German Cookie Bake-Off part 3

Welcome to the last installment of our German cookie baking extravaganza - a day so long, it required three blogs. A long day, but a fun one, filled with lots and lots of sugar. I probably had a weeks worth of sugar that day. I'm still recovering.
Cookie #7: Mini Americans. They are really called this. Basically, they're smiley faced cookies. Apparently, we Americans are extra smiley. Smiley enough to be noted by German cookie bakers. I'll take it. Any other theories? I'd like to hear them.

Maike's piping out some piles of doo. I mean dough. (It kind of looks like doo if you use your inner elementary school imagination.)

See, the piles flowed into nice little cookie pillows. They are tasty just like this, however not as fun to look at.

Maike is painting a canvas of white icing on the bottoms of the cookies.

I got to make up the faces with melted chocolate. I got the most fun part! Some had uni brows and mustaches. Excess facial hair is always funny.

Mini Americans
Preheat oven to 355 degrees F.
Mix 100g. softened butter, 100g. sugar, and a pinch of salt for 8 minutes. No less!
Add beaten egg and mix for 30 seconds. Add a second beaten egg and mix for another 30 seconds.
Combine 250g. flour, 1 package of instant vanilla pudding mix, and 1 Tbsp. baking powder.
Add dry mixture to butter mixture alternating with 5 Tbsp. milk. (Example add 1/5 of the dry, then 1 Tbsp. milk, then 1/5 of the dry, then 1 Tbsp. milk, etc.) Until just combined.
Pipe little circles onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes.
Let cool and decorate with frosting. (Make smiley faces with two different colored icings.)

I'm going to emphasise, again, for you to get a scale; a DIGITAL scale. Digital scales hop from grams to ounces in a second. It's great. Hooray for technology!

ATTENTION COCONUT LOVERS! This is your cookie. Heck, even coconut dislikers, you will like this cookie. As a coconut disliker, I can honestly say that these cookies are fantastic! So give them a try. They are very easy to make.

Scoop. Plop. Top. Scoop. Plot. Top. Scoop. Plop. Top. Scoop. Plot. Top. Scoop. Plop. Top. Scoop. Plot. Top. Scoop. Plop. Top. Scoop. Plot. Top. You get the drift. After so many hours of baking. It becomes like clock work. Auto pilot kicks in. Scoop. Plop. Top. Scoop. Plot. Top.

Topping them with a chocolate chip was a great idea. That little bit of chocolate was perfect as well as adorable.

And now, you eat!

Or you decorate with more chocolate. AND THEN EAT!

Coconut Lumps
Preheat oven to 320 degrees F.
Cream 50g. softened butter, 125g. sugar, and 1 Tbsp. vanilla sugar.
Add 1 whole egg and 1 tsp. almond extract and mix for 30 seconds.
Mix 125g. flour and 2 tsp. baking powder. Add half of dry mixture to butter mixture and add 1 Tbsp. milk. Mix just until combined, then add the rest of the dry mixture and 200g. coconut flakes. Mix until just combined.
Scoop out by the tablespoon full. Option - top with a chocolate chip.
Bake on lightly greased baking sheet for 10-12 minutes.

Want to learn how to peel an almond? You'll need to know for this last cookie. It's quite fun actually. Start by boiling some water.

Throw in the almonds and wait a couple of minutes. Drain the hot water and plunge the hot almonds into some ice water. Now for the fun part.

Squeeze the little naked almonds from their skins.

Don't stare! Have you no manners?! They are shy. Poor things, all cold and naked.

Now for the tricky part. Find the seam of the almond. Slide a paring knife in and crack the almond in half. Set them aside to use at the end.

Bethmännchen is the name of this cookie. Maike and Nadia couldn't find a way to translate it. (Sometimes there just aren't the right words in our English language.) So, I've given them an alternative name: Worth the Wait cookies, because they take 50 minutes to bake! The dough - another marzipan based dough - is not pretty. It's a sticky mess, but pinch off small amounts and roll into balls.

A reserved egg yolk will make them shine. This cookie is the best dressed of the bunch. Use some water to keep the dough from sticking to your hands.

Lather up the dough balls with the yolk.

Bring back the naked, halved almonds, and place three on top of each dough ball.

Very nice. Very nice.

These were my second favorite - tied for first place, next to the Almond Moons. What can I say, I dig on some almond cookies.

Bethmännchen/Worth the Wait Cookies
Blanch and peel almond skins from 500g. of whole almonds. Split in half.
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
Mix 200g. marzipan, 50g. powdered sugar, 1 egg white, 1 Tbsp. flour until combined and roll into balls the size of a tablespoon.
Glaze dough balls with a beaten egg yolk. Top with three almond halves.
Bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for 50 minutes.

I hope you have enjoyed our long day of cookie baking. Surprise your family and friends by baking something different for this upcoming holiday. A German cookie perhaps?

German Cookie Bake-Off part 2

The sweet saga of our German cookie extravaganza continues! On to Cream Cheese Cookies!
This delightful batter is laced with almonds (of course) and cream cheese. (Cream cheese. Shouldn't it be called creamed cheese? I always feel funny saying, "cream cheese". Maybe it's just me. I'll have to do some research.)

These little nuggets get a dusting of powdered sugar after baking. I've found that most of these recipes are not overly sweet like our American cookies, so the extra dusting is a nice touch.

Ta Da! Careful not to over bake them. I think we kept ours in the oven for just a minute too long. Boo! They are super when they aren't burnt. I also suggest making them this size. Small. I couldn't imagine them big. I think they might fall apart under their weight if they were big. Besides, the smaller they are, the more there is to share!

Cream Cheese Cookies
Preheat oven to 390 degrees F.
Combine 200g. cream cheese (or an 8oz. block), 50g. shortening, 120g. sugar, 1 Tbsp. vanilla sugar, ½ tsp. almond extract and cream until light.
Add 50g. flour, pinch of baking powder, 200g. ground almond, and 1 tsp. lemon zest. Mix until just combined.
Whip an egg white, and gently fold into batter.
Drop by the Tablespoon full on to greased baking sheet.
Bake for 20 minutes or until just browned on bottom.

OK, you're in for a surprise with this next cookie. The Linzer cookie everyone has seen, but this recipe has an unusual ingredient. Well, not so unusual, but an unusual way of using it.

This recipe calls for 1 whole egg, 2 egg yolks, and 2 HARD BOILED egg yolks! WEIRD! I don't know what the purpose is. Texture? Flavor? (But you can't taste them in the cookie.) I'm so confused and in awe at the same time. Follow me through this incredibly labor intensive recipe. If you're looking to impress someone, this is the cookie to make for them. Just watch.

There's all the stuff. See the crumbled hard yolks?! I still can't get over it.

After some chill time in the fridge, we rolled the dough out very thin. It puffs up some in the oven. Check out the ancient cookie cutter. It's my mom's.

We used a large round cookie cutter and a small heart for the top cookie layer. (You'll see.) Nadia and I had such a hard time keeping the dough cool. The kitchen had been so warm all day from baking and the dishwasher was on. (Which we were working on top of.) We rotated the dough SEVERAL times, from counter to freezer and back again.

After they had made it out of the oven and cooled off a bit, we "painted" the round cookies with jelly that we'd loosened on the stove. No lumpy jelly for our cookies!

The top cookies get a healthy dusting of powdered sugar before being layered on top of the jellied cookies. I might add that it is wise to bake the top cookies separately from the bottom cookies because they cook more quickly.

Theoretically, the cookies should be the same size, but we had so much trouble transporting the dough, we warped them quite a bit. Arg! Not done yet. One more step.

Fill the holes to the brim with more jelly. They look rather nice like this. An impressive cookie for very much loved, appreciative cookie eaters.

Awww. Look how cute the parchment paper looks afterward. Just darling.

Linzer Cookies
Ingredients: 250g. flour, 250g. ground almonds, 250g. sugar, 250g. softened butter, 2 egg yolks, 1 whole egg, 2 hard boiled egg yolks crumbled, ½ tsp. cinnamon, and ½ tsp. ground clove.
Mix all ingredients together until just combined and chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Roll out dough to ¼ inch thick. Cut with circular cookie cutter. Using a small cookie cutter (about 1 inch wide.) cut out the centers of half of the cookies.
Bake on a greased sheet for 10 minutes. Let cool.
Heat jelly until warm and runny. Pour and brush on a small amount of jelly to the whole circle cookies. Sprinkle the cookies with the hole in the center with powdered sugar. Place the powdered sugar cookies on top of the jelly covered cookies. Fill the hole with jelly and let the jelly set up.

Cookie #6: Almond Moons or Marzipan Crescents. The almond lover's cookie.

When Maike gave me the list of ingredients that we needed, I really had my doubts on finding marzipan. She actually found it. I had no idea it was on our grocery store shelves all along. Who knew! I'd like to meet those Americans using marzipan. Who are you, and why aren't you friends with me?

The mixer was not needed for this recipe. Although Nadia totally fell in love with my mom's stand mixer. Honestly, what's not to love? It was too big to fit in her already crammed suitcase though. (It's probably over the allotted weight limit anyways. Sorry, Nadia.)

Here Nadia is squishing marzipan, ground almond, lemon juice, and an egg white together. (I lied about the lemon juice. We forgot that part, but it's in the recipe.)

A generous dusting of powdered sugar!

More squishing and mushing until the dough comes together.

Patience should be an ingredient listed here because making the dough balls into crescents is time consuming. But it's TOTALLY worth it. This recipe was tied for first place with another cookie that I've yet to talk about. Soooo good!

This is a very pretty cookie. It's got a regal quality, I think.

I'm working on my patience and crescent-shape making. Grab ball, roll in almonds, shape into crescent. Grab ball, roll in almonds, shape into crescent....

They plump up after baking. PS - I don't even like marzipan, but these cookies are a dream.

To fancy them up even more, you can dip the ends into melted chocolate. I, a chocolate lover, actually prefer them *gasp* without chocolate. Go figure.

Almond Moons/Marzipan Crescents
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Mash together by hand 200g. marzipan, 100g. ground almond, 2 Tbsp. lemon juice, and 1 egg white until just combined.
Sift 100g. powdered sugar over the dough and mix in with hands.
Roll into tiny ½ inch logs. Roll logs in sliced almond pieces. (Approx. 100g.) Shape into crescent.
Bake on lightly greased baking sheet for 10-12 minutes. Let cool. Option: dip or drizzle with chocolate.

Keep your pants on. The third and last issue of our cookie bake-off will be coming soon. Sweet!

Holiday Gift Ideas!

First of all, I'm proud to announce that we now have a Cookie of the Month Club package on Etsy. You or a special someone can get one dozen, fresh and delicious cookies every month. Each month, a different flavor will be mailed to you. With this package deal, you'll get the first month's dozen for free! Shipping is included, so no need to hassle with that. Order a Cookie of the Month Club for the SweetTooth in your life.

And now on to our holiday spiely-spiel.

Hello Everyone,
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-The Antioxidant Oatmeal dough loaded with plump blueberries, Ghirardelli dark chocolate, & topped with a pecan
-Black Forest Rich fudge dough filled with melted Belgian chocolate & cherries; rolled in walnuts
-Coffee Coins Decadent coffee and chocolate swirled dough, baked to chewy perfection and drizzled with coffee icing
-The Dirty Hippie Cocoa and oat based cookie loaded with Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips and almond with hints of cinnamon. Vegan-friendly!
-Double Fudge Decadent fudge dough filled with melted Belgian dark chocolate & topped with a Guittard milk chocolate chip
-Ginger Spice Bites A crisp, flavorful cookie packed with ginger, cinnamon, cloves and molasses. This cookie is gluten-free!
-Jagerdoodles Our “drunken” cookie. Snickerdoodle meets Jagermeister (a German liquor) in this spicy treat.
-Lemon Tarragon Sables Fresh tarragon from the garden and organic lemon, a refreshing cookie that is great paired with tea.
-Oatmeal Black Currant A spin on Grandma’s signature cookie, made with black currants and cinnamon.
-Oatmeal Peanut Butter Oatmeal dough is filled with all-natural peanut butter & crushed peanut pieces. Vegan-friendly!
-Peanut Butter Buttons An all-natural take on Mom’s classic featuring all-natural peanut butter and local honey
-Peanut Butter Cups Dough made with all-natural peanut butter cups a square of rich Belgian dark chocolate
-St. Louis Specials Traditional St. Louis coffee cake in cookie form. A light & fluffy mix of cream cheese and vanilla
-Sea Salt Chocolate Chunk Two kinds of Belgian chocolate roughly chopped to maximize the chocolaty goodness, sprinkled with sea salt for a sophisticated taste of sweet and salty.
-Thumbelinas Almond shortbread thumbprint filled with Indiana organic raspberry preserves; topped with almond icing
-Toffee Shortbread Bites Vanilla shortbread squares layered with toffee & drizzled with Belgian dark chocolate
-White Chocolate Cranberry Sugar dough is filled with tart cranberries & sweet Ghiradelli white chocolate chips; flavored with a hint of Brazilian rum.

German Cookie Bake-Off part 1

Let's start this holiday season off well with a COOKIE BAKE-OFF!!! Allow me to introduce you to my Germans. Below is Maike. We've been friends since high school; since Mrs. Stitt's Biology II class actually. We made models of DNA together out of straws and Cheerios. We got A's and a long lasting friendship. Maike has since made numerous trips back to the US and has brought more German friends to add to my collection. (I have a curio of Germans. They are my most prized possession.) Wouldn't that be weird if it were true.... This trip she brought her best pal, Nadia, who she's known since they were babies! How cute!
(Please note the scale that Maike is using. They measure all of their ingredients by weight. It's actually way more accurate than our cup system. If you don't have a scale, just go to any store where kitchen supplies are sold and pick one up. They aren't very expensive, and it's a nice tool to have around the kitchen.)
This is Nadia. Say "Hi" Nadia. "Hi", she says. Any friend of Maike's is a friend of mine. Nadia is especially easy to like. She's the sweetest, AND she brought many, many recipes for the Holiday cookies that she makes with her mom every December. We had a baking extravaganza and were baking/working for 11 hours, and we didn't even get to two of the recipes! It was a long, long day, but very fun. I learned a few new tricks like how to peel an almond. I'll teach you, too. Our first cookie was called a Wasp Nest. (Say that 10 times fast.) It's a meringue cookie with almond and chocolate. Pictured above is the whipped egg whites. They should be whipped to a stiff peak.

Pouring in mass amounts of chocolate and almond.

Here's Nadia demonstrating how to GENTLY fold the almond and chocolate into the egg white batter.

And now spooning the batter onto the baking sheet. We used parchment paper, but a well greased baking sheet would work too.

Here's the last photo I toke of the Wasp Nests. This is a prebake photo, but they look the same after they've been baked, only dryer.

Wasp Nests
Preheat oven to 275 degrees F.
Whip 3 egg whites, until stiff, but not dry. Add 250g. white sugar and 8g. vanilla sugar. Whip together quickly for a very short amount of time. Careful not to deflate eggs.
Add 125g. of chocolate – finely chopped, and 250g. slivered almonds. Fold gently into egg mixture.
Drop by the Tablespoon full onto a greased baking sheet.
Bake for 22 minutes.
“Like a child’s laughter,” quoted from my brother, Aaron after eating one. Oh, Aaron.

On to the next cookie! Ox Eyes! I know you're thinking, "Mmmm, how appetizing!"

In Germany, you can get hazelnuts and almonds in a variety of cuts: ground, slivered, shaved, sliced, peeled, etc. They are very particular about their nut! We in America, for the most part, are not so much. So we had to mill our own. Hazelnuts before milling.

Hazelnuts after milling. A few noisy minutes in a food processor should do the trick.

Here's the dough for our Ox Eyes.

Now divide the dough in half.

Roll each half into a long log about an inch in diameter. Wrap up and chill in the fridge. Nadia was in love with the wax paper. Apparently they don't use wax paper in Germany. They've got parchment, but no wax. She bought some to take home with her. I bet the customs inspectors at the airport gave her a funny look.

After they chill out, slice them and roll the slices into balls.

Dot the eyes. With the end of a wooden spoon, make holes. Careful, the dough wants to split and crack. Go slow and hold on to the dough ball with your other hand.

Yay, they've been baked! Now sprinkle with powdered sugar.

And fill with jam or jelly that has been heated on the stove top until runny.

The finished Ox Eyes. Maike said that they need to "dry" uncovered for 2 days. I don't really understand this step, but do as the woman says. She's German. She knows.

Ox Eyes
Preheat oven to 390 degrees F.
Blend the following ingredients together until just combined: 200g. softened butter, 100g. sugar, 2 egg yolks, 1 vanilla bean’s worth of vanilla seeds, pinch of salt, 300g. flour, and 80g. ground hazelnuts.
Divide dough in half. Roll into logs 2 inches thick. Wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours. Slice ¼ to ½ inch thick and roll into a ball.
Poke a hole in each ball using the end of a wooden spoon. Careful not to rip ball. Bake on a greased baking sheet
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until lightly brown. Let cool.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and fill with jelly that has been warmed on the stove until runny.
Let cookies “cure” or “dry” uncovered for a couple of days.

Third Cookie: Piped cookies that we named "Ugly Sticks" and "Broken Fingers" - for Halloween. (I'm so glad I got this posted in time for Halloween. Go me.)

Here's the smooth batter before we shoved it into a cookie press. You can use a pastry bag as well to pipe them out onto a cookie sheet, but we didn't have one of those.

Piping turned out to be a two person job. It was kind of a mess, but a hilarious mess at that.

The dough looks really rough and jagged, but it will smooth out in the oven, I promise.

We baked a couple weeks before Halloween, so we made half of the sticks into "Broken Fingers". Maike made the knuckles with a knife edge and made fingernails with almond slices.

Mmm! Fat, broken fingers! Before the blood.

With the other half, we made sticks and decorated them. Maike made one for each of us. Personalized cookies would be great place settings at a dinner party.

Here's the rest of Maike's work. We just used melted dark chocolate and piped it on with a plastic bag.

For finishing the broken fingers, we dipped one end in white chocolate and then dipped it into red sugar. (We were going to use red food coloring to turn the white chocolate red, but we were out of that too.)

The finished fingers. Keep this in mind for next year's Halloween party.
Maike and Nadia got creative and gave a few of the fingers manicures. Lovely, don't you think?

Piped Cookies/Ugly Sticks/Broken Fingers
Preheat oven to 355 degrees F.
Whip 175g. softened butter, 220g. white sugar, 8g. vanilla sugar, and 3 whole eggs until light and foamy.
Mix together 400g. flour, 1 tsp. baking powder, and a pinch of cinnamon, and add to wet mixture.
Pour into a piping bag or cookie press. Pipe onto a lightly greased baking sheet.
Bake for 12 minutes. Let cool. Dip or drizzle with chocolate.

Stay tuned for Part 2 and Part 3 of our German Holiday Cookie Bake-Off.