Hey! It's December 12th, which means I'm halfway through this Advent calendar!
I'm really so happy I'm doing this thing, even if it's a real challenge to find the time for all the baking, photographing, editing and writing. Phew, it really takes some time!
And that's why today, I'm running late...the morning post turned into an evening post! Please bear with me, I hope you didn't want to bake your Zimtsterne for breakfast today.
And that leads us to the next topic: I have to confess that today's recipe was kind of a
Zimtsterne were the second candidates on my list of the most important cookies I had to include here, after Vanillekipferl; they're such a classic. It's true though that I don't know many people who make them at home. Why? I had never thought about that. Now I think I know! Because the dough, or at least the one I tried, is one sticky mess!
The good news is that in the end, they turned out perfectly fine; it only took some adjustments and tweaks. And I also remember having them made before and without any problems. So maybe the eggs were too big, or there was too much humidity, or who knows.
I'll give you the recipe as I made it, with the necessary corrections (in my case).
Recipe (inspired by this one, yields 50 little stars)
3 egg whites (of medium sized eggs!)
375 grams almonds with their skins on
150 grams confectioner's sugar (+some more)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 pinch of ground coffee beans, optional
a bit of orange zest
a pinch of salt
some flour or cornstarch on hand to adjust the consistency of the dough
Grind the almonds to a fine powder.
Beat the egg whites to firm peaks with the salt, then fold in the sugar bit by bit. Set aside 3 tablespoons of this mix, you'll need them to decorate the cookies.
Fold the almonds, cinnamon, coffee and orange zest into the egg whites.
If the dough is still very sticky at this point, add more confectioner's sugar or some flour. I used rice flour because I didn't want them too sweet, but I recommend using cornstarch for example as I think the rice flour is not optimal for the texture of the cookies.
I had to add quite a bit of it to be able to roll out the dough. Roll it out 0,5-1 cm thick, tucked inside a big freezer bag or between two layers of clingfilm or on a silicone baking mat to prevent it from sticking to everything.
Then let it rest in the fridge for at least two hours. If it's still too sticky and soft at this point, you can put it in the freezer for 20 minutes.
Take it out and open the bag/clingfilm. Preheat your oven to 120º C/100º C fan. Cut out little stars of the dough, using some more confectioner's sugar or flour to coat the cookie cutter and maybe sprinkle on the dough to prevent them to stick to each other.
Put your stars on two lined baking sheets. Use the remaining egg white mix to brush the cookies with it.
Bake for about 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 100º C/80º C fan and bake for 10-15 minutes more. The tops of the cookies should stay white. They're still soft when you take them out of the oven but they'll firm up once they've cooled down.
Leave them to cool on a rack....and DON'T store them in an airtight container. They'll keep better if you leave your container a bit open, otherwise they'll get too hard! This way, they keep for up to a month.
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