Baking cookies on Christmas Eve is a long-standing European tradition with roots deep in the past. There is a legend about a monk who accidentally added spices to the dough, and then stuck various figurines from it on the biblical theme, but no exact information about this has survived. Be that as it may, cookies with ginger, cinnamon and vanilla are a must-have for the Christmas holidays to this day. Here are some of the most popular recipes for cookies and other holiday baked goods.
Iced Cinnamon Stars
Ingredients:
- 200 g wheat flour
- 80 g butter (softened)
- 60 g sugar
- 40 g ground almonds
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 60 g icing sugar
- a few drops of water
Cooking step by step:
1. Thoroughly rub butter and granulated sugar with a spoon until a fluffy mass of uniform consistency is obtained. Beat an egg into it, stir in almonds, cinnamon, and flour with baking powder (baking powder), previously sifted through a kitchen sieve. Knead a fairly stiff dough and form into a ball.
2. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Roll out the dough on the prepared work surface in a layer about 1/2 cm high. Using the curly notches, cut out the cookies in the shape of stars.
3. Spread the pieces on an oiled baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes, without turning to a strong blush. To make the icing, combine the icing sugar and a little water, and apply the mixture to the cooled cookies with a cooking brush. Let it dry thoroughly.
Walnut crescent with vanilla
Ingredients:
- 140 g wheat flour
- 100 g butter
- 50 g ground almonds
- 40 g sugar
- 1 yolk
1 bag of vanilla sugar
Cooking step by step:
1. Slightly soften the butter and rub it with granulated sugar until fluffy. Whisk in the yolks, then stir in the flour and ground nuts. Roll a dough that is sufficiently plastic, which then turn into a ball and set in the cold for a couple of hours.
2. Remove a ball of dough from the refrigerator, pinch off small pieces from it with your hands and manually shape each of them into a crescent shape, place the resulting blanks on a greased or parchment lined baking sheet.
3. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Avoid excessive browning. Cool the finished cookies slightly and roll them well in vanilla sugar while still warm.
Traditional shortbread cookies
Ingredients:
- 150 g wheat flour
- 125 g butter (softened)
- 60 g sugar
- 1 yolk
- a pinch of salt
- 50 g icing sugar
- a few drops of water
Cooking step by step:
1. Make butter and sugar into a fluffy mass by rubbing them with a spoon. Add yolk, salt and flour. From the resulting sufficiently plastic dough, mold a ball and leave it in the room for about an hour. Now roll out the dough in a layer 1/2 cm high on a flour-powdered table and cut out the curly blanks with a special mold.
2. Bake on an oiled baking sheet for 8-10 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Make sure that the cookies do not brown too much - they can burn very quickly. Cool without removing from the baking sheet. Then carefully remove and let cool completely.
3. To prepare the frosting, stir the powder and a few drops of water until smooth, using a cooking brush, apply to the already cooled cookies. You can decorate the top with colored pastry sprinkles, but this must be done before the icing has frozen.
Chocolate cake with rum
Ingredients:
- 200 g chocolate
- 400 ml flour
- 200 ml sugar
- 200 ml natural yoghurt
- 100 ml odorless vegetable oil
- 1 egg
- 3 tbsp. spoons of quality cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons of rum
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
Cooking step by step:
1. Remove all prescription food from the refrigerator 15 minutes before cooking. Stir in the granulated sugar to the egg and shake with a regular fork. Add vegetable oil, beat with a whisk.
2. Stir in natural yoghurt and rum and whisk the mixture well again. Mix flour with soda and cocoa powder, sift all together and gradually add to the egg-yogurt mass. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and stir into the dough - the chocolate should be distributed fairly evenly.
3. Pour the resulting mixture into an oiled muffin or pie pan and bake for 30-40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. The readiness of the dough can be checked with a match or a toothpick - it comes out of the cake dry, which means you can get it out of the oven. Sprinkle the finished cake with icing sugar.
Muffins with candied fruits on condensed milk
Ingredients:
- 200 g flour
- 1 can of condensed milk
- 2 eggs
- 100 g sour cream
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- candied fruits, icing sugar
Cooking step by step:
1. In one bowl, combine condensed milk, eggs and sour cream, beat using a mixer - the speed should be low. Stir in flour, sifted with baking powder, and a handful of candied fruits and knead to a homogeneous dough.
2. Lubricate portioned molds for muffins with vegetable oil (if you use molds made of food grade silicone, their surface need not be greased). Lay out the dough, leaving some space at the edge. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 190 degrees Celsius. Sprinkle the finished muffins with powdered sugar.
