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Thursday, December 9, 2010

Spitzbuben






















I have never been much of a baker.  Especially when it comes to cakes.  Fortunately, my friend V has gave me a cake book few years ago as a gift, which improved my baking skills very much.  I still fail to bake a nice looking cake sometimes, although according to my husband they all taste good.  I have been baking some Christmas cookies around this time last few years.  There is no risk of messing them up too bad so I love baking them.  While looking for the recipes of my favorite cookies, and believe me there are quite a few, I decided to write this one.  It absolutely tastes the best with the butter and the jam.  It's really a shame to bake them only at this time of the year but given the amount of butter in them, maybe that's a good cycle. 

(Makes about 40-50 pieces with 4-5 cm diameter cookie cutters)

250 g Butter (about 1 1/4 cups) - softened
125 g powder sugar (about 1/2 cup)
pinch of salt
1/2 tablespoon of vanille sugar
1 egg white (lightly beaten)
350 g white flour (a little less than 3 cups)

For filling:
3-4 tablespoons of quince jelly or any other jam, jelly or marmalade you prefer.

To sprinkle:
2 tablespoons of powdered sugar

Here are the steps:
1.  Start with mixing the softened butter and sugar in a bowl. 
2.  Stir vanille sugar, a pinch of salt and the egg white into the mix.
3. Mix in the flour to the dough. 
4. When the dough is formed, wrap it up with a folio and put it into the fridge to chill for 1 hour. 
5. Take the dough out of the fridge 30 minutes before you start rolling it out.
6. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
7. Roll out the dough to 2mm (a bit less than 0.1 inch) and cut out shapes with cookie cutters. 
8. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters.  Make sure you have 2 of each shape. 
9. By using a miniature cookie cutter make a shape in the middle of the cookies you'll put on top. 
10. Place the cookies on a baking sheets and bake in the middle rack for about 6-8 minutes.  
11. After they are done, leave them on the baking sheets for about 1-2 minutes to cool down and then transfer them on a wire rack to cool completely.  I normally leave them to cool over the night. 
12. To assemble the cookies, put some some jelly on the bottom half with the help of a teaspoon, then place the top part over.  Try not to put too much jelly, otherwise it will look a little messy.  You can also melt the jelly in a pan before you do this.  I normally just do it without but a lot of recipes call for melting the jelly before making the little sandwich.
13. Sprinkle some powder sugar over the cookies.  

These cookies can be stored in an airtight cookie tin or a jar and they are best when eaten fresh. 

1 comment:

  1. I love jam-filled cookies and these seem especially delicious! Perfect for the holiday season.

    ReplyDelete