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. 

Spitzbuben -  Swiss Christmas cookies

(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. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here I am, when I decided to put here a savory dish next, ended up making something sweet again.  It's not my fault really, although I am really fond of sweets.  It was my daughter, who all of a sudden demanded cookies yesterday afternoon.  First I thought about making my latest favorite ones, the Anzac biscuits, but then they are a little hard for the kids to bite on.  Then I remembered the chocolate chip cookie recipe I had in my cooking notebook.  It was given to me by my dear friend Misty, who was very passionate about cooking and thought me a lot about Indian food and chocolate deserts.  This is one of her recipes I believe, but I have changed it slightly as I didn't have any walnuts that was called in the recipe.  It could also be a little difficult for the kids to eat the walnuts. In addition, I put in a little bit cacao powder to make it look more chocolaty. The recipe is below, but as in all chocolate cookies you can replace some of the ingredients with other things like almonds with coconuts, hazelnuts, walnuts and chocolate chips with white ones or even with raisins.

 

This recipe makes about 16 cookies.

6 tablespoons of butter

1 cup of dark brown sugar

1/2 cup of white flour (you can use all-purpose or self-raising one, in which case you can exclude the baking powder)

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 tablespoon of cacao powder

1 egg beaten

2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar

1/2 cup of crushed almonds

1/2 cup of chocolate chips

a pinch of salt

Start with melting the butter and leave it cool down for few minutes. Whisk the sugar and vanilla sugar in with the butter until the mixture becomes a little thick. Beat in the egg slowly. Add in the flour and the baking powder, the cacao with the salt and whisk until you have a nice creamy mixture. Then take a spoon and mix in the almonds and chocolate chips. Pre-heat your oven to 180° (350° F - gas mark 6).  Prepare your baking tray with baking sheets over them.  Put spoonfuls of the mixture on the baking sheet by leaving enough space in between. Don't try to shape the cookies cause then you'll end up having a mess. They for a round shape beautifully when they are baking. Stick them in your pre-heated oven for about 15 minutes. After they are done let them cool before you take the first bite.