of those secret codes make this step just as easy.

First, remember that most people make these into large, 4-5 bite treats. One recipe makes enough for 16.

That’s not a coincidental number because you get there by cutting the dough in half, then each half in half four more times. If you want smaller cookies, cut the initial piece into thirds and then proceed to halve them over and over. This will get you to 24.

Second, moisten your fingers and palms before you form each cookie. That will keep the dough from sticking to your hands, and also make the surface extra sticky for holding on to the almond flakes.

Better for you, and better for the cookies. You’ll need to wet your hands several times before all the pieces are done.

Third, form each dough piece into a short, fat sausage as thick as you want the middle of your cookie to be. Roll this cylinder in the toasted almond flakes, and then pinch/curve the ends to form your crescents.

Cylinders are much easier to work with at the rolling stage, and you do not need as many almonds on the ends anyway because they will get coated in chocolate. Yes, you can just make a longer, thinner sausage, roll that, and bend it into a “C”. And yes, it is a little easier. We prefer the result from crescents; they have a texture that changes as you nibble through each treat.

Step 4 – Bake

375° is just hot enough to get a few of the almond edges extra toasty. A nice touch. As always, you want to pay more attention to the aroma and texture than the actual time. They are done when the sides firm up and the bottoms have turned light tan. It’s taken a consistent 13-14 minutes during winter testing in Pittsburgh with our oven. Please let us know if your results vary.

We also encourage you to spin these trays halfway through to ensure even cooking. We usually don’t bother with that step unless we’re dealing with wafers, but for some reason this particular cookie has been sensitive to hot spots.

Step 5 – Coat The Ends With Chocolate

This is the one step in the recipe that creates some frustration. It comes from two problems. First, the chocolate will harden as you work. And second, you won’t have enough chocolate in your bowl to dip the ends when you get to the final few pieces.

You can solve the chocolate problem by either keeping it warm, or mixing in a small amount of fat. Scott prefers to use plain chocolate, and to keep zapping it in the microwave for very short bursts as needed. Kate, who did most of the chocolate work, suggests adulteration – with the proviso that you must use a fat hardens at room temperature. Coconut oil works but can add some flavor. Palm oil has the perfect characteristics but is evil. She recommends butter or shortening, whisked into carefully melted chocolate. The resulting chocolate dip can be extra sticky at room temperature and takes a while to harden, but it is easy to work with. Your mileage may vary.

The problem of what to do toward the end takes more thought, and there is no really good answer. If you want the chocolate supply to end on the final cookie, you won’t have a deep enough pool to actually dip the horns of the last two pieces. Careful work with a spoon can help, but it only goes so far. Either you need to make/waste extra chocolate dip, or you need a cheat code.

Scott offers this workaround: Don’t try to dip the horns on your final piece. Coat the entire bottom with your leftover chocolate instead. It creates a more uniform treat that’s a little less intriguing to look at, and has less contrast when you eat it, but it does have the benefit of giving every bite a little bit of chocolate. Brush all the bottoms with chocolate if you want every piece to be the same.

Kate rolls her eyes at that, and says you should simply make enough chocolate to do the dipping and be done with it. Leftover chocolate makes a wonderful ganache for truffles, or at worst a special treat for the first lucky passerby who can find a spoon. You, of course, are a mature, fully grown person with the control to inflict those treats on someone else.

Cool and Consume – The End… Until Next Time

Mandelhörnchen are one of those treats that become a baker’s signature offering to guests, grandchildren, and drama club bake sales alike. They’re so very big! Physically, in taste, in texture, and in ways that combine to be more than the sum of their parts. They also show off familiar flavors, and they taste exactly like people think they will, except more so. There’s a huge bang for the buck factor.

Plus they’re fun and easy to make once you internalize those little tricks: keep your hands moist when shaping, and accept that there’s only so much chocolate to go around.

This is a marvelous recipe that you’re really going to treasure. We Promise. Enjoy!

SPICED BACON COOKIES – Not so strange after all!

Dairy free and delicious, what’s not to like? This cookie offers a unique flavor profile with a familiar texture somewhere in the slice-and-bake or sugar cookie range. The only unusual part is that title ingredient, and it’s hard to say if that’s really as unusual as people might think.

As always, skip to the bottom if you only want the recipe.

EXTRA SPICE FROM KATE: Okay, hold the phone a sec. My husband’s version of “health consciousness” can sometimes cross that invisible line into “health denial”. Before he continues with his ode to pork, we want to point out that butter, lard, shortening, and all other saturated fats – even bacon [gasp!] – are not good for you. That is why cookies are a treat, not a staple. No, bacon fat is not really any worse than any of those others. Granted. And he’s 100% right that using it in a cookie is “heritage”, not “weird.” But keep the enthusiasm within bounds. This is not a physics-optional cartoon. You may proceed now.

Animal fat cookies are rare in the U.S. for sure, but that is only because we tend to be wastrels and spendthrifts when it comes to leftover fats and drippings. Americans are taught to reach for purified, store-bought fats like butter, shortening, or oil when we cook. But that isn’t how things used to be, and it still isn’t true in professional kitchens, or in any part of the world where people pinch their pennies a little harder. In all those situations the leftover fat, such as drippings from a roast, are treasures to be saved, not waste to be discarded.

That isn’t to say we are holier than thou. Here is our standard method for cooking a few slices of bacon for breakfast: place some slices between several layers of paper towel, put it on a plate, and then microwave for 3-5 minutes until it gets as crispy as you desire. Discard the dirty paper with all that nasty fat.

What could be better? Well… how about not wasting all that fat, which qualifies as “delicious” rather than “nasty” in any other time and place the world has ever known? Sorry to sound all rant-y. We really do use that paper towel trick, and it really does work. But it is sort of embarrassing when you consider the historical perspective.

Try this method instead if you have any plans to use the fat: Place your slices on a rack over a sheet pan (spiced as you desire) and then cook at 375° for 15-25 minutes, depending on thickness. Remove it from the oven when it hits the level of crispy you want. Flip it over with tongs to let any pooled fat drain into the pan, give it a minute, and then dab off any excess with paper towels. Super easy, super reliable, and nothing wasted. Use 350° for chewier bacon and 400° if you like more char and you’re willing to tolerate the smaller safety window before it burns.

FWIW, this recipe calls for ½ cup of fat, which is almost exactly what you ought to get from rendering a pound (16 oz = 450 g) of bacon. A perfect and thrifty method for whenever you cook large amounts of the Mighty Meat.

Comparison Recipes

Lard (pork fat) has to be the most common cooking fat after butter, shortening, and oil. U.S. bakers adore it for pie crusts and biscuits, but lard is also a common cookie ingredient; particularly in Spain and its colonies. Bizcochitos, the official state cookie of New Mexico, are the best known variation (see Heritage Cookies Volume I for a recipe). Spanish Mantecados are a more tender example, with less flour and a little olive oil added to create a shortbread effect. Look for it in a future blog post.

Bacon fat is nothing more than lard with extra flavor, if you look at it sideways. We’ve found many more savory recipes than sweet ones in the world of baking. There is a German side dish called Speckkuchen (“Bacon Cakes”) that’s definitely worth your attention if this interests you. But this article is about the sweet-treat, cookie versions and they are far from unknown.

Tricks From The Testing

This turned out to be a pretty easy recipe to perfect because the U.S. went through a bacon craze in the early 2000’s that hasn’t quite ended yet. People put bacon into everything! And it kept working, and working, and working again. As we write this in 2021 there’s still a common catchphrase that, “Bacon makes anything better.” Okay, that probably isn’t true in the literal sense. Spend some skull sweat and you’ll probably come up with a few exceptions. But the basic point stands: savory, sweet, smoky bacon goes very well with many, many flavors.

We chose a classic Christmas Ham profile for this recipe, using cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and molasses. Feel free to substitute any spice combination you prefer. Just think of it as something to go with bacon rather than something meant for a cookie. Scott is halfway toward eager in his plans to make an extra-smoky version the next time we have a big, multifamily brunch to cook for.

The cookie itself was just as easy. The proportions fell dead center into the classic sugar cookie and drop cookie range. All those charts in the book before each section? This is where they come in handy.

The only complication came with narrowing things down to the final version. The two of us went back and forth on whether the cookie wanted a bit of crispy texture inside. Translation: should we add in some of the bacon we had lying around from rendering the required fat? In the end we left that as an option. Somewhere around two slices (≈ 2 tbsp. when chopped) is the right amount if you have any extra.

But it still wanted… something. That turned out to be bits of dark chocolate.

You’re in good company if that sounds wrong. Kate almost blanched at the idea, and Scott has to agree that chocolate-dipped bacon was one of the less appealing excesses of that bacon-with-everything craze we described above. But this is the exception that proves the rule. The chocolate sort of widened the flavor, while the textural contrast rounded things out.

CONCLUSION

Bacon tastes good. Everyone agrees on that, and we waste never a crumb.

Bacon fat also tastes good. Everyone agrees there as well, but we waste it all the time. There’s no good reason to do so, and people never did until we grew wealthy enough to value convenience over thrift and flavor. This is just one example of the many, many ways in which you can use this overlooked treasure to make treats that will make you sound like a genius. We’ve seen, tasted, and enjoyed Bacon Ice Cream! If that can work, and we assure you it does, then cookies should be taken in stride.

Enjoy! Here’s the recipe:

KVIRCEDLI – an extra-leavened Springerle variation from Hungary’s wine country

Welcome to another long article, which obviously has nothing to do with a wordy author! Blame it on the combination of a stubborn cookie with a lot of noteworthy tricks and a fascinating tradition. Many thanks up front to Mirtill Seregély, a wonderful Hungarian baker we met online. She’s the one who published the original recipe, and was also our primary source for the cultural background that turned out to be essential. Essential how, you ask? Read on.

As always, skip to the bottom if you only want the recipe. That covers the “what.” The rest of this article goes into the underlying “why.”

What Are We Talking About Here?

Kvircedli are a rectangular molded cookie that holds good impressions but does not get painted. It has a texture like crunchy, chewy sponge cake, a nondescript but familiar flavor that will remind you of Ladyfingers, and an almost unique profile that displays the airy texture inside.

The recipe itself looks like a classic Springerle, with 25% less sugar, lemon as the only flavor, and a whopping eight (8) times as much leavening. That last is the elephant in the room. Normal Springerle use ¼ tsp. of Hartshorn (baker’s ammonia) for a 3-egg recipe. Kvircedli use a full 2 tsp. Two bloody teaspoons!

That enormous amount of leavening requires a lot of little tricks that are hard to figure out, but turn out to be directly tied into the cookie’s history, tradition, and purpose. So let’s turn to that front next.

Kvircedli History and Tradition

The former Hapsburg Empire left behind a legendary baking tradition that pervades every one of the varied corners to which it stretched. Austria in the west? Ever hear of Linzer Torte or Strudel? The Balkans to the south? They may hate each other politically, but the Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians, etc. have nothing but respect for their respective baking traditions. We do too. The Czechs and Moravians to the north? Awesome. The Czech tradition of Christmas sweets is what drove us into baking so much in the first place.

The Hungarians in the east use their ovens every bit as well as their former Imperial brothers. Kifle, the filled flaky cookies we called “Kolachy” in Volume I; the famous Esterhazy and Dobos Tortes; the Poppy Seed and Nut Rolls found in half the bakeries of America; it doesn’t end. You could probably list dozens of absolute classics that either originated in Hungary, or get made there with as much skill as anywhere else in the world. So when we saw the Hungarian folk recipe that Mirtill shared, which took dense Springerle in a whole new direction, we knew it had to be tried.

You’ll read below about some of the troubles we ran into. Those didn’t get solved until Scott went back to Mirtill for a lesson on the sort of deeper background that often gets ignored.

The Hungarian people go back to Attila the Hun and his wild tribesmen from the vast steppes of Asia, who invaded the Roman Empire more than 1500 years ago. After his death in 453 they settled in the land that now holds their name, with a hauntingly beautiful language related to nothing in Europe except Finnish and Estonian – three peoples who trace their history to common roots.

The following centuries naturally saw a certain amount of immigration from other areas, leading to several ethnic minorities. The German speaking minority are known as the Swabians. Somehow or other that group (apparently with the aid of some Capuchin monks) became big players in Hungary’s winemaking tradition, with a major center in the little town of Mór (population just under 15,000). Think of it as Hungary’s Napa Valley and you’ll get the idea. Other parts of the country specialize in rich reds or aromatic dessert wines, but Wikipedia says that Mór built its reputation on dry white wines similar to sauvignon blanc.

Kvircedli come from that region, and are best known as the treat that winemakers still serve whenever they open the doors for a tasting. Mirtill tells me the cookie also shows up at special events like baptisms and weddings, though I suspect you’d get into a flavored variation for those. More on that below.

Stop and think about that. This is a cookie designed and used in a small, immensely scenic part of the world for the express purpose of vineyard tours and celebrations. How awesome is that? But it gets even more quaint if you dig a little deeper!

Legend holds that local women created Kvircedli to get around a religious law that forbade them from drinking alcohol. Some ignorant, almost-certain-to-be-a-bachelor really thought he could expect the wives to sit there quietly while their husbands quaffed the local product? Even in the name of religion? Riiiight. The ladies responded by inventing this airy, absorbent cookie with a convenient rectangular shape that’s perfect for dipping into unwatched cups. And thus they “ate” their wine instead of “drinking.”

Problem #1: Is the Flavor Too Bland?

The history and the story both help to explain the flavor profile. Traditional Springerle have a distinct anise flavor that would not play well at a wine tasting. Okay, it might not ruin a well balanced red, but after that you’re looking at some potentially ugly clashes. A nice, neutral, vaguely lemon profile makes a much better palate cleanser, while the crunchy-outside, chewy-inside texture does the exact same thing for your other senses. It makes an ideal reset button to move from one wine on to the next.

Pretty smart! If you’re a winemaker looking for a fantastic and proven gimmick, I offer Kvircedli at your tastings as suggestion #1.

But what if you just want to enjoy the cookie in some other setting, like one of those baptisms or weddings? Well… I guess my first answer would be that celebrations often involve a lot of wine, and simple flavors tend to be child friendly too. That said, it takes almost nothing to jazz this dough up with whatever interesting flavor may strike your fancy. We did a batch with that Croatian flavor profile that worked so well for Dalmatinski Rafioli, and the result was all we could have hoped. A spice or spice mix would work every bit as well. We put a suggested proportion in the recipe if you’re interested.

Problem, if it is a problem, solved.

Problem #2: Stick to Simple Patterns

Springerle taste fine and all, but their glory lies in the amazing, painted patterns that make people say, “That looks way too pretty to eat.” We went into this hoping that Kvircedli would offer a similarly result with a very different texture. The strong similarities between the two doughs gave us a lot of hope in that regard. But it was not to be.

It took a while for us to realize it, but that rectangular shape is actually a major key to making this recipe work. Here is a picture of some traditional molds that Mirtill Seregély shared:

Traditional Kvircedli molds carved from alder wood by Zsuzsanna Sáriczné. Note how the impression comes from rolling the mold over the dough, side after side so the pictures end up touching. Read below and you’ll see why that matters! Photo Copyright 2021 by Mirtill Seregély, and used with permission.

A fuller array of traditional Kvircedli molds carved from alder wood by Pál Szarka. Photo Copyright 2021 by Mirtill Seregély, and used with permission.

That rectangular shape turned out to be important.

Kvircedli stray from the traditional Springerle recipe by using an enormous amount of leavening to change the internal structure of the cookie. That’s the core idea. When we used a traditional Springerle mold, particularly a round or oval one, the pretty surface patterns held up fine, but the cookies baked into uneven, lopsided shapes tilted as much 45º off the level. The dough puffed out randomly to one side or the other, and occasionally even heaved up unevenly in two directions.

Looking a little closer at the recipe, and at some online examples, showed us why. One of the key features in a traditional Springerle is the “foot”; a ring of dough that puffs out sideways as the cookie bakes. You see this in Macarons too. The cause is the same in both cases.

First you make the dough, and then you stamp it with a fancy shape (for Springerle) or pipe it into a neat circle (for Macarons). Then you let the dough rest on a counter long enough for the outside surface to dry out into a skin. That takes up to 2 hours for Macarons, and 24 hours for Springerle. The bottom, of course, does not dry out because it is resting on a parchment-lined tray.

When you bake the cookies, the bottom and core expand as heat turns the inside moisture to steam and/or activates the leavener to create CO2. Boyle’s law says those gases need to expand in all directions, but they can’t go up through the dried out skin. So instead you get extra vertical rise combined with a horizontal “foot” as dough puffs out around the bottom.

A pan of Kvircedli packs the unbaked cookies close enough together (about 3-4 mm = ⅛” apart) for the feet to expand into each other. The result? Each cookie supports its neighbors from the side as they bake, adding a little extra rise while also preventing a tilt in any one direction. Have a look at the tray we just baked for this article (stamped with the bottom of a crystal knife rest since we do not have one of Mirtill’s special molds to play with):

There are would-be cookie molds all over the house!

Soldiers lined up and waiting to bake. The dough is ⅜” thick after being impressed with the pattern, but not yet puffed.

That is the raw dough.

See how the ones on the edges have puffed unevenly?

Here is the same tray after baking. The middle ones are nice and even, and have puffed from ⅜” up to a full 1″ tall. The ones on the edge got lopsided because they received no support from a neighbor. FWIW, this process also results in a much desired side effect. Kvircedli are a breakaway cookie that gets divided along those pre-inscribed lines. Doing so reveals the uniquely beautiful, spongy interior.

Showing the lovely sponge cake texture. Just be careful not to crush your pattern as you pull. There is nothing wrong with using a paring knife to get things started if the cookies started out a little too close together on the tray.

Problem #3: The Evil, Cat Box Reek of Ammonia

But there was a joker in the deck! Hartshorn a/k/a Baker’s Ammonia a/k/a Ammonium Carbonate has yet a fourth name: Smelling Salts. And believe me, they work. If your beloved should ever swoon in a most dainty and Victorian manner, one good whiff of this stuff will quickly break the trance. Blech.

Hartshorn works by breaking down into ammonia and CO2 when heat is applied. The ammonia bakes off, while the CO2 provides the lift you wanted. Springerle recipes use a bare ¼ tsp. in the dough for this volume of eggs and flour. That amount is enough to leave a foul odor in your oven, but won’t be noticed in the final product over all the anise notes. With Kvircedli you’re going to wince when you open that oven, and sticking your nose against the fresh baked cookies is not going to make you happy. Indeed, our recipe contains an explicit warning to avert your face when you open the oven door in order to spin the baking trays, and again when you remove the finished cookies.

Some of that odor inevitably ends up embedded inside the freshly baked cookies.

We tried a few things to fix this. First, we cut the amount of Hartshorn in half and replaced that portion with baking powder at our normal ratio of 3 parts baking powder for every 2 parts of Hartshorn being replaced. That was the batch mentioned above, where we used proper Springerle molds in addition to the knife-rest stamp. The results were uneven. Literally, and sometimes at multiple angles inside the same piece. It was worst in the oval Springerle that baked in splendid isolation, but the phenomenon showed up in the square ones we baked side by side. So was it the leavener? The much more varied heights of the pattern? Or the fact that “side by side” meant a nice even row, that only gave mutual support from one direction?

Bad science on our part. There’s a reason why each experiment is supposed to change just one variable at a time. But we never did go back to finish looking at the baking powder idea because Scott paused to talk things out with Mirtill. Understanding the history and purpose showed us that Kvircedli were meant to have a plain flavor, and were not a medium for display like Springerle. Who would want to dunk a work of art? Why would you want to distract from the wine you’re sampling, especially with brilliant, jewel tone colors? And if the rectangular shapes served a purpose, that meant the breakaway effect was deliberate, which in turn…

You get the idea. It made more sense to go back and tweak the original recipe for a longer and lower cooking time that would allow more of the ammonia to bake off. The original formula called for 12-20 minutes at 150º C, which is 300º F. We reduced the temperature to 140º C (285º F) and left them in for the full 20 minutes, with a single spin at the 10 minute mark to avoid hot spots.

The result? A little less browning on the bottom, which we missed; the exact “yellow” tone described in the original recipe, which hadn’t been as clear before; and about 75% less reek in the finished cookies. Mirtill had also told us that she’d done enough casual research to believe that true Swabian bakers solve the problem by simply leaving the baked cookies out for a day before eating. Another baker we met on Facebook confirmed this in a conversation with her Hungarian relatives. And, sure enough, that leftover smell disappeared after a few hours on a plate once we instituted the longer baking time.

And so you get to our final verdict. For shaped and dried cookie dough that is ⅜” thick (1 cm), bake at 285º for 20-25 minutes instead of 300º for 12-20. That’s what you will read in the recipe below. Here in private we will use less exact numbers and call it 18-30 minutes to allow for differing ovens and the erratic moods of your household gremlin. We’ve all got one, and they have a notoriously fickle sense of humor.

Problem solved, at least well enough to avoid going back for a new round of experiments with baking powder. Let us know if you try it, however. We’d love to know if there is a way to make the recipe without having to deal with the cat box effect.

Conclusion

Molded cookies involve some extra work to stamp in the pattern, and extra time because of the overnight rest that forms the required crust. There is no getting around that. But if you are the sort of baker who likes that process, we 100% believe you ought to give Kvircedli a try. That goes double if you happen to own a traditional 4-sided mold that can be conveniently rolled-and-pressed, or one of those patterned rolling pins. Either way, target a final thickness of around ⅜” (1 cm), which will be cut into nice, rectangular shapes. Array on your tray about ⅛” (3-4 mm) apart, and then proceed.

Go with the classic lemon-only profile if you want to stick with tradition and/or use them in a wine tasting. They really work that way, and yes: we did make sure to test it. [Hic!]

Add flavor to the dough if you want to eat the cookies out of hand (although Kate loves everything lemon and adores them as they are). Flavored, eating cookies can be painted if you so desire, but do not do so for dunkers. It serves no purpose and distracts from the wine itself.

Here is a final photo, and a copy of our updated recipe. Enjoy!

It should be a dry white wine, of course. That is the style of Mór, whence Kvircedli originate. The photographer, however, responds that white wine may be correct, but red is more photogenic. That answers that.

MARZIPAN & ALMOND PASTE – the recipe beneath the recipes

Many thanks to Pixabay.com for sharing this royalty-free image. Cuuuute!

A few weeks ago we put up recipes for a set of Five macaroon recipes we’ve come to love – which could be described as marzipan suspended in an egg white meringue. And I am now working busily on a special Croatian treat called “Rafioli”, which is basically an exotically flavored almond paste wrapped inside a baked pasta shell. [Watch for it!]

German Mandelhörnchen and a Greek equivalent are also on our “to do” list after Kate took an initial whack that wasn’t too far from being right. Those amount to a flavored marzipan or almond paste lightened with fewer egg whites than you’d use for macaroons, formed into crescents, and then dipped in chocolate.

EXTRA SPICE FROM KATE: We have no photos of the Mandelhörnchen because a mysterious cookie gremlin raided our kitchen before anyone could add the chocolate part. Skeptical spouses have wondered if “doppelganger” would be a more accurate than “gremlin,” but I admit nothing. He only suggests such an outrageous thing because they are one of my all time favorites, both tasty and toothsome.

And then… Hmm, a pattern seems to have formed! There are dozens, if not hundreds of baked goods that start with a base of finely ground almonds, mixed with sugar and then bound by egg whites. That ingredient is called “Almond Paste” when left loose and a little sticky, or “Marzipan” when you add enough extra almonds to make it solid. We wouldn’t call either one a “cookie” all on its own. Commercial marzipan is actually marketed more like a not-so-sweet candy (with U.S. and English versions tending to be sweeter), and almond paste as an ingredient. But the basic concept gets used in so many true cookies, and cookie fillings, that it’s only fair to give our version.

Besides, Valentines Day is coming next month and you can earn some major brownie points by making Marzipan treats and forming them into something romantic. And double-besides, the recipe for Marzipan contains a couple of surprises that many people don’t know about, such as a tiny bit of rosewater used as everyone’s not-so-secret ingredient.

Anyway, here is our version for your education, edification, and delight.

This lovely photo of Marzipan Fruits at the Nuremberg Christmas Market is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share alike 2.0 Generic license at the linked website. Many thanks to the author for his or her generosity.

FIVE (5!) MACAROONS – Renaissance recipes for the modern world

It’s hard to get more “heritage” than the early Renaissance, and that’s what we have here: four famous cookies that grew into maturity along with the likes of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, Botticelli (with whom Leonardo supposedly founded a restaurant), Verrocchio, Raphael, and the rest of them. And Columbus for that matter. What can inspire artistic brilliance more than a really good cookie? The answer is obvious: Nothing!

We’re talking about classic macaroons, a cookie dating back to the trade boom that followed the Black Death’s destruction of medieval civilization. Arab traders introduced a variety of products to eager consumers in the trade centers of Italy and Spain. Two main ones in turn led to the creation of macaroons: refined sugar and marzipan a/k/a almond paste. Yes, those ingredients had been around forever, but they’d never been cheap enough to turn into everyday treats. Now they suddenly were, and Renaissance Europe was ready to adopt new ideas their grandparents would have scorned.

Italian and Spanish cooks started the process by incorporating the new ingredients into quick and easy baked goods using methods known since antiquity. The basic formula couldn’t be simpler. First whip some egg whites with sugar to make a meringue, using a more generous amount of sugar than before since it was now more affordable. Fold in some imported almond paste, and then bake. And there you have it! The first macaroons, commonly known as “Marzipanetti in Italy.

Matters evolved from there, with bakers slowly adopting the regional variations that eventually hardened into recipes. We have now worked up four versions of that basic recipe, distinguished by relatively small changes in the way they’re flavored and presented. Here is a table to more-or-less compare the four recipes, normalized to an even one pound of almonds. [NOTE: The different egg sizes occur because those recipes start from a different amount of almonds].

Most Ancient Macaroons

* 450 g almond meal

* 300 g sugar

* 3 XL egg whites

* No zest

* ½-1 tsp. almond extract

* 350° for ≈ 10 minutes

Ricciarelli

* 450 g almond meal

* 300 g sugar or 150 g honey
* 2 egg whites + 1 yolk
* Orange zest

* 2 tsp. almond & vanilla

* 350° for ≈ 12-13 minutes

Alemandrados

* 450 g almond meal

* 265 g sugar

* 1 jumbo egg

* Lemon zest

* ½ tsp. almond extract

* 350° for 8-10 minutes

Amaretti

* 450 g almond meal

* 290 g sugar

* 4 egg whites

* No zest

* 9 tsp. almond extract

* 350° for ≈ 12 minutes

CINNAMON STARS (“ZIMTSTERNE”) – Strange, wonderful, & familiar all at once

Cinnamon Stars, complete with a hole for hanging them off your tree.

This is the cookie we point to when people ask for an example of what we mean by a “heritage” cookie. There aren’t many Americans who are familiar with Zimtsterne (zimt = cinnamon, sterne = stars), but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in a German speaking country who does not know them. Or in a country that borders on one of those nations. They are as common and ubiquitous in that part of the world as Chocolate Chip Cookies in the U.S.

The fact that people need to learn about them is one part of the “strange”. The other lies in how the cookies are made.

As always, skip to the bottom if you only want the recipe.

If you’re reading this, we assume that you’re a baker. Have you ever seen, anywhere, a cookie where you bake on the icing? It’s brilliant!

At their core, Cinnamon Stars are nothing more than a very refined version of a dense macaroon. You grind up nuts (in this case using a mixture for added complexity), flavor those nuts (in this case with spices for yet more complexity), mix that with a French meringue (egg whites whipped with superfine or powdered sugar), and then bake (in this case using a very low oven for color and texture. Change the type of meringue with a higher percentage of whites, and you’ll end up with a flavored Macaron. Change the spices to metric ton of almond extract with an average 350 F (175 C) baking temperature, and you’ll have Amaretti. Make that a bit of citrus with almond meal instead of flour, and you’ll get the antique Renaissance versions like Sienese Ricciarelli or Spanish Almendrados.

It’s a simple concept. But… whoever heard of rolling out your macaroon dough before baking? Or baking on the icing?

It works because the icing is just that same French meringue mixed with added lemon juice. Meringue bakes well. Obviously. And that lemon juice works wonders, because being in the icing preserves all the high notes. That is one of the tricks we learned along the way. Lemon zest works great inside a cookie because the zest holds all the essential oils (the perfume of the fruit). But the tang of the lemon juice will disappear. If you want to catch those sharp, acidic notes you need to put them into an icing.

That covers “strange.” Wonderful comes from the overall flavor, and a Northern European tradition we’ve adopted for years: the Tree Of Gifts.

**Moravian Snowflakes, Polish Gingerbread (Pierniczki), a chocolate angel (on the bottom), and a Cinnamon Star hiding behind the candle on the upper right.**

Another view, with the Cinnamon Star on the upper left. Note that all the cookies are on the upper half of the tree. That’s essential if you have either small children or, in our case, a labrador retriever in residence.

A guest arrives during the holiday season? Invite them in, and say “Please have a treat off the tree!” It captures the spirit of the holiday like nothing else. Tree; decorations; sweets; cookies; and all topped off with hospitality.

Cinnamon Stars make great decorations because they’re sturdy enough to last through the holiday season. Snowflakes have no rival when it comes to appearance, but any humidity in the air will soften them up enough to sag an break through a ribbon. (Don’t even think of hanging them with a metal wire). And gingerbreads tend to be so thick and heavy that they make the branches sag if you aren’t careful. Cinnamon Stars are ideal.

You can decorate Cinnamon Stars by tinting the dough, the icing, or both. Or by standard decorating after they’re baked using royal icing, dragees, luster dust, etc. We tend to keep them plain, but that’s a question of taste.

As for “familiar”, there is absolutely nothing in this cookie that will surprise or offend the most tender of American palates. Cinnamon Stars taste like dense, chewy, lemony Snickerdoodles with a fantastic appearance, and a lot of fragrant nuts. It’s a no risk experiment.

A FINAL BONUS: THREE FREE TIPS THAT AREN’T IN THE BOOK:

The recipe calls for three egg whites. That works, but things get tight when you try to toe the line between reserving what you want for the icing, and still having enough to hold all the nuts. You’ll gain safety margin if you use size XL egg whites instead of the standard U.S. “large”.
Add a tablespoon of molasses to the dough if you want a higher contrast between the base and the bright white icing. It changes the flavor a bit, but not unpleasantly. Our book includes a standard variation on this recipe (Vanilla Sticks), and that is more different than the effect of a little molasses.
Remember that you don’t need to spread your icing all the way to the edge. The cookies look just as good, and arguably better, if you leave a gap between the edge of the icing and the edge of the cookie. To be completely honest, we only avoid that because our decoration skills aren’t up to that level of precision. Baking, yes. Precision artistry? Not so much.

And now, on to the recipe. Enjoy! This was the very first Pavelle addition to the Stoy family collection of every-year cookies. Don’t be at all surprised if it turns out to be mandatory for your family too.

NOTE: If the cookies dry out, put them in a tin with a piece of bread and leave it overnight. Come the next day they’ll be perfect all over again.

BUTTER JELLIES, SPITZBUBEN, & MAILANDERLI – The one that everyone loves

When you make as many high quality cookies as we do, you get used to a couple of standard questions. The top two have to be, “What are your favorite cookies?” and “What is the favorite cookie overall?” The answer always disappoints: there are no real, statistical favorites because individual tastes end up dominating. But one thing we can say for sure is this:

People adore filled cookies.

There’s just something very “extra” about treats inside a treat. And that’s extra “extra” for Butter Jellies, because the jam in the middle (a) makes them spectacularly pretty, and (b) adds a series of bright berry flavors that cannot be baked into a dough. Yes, you can now find freeze dried berries in a lot of supermarkets. And yes, they add a bit of true berry flavor into your dough that people can taste even through all the butter and other ingredients. But it isn’t the same because the full berry flavor includes a lot of things that don’t come through, such as all the bright high notes.

Those require either an icing or, as in this case, a filling. The combination of tart/sweet jam and buttery cookie is irresistible. If these aren’t the #1 favorite on our annual tray, they probably count in the top three for a vast majority.

It’s really a simple cookie. Butter Jellies and their variations are a basic, roll-and-cut, shortbread/butter cookie with just enough flour to hold together for a few days after they’re sandwiched around liquidy jam. The variations are subtle, and amount to either more egg yolks (Grandma Kandler’s version, which is known in Switzerland as star shaped Mailanderli), or the use of egg whites instead of yolks for a drier mouthfeel (Swiss Spitzbuben). What about whole eggs? We tested it of course, and they work fine from the sturdiness point of view, but we ended up preferring either the rich chew of yolks alone or the dry counterpoint from using only whites. Your mileage may vary.

The jam is up to you. We used to adore rose hip jam, but it became unavailable 5-10 years ago. Nowadays it’s currant jam or blackberry because we reserve raspberry for Linzer Tarts.

And no! These are not Linzer Tarts! That is a name that comes from a classic, pie-sized Austrian Torte made from a fragrant hazelnut/lemon piecrust. No nuts, no Linzer. Thus Sayeth The Lord! So do not blaspheme. These are Butter Jellies.

Make Linzers too. That’s our solution, and if it’s good enough for our family, it’s good enough for yours!

BONUS FREEBIE! To convert Grandma’s version into true Mailanderli:

Use 3-4 yolks in the dough.
Increase the amount of lemon zest to a full 1-1/2 tsp.
Increase the amount of vanilla to a full 1-1/2 tsp.
Cut the dough into stars
Coat the top before baking with an egg wash made from 1 whole egg thinned with a bit of water.

You can follow Grandma’s cooking technique but we’ve had equal success with a constant 325.° Either way, they will want to cook longer because of the lower temperature. 20-25 minutes should be about right.