Zimtsterne (cinnamon stars) and a Merry Christmas!

Zimtsterne (Cinnamon-Stars) are a form of traditional treats that are associated with Christmas. You will find it in almost every household in Germany around this time of the year. It is a relatively simple and fun recipe, and the ingredients are also quite easy to obtain. Baking them is a good reason for a family to gather and celebrate the holidays.

Speaking of which, we have reached yet another year. Thank you all for reading my blog (and, of course, continue support). I hope you enjoy your Christmas and New Year holidays.

Vanilla Kipferl and a Merry Christmas!

Vanilla Kipferl are one of the most traditional Christmas cookies in Germany. You can probably find them at every German household this time of the year. So, this is the perfect cookie to wish you and your families all to enjoy a wonderful Christmas.

Pecan-Orange Kipferl

Vanilla Kipferl are one of the most liked Christmas cookies in Germany. They have a distinctive half moon shape and are dipped in vanilla sugar right after baking. My kipferl today have a little twist. Instead of the usually used almonds I used pecan nuts, which is my favorite nut. For the finishing they are dipped in homemade orange sugar.

The great discovery for me in this recipe was the orange sugar. It does not only work for this recipe, you can use it for all kinds of things. It has a great aroma and I already made another batch with lemons. Packed into a nice jar it makes a nice gift, either together with some cookies or just by itself.

Gingerbread Cookies

Today we celebrate the first advent in Germany. For people who don't know this tradition, Advents are the four Sundays before Christmas. Usually people have a wreath decorated with four candles. Each Sunday you would light one candle, so on the fourth advent they are all lit. You often meet in the afternoon for cookies and other goodies or go together to the Christmas market. I really like this time of year, and since last year it is even more special to me since I got married at this time of the year. We even took some of our wedding pictures on the Christmas market.

I just got some new cookie cutters from the market. I can usually never walk by these stands without getting at least one. Especially the deer looked so adorable, like little Bambis. I chose to make gingerbread cookies to try them out. They are really easy to make. The dough was a breeze to roll out. They taste really good and still have a soft center after storing them for a while. You can decorate them with royal icing or just leave them plane.

Maple Cookies

Usually this is the time for the Daring Bakers, but unfortunately I didn't have time to do the challenge this month, since I just got married two weeks ago. It was a wonderful winter wonderland wedding. Back to the Daring Bakers, we were asked to make a typical German Christmas treat: Stollen. There is really no Christmas without Stollen in Germany, and you can find all kinds of variations, with different fillings and in different sizes. I made a Poppy Seed-Marzipan Stollen last year, which was very good.

I still have a recipe for you today though. Remembering my home for the last few years, I made those Canadian Maple Leaf cookies. They use a good portion of maple syrup in the dough and as glaze. A very Canadian Cookie. We have much snow ourselves this year in Germany, so a white Christmas is a sure bet.

I wish you all a wonderful and peaceful Merry Christmas together with people you love and hope you enjoy lots of sweets wherever you are.

Daring Bakers: Decorated Sugar Cookies

I was afraid and excited about this month' Daring Bakers Challenge at the same time. We had to make sugar cookies. Well, you might say, everybody makes sugar cookies. But we had to make those beautiful decorated ones, which you will see in many books, as favors or in pretty stores.

I always admired those, but after one not so successful try, I just stayed with my old time sugar cookies, just "painted" with a sugar glaze. OK, now I had to try again. And yes, they really deserve the high prices in stores, because it is really difficult to decorate them so immaculate. I guess I have to practice a lot more.

I decided to make graduation cookies, since my sweetheart finally finished his PhD this month. I am very proud of him and I had them ready when I picked him up from the airport. So, my darling these are for you. Congratulations!

I didn't have the right cookie cutters for them, so I cut them out from cardboard. This is a good idea if you need a special shape, but don't find it anywhere or don't wanna buy it just for one occasion.

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

Green Tea Shortbread Cookies

Since I have been living in Vancouver, I have tasted a lot of desserts made of matcha powder. Matcha powder is finely ground green tea leafs. You will find little matcha cream cakes, matcha macarons, really yummy green tea gelato and even matcha latte. 

I bought a little can of this intense green powder a while back, but haven't used it until I saw these Green Tea Shortbread Cookies in "Unforgettable Desserts" by Dede Wilson. They are really easy and fast to make, and have a nice subtle taste of green tea.

Green tea desserts can be an acquired taste, so I would recommend to start with just one tablespoon of matcha powder.

Daring Bakers: Graham Crackers and Nanaimo Bars

It's Daring Bakers time again. After not participating last month I was excited what the new year would bring. The challenge consisted of two parts, first we would make homemade graham crackers, either regular or gluten free, and second use the graham crackers to make Nanaimo bars.

I always wanted to make my own graham crackers, and they turned out really good. I made the regular version, since I don't know anybody with food allergies. This is a really nice recipe, which I will use again as a cheesecake base in the future.

Well, to say the least I wasn't really excited to make the second part, the Nanaimo bars. Living in Vancouver for a couple of years now I have seen them around in several places, but never had the urge to try them. They just didn't appeal to me, but I still wanted to be a good sports and make them. Well, you always have to try everything at least once, right. Unfortunately, my intuition was right and I didn't really like them. Of course I knew they would be sweet, so I already used less than half of the sugars, but I also thought the butter-cream in the middle level was just too heavy. My Canadian sweetheart said they were better than all the other Nanaimo bars he tried before, but he is also not a fan of them.

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

Hazelnut Butter Cookies

As I told you in my last post, we always bake lots and lots of cookies for Christmas in my family. These Hazelnut Cookies are in my Mom's repertoire as long as I can remember. Actually we are making these probably since I was five or six years old. The recipe came from a comic book which I was reading at that time, and since then we only call them Micky Mouse cookies. They are really easy to make and have a wonderful buttery taste.