It’s a known fact that Germans love food. Especially in Winter we indulge in backing “Plätzchen”, Christmas cookies. There are SO many varieties but I have decided to show you how to make one of the absolute classics, Zimtsterne.
They are soft yet a little hard cinnamon biscuits with a meringue topping.
One of my favorites!
You will need…
100 g finely ground hazelnuts,
2 medium sized eggs, but only the egg white
salt
½ teaspoon lemon juice
125 g sugar
1 packet vanilla sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
125 g almonds, ground
Sugar for rolling
Cinnamon for sprinkling
Preparation 🙂
Roast the nuts in an pan without oil and let cool.
Beat Egg whites, lemon juice and a pinch of salt until stiff. Gradually add sugar and continue to whisk until it has dissolved. Keep 3 tablespoons of beaten egg whites for the icing later on. Stir the Vanilla sugar, cinnamon, nuts and 100 g of almonds into the backing mixture. Cover it up and put it somewhere cold for about 2 hours.
Roll out the mixture about 3 / 4 inch thick on a surface dusted with sugar. With a star cookie cutter dipped in sugar cut out little stars and put them on a backing tray covered with baking paper. Mix the egg white icing with a few drops of water and ice the stars. Bake in a preheated oven at 150 ° C (gas 1, convection 10-12 minutes at 140 °C) for 15-18 minutes on the bottom rail. Remove the stars from the backing paper and let them cool. Sprinkle with cinnamon to taste.
Enjoy!
xx
Disclaimer: This is not my recipe or my picture, but I did translate it from German 🙂
Lena's Little World 