The aromas of honey, nuts, cinnamon, vanilla plus the smell of freshly baked homemade cookies - the taste of Christmas baking is not comparable to any other.
And most importantly - cookies can be baked in advance, and this will be one of the most pleasant anticipations of the holiday.
MACAROON
INGREDIENTS
350 g of flour, 250 g of butter, 250 g of marzipan, 2 eggs, 2 pinch of baking soda, 1 pinch of salt, 1 bag of vanilla sugar, marmalade or jam, mixed with a little rum (optional), icing or icing sugar decoration
COOKING
Cool the butter and cut into cubes. Sift the flour into the pan, put the butter in it and knead it in a very cool dough (you get pellets). After that, knead the steep dough, gradually adding marzipan, eggs, sugar, salt and soda.
For 1 hour, put the dough in a cold place, then roll into a layer and cut out cookies. Grease a baking sheet with butter, spread out cookies and bake in an oven heated to 180 degrees for about 10 minutes.
Grease half of the cookies on one side with marmalade, then fold in two and either sprinkle with icing sugar or cover with icing.
CREAMY PENDANT
INGREDIENTS
375 g of flour, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 2 packets of vanilla sugar, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon, 125 ml of cream of 20 or 30% fat, 250 g of butter, 1 egg yolk, 2 tbsp. tablespoons of milk, colored sugar and chopped nuts for decoration
COOKING
Mix the egg yolk with milk, put the butter in the refrigerator. Sift the flour onto the work surface with a slide and make a depression in the middle. In this recess, put all the ingredients except the egg with milk and butter and with the PART of the dough, knead in a not very thick dough. Add the butter from the refrigerator (diced) and knead the dough very quickly. The dough should be smooth and uniform.
Put the dough for an hour in the refrigerator, then roll it into a layer half a centimeter thick, cut strips about 20 cm long and half a centimeter wide. Roll up and roll the stripes along the long side in the shape of pretzels. Put the cookies on a baking sheet greased with butter, grease the surface of each with an egg and milk and sprinkle with a thick layer of nuts and sugar. Bake at a temperature of 200-220 degrees for about 10 minutes.
VANILLA PENDANIOS
INGREDIENTS
125 g finely chopped nuts, 200 g flour, 100 g starch, 200 g sugar, 4 sachets of vanilla sugar, 200 g butter.
COOKING
On a work surface, mix flour, nuts, starch, two-thirds of sugar, including 3 sachets of vanilla. Place the diced and chilled butter on top and mix vigorously in a smooth, uniform dough. Place the dough for half an hour in the refrigerator, then roll it into a layer and cut strips (see recipe above).
Place the pretzels on a greased baking sheet and bake at a temperature of 150 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. At this time, mix the remaining sugar with vanilla sugar and immediately ready pretzels to roll in sugar.
GINGERBREAD COOKIE
INGREDIENTS
125 g butter, 200 g sugar, 4 eggs, 100 g grated dark chocolate, 150 g finely chopped hazelnuts, 125 g finely chopped ginger fruits in sugar, 200 g raisins, 250 g flour, 1 bag of baking powder for dough. For decoration sugar icing with lemon juice.
COOKING
Grind the butter until completely softened and whitened, add sugar and eggs, then chocolate, nuts, ginger, raisins, flour and baking powder. Knead a smooth, uniform dough. Roll out the dough into a layer and put on a greased baking sheet. Bake at a temperature of 175 degrees for about 20-30 minutes. Remove the dough from the oven and immediately cut into triangles, squares, rhombuses. Cover the resulting cookies with sugar icing.
CINNAMON COOKIES
INGREDIENTS
3 egg whites, 1 pinch of salt, 300 g icing sugar, juice from half a lemon, 300 g finely chopped hazelnuts or almonds, 1 bag of ground cinnamon, 1 pinch of soda.
COOKING
From a third of icing sugar and water, prepare icing sugar.
Beat the cooled egg whites with salt in a carefully defatted bowl with a mixer in a thick foam, then beat for 2 minutes, gradually adding the remaining powdered sugar.
Now add lemon juice to the foam (continue to mix, chopped nuts in small portions, add cinnamon and soda at the end.
Roll out the resulting dough into a layer 1 cm thick, cut out cookies, each grease with sugar icing. Put the cookies on a greased baking sheet and bake the cookies for about 25 minutes at a temperature of 140 degrees.
BISCUITS WITH CHOCOLATE GLAZE
INGREDIENTS
250 g flour, 2 bags of baking powder for dough, 175 g finely chopped hazelnuts, 1 bag of ground cinnamon, 50 g finely chopped lemon and orange candied fruit, a pinch of salt and 3 eggs. For glaze: 250 g of powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, 100 g of grated chocolate.
COOKING
Sift flour into the pan, add baking powder, then, gradually adding, mix with hazelnuts, cinnamon, candied fruit and salt. Beat eggs in a foam, add sugar, then gently mix the foam with the dough. Knead the dough so that it becomes smooth and uniform, roll into a layer with a thickness of at least 1 cm and cut out cookies. Lay out the cookies on a baking sheet, oiled, and bake at 175 degrees for about 20 minutes.
For icing, mix powdered sugar with lemon juice and grated chocolate. Turn cookies hot over to the other side and grease with chocolate icing.
COOKIES-FLOWERS
INGREDIENTS
375 g of flour, 200 g of butter, 150 g of powdered sugar, 1 egg, 1 bag of vanilla sugar. For the core of flowers: 2 egg whites, 4 tbsp. tablespoons with sugar, 125 g finely chopped nuts, grated lemon zest, cherries or other berries from jam.
COOKING
From flour, butter, icing sugar, eggs and vanilla sugar, knead the dough. The dough should be smooth and uniform, put it in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
At this time, whisk the whites in the foam with sugar, the foam should be thick (how to do it, described on our forum), gradually add chopped nuts and lemon zest, while continuing to whisk.
Roll the chilled dough into a half-centimeter thick layer, cut out cookies and transfer to a greased baking sheet.
In the middle of each cookie, put 1 teaspoon of protein-nut mass, on top - cherry or another berry.
Bake cookies at 175 degrees for about 20 minutes.
All recipes have been personally tested by me. Read more about Christmas baking at our Forum.
Material prepared by Elena Karpova
