Zimsterne (German Cinnamon Star Cookies)

Its Christmas!

Ok so its not. In fact it was about 3 weeks ago now (3 weeks?? How depressing).  Its snowing outside though and Le Pose announced this morning that snow meant it was Christmas, basically because every Christmas song talks about it snowing... She now believes that they are linked and I can't bring myself to burst her little bubble.  Its meant to snow again tonight and I'm praying it does.  Snow. Day. Please.

What does this all mean?  Well, in a convoluted way it means I can still post about my Christmas baking. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Whilst I love the idea of giving homemade goods for Christmas (I once spent a week making truffles for all my co-workers) I still don't really get the whole cookie plate thing.  I do get cookies though.  I bloody love cookies.  My longest running cookie memories are the German spiced Christmas cookies which mum used to always buy from Waitrose, every single year, the minute they hit the shelves.  My family go through bags of them.  It seems though that we were the sole consumer of the cookies and they stopped selling them.  Bastards.  This year I decided that they couldn't be that hard so I figured I'd make some for Christmas Day.  So I did.

I did my usual research on the t'interweb and settled on this recipe because of the great reviews. 

The recipe - Zimsterne (slightly adapted from Food.com)

For the dough:

300g ground almonds

100g caster sugar, sifted

50g plain flour

2tsp cinnamon

2 egg whites

For the icing:

Icing Sugar

Water

1. In a bowl mix dry ingredients for dough.

2. Add egg whites and knead until a still sticky dough is formed.

3. Wrap in cling film and put into the fridge for at least one hour.  I left it in the fridge a good 3hrs mainly because I was trying to get other Christmas bits done!

4. Near the end of cooling time preaheat oven (170 C).

5. Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper.

6. Get the dough out of the fridge and roll it out between two layers of parchment paper or cling film. The dough should be a bout 1 cm thick.

7. Using a star cutter (mine was inherited from my ma!) cut out the stars and place them on the baking tray.

8. Bake the cookies for about 10 - 12 minutes until they go golden brown (but not texture like sun -ha!).

9. Take them out and let cool completely.

10.  While they are cooling mix up the icing as instructed on the packet.  Holding the star by the edge, dip the star flat side down into the icing and give it a wiggle (yes, that's a technical term in Kitchen Lucy).  Repeat for each cookie and allow to dry on a wire rack.

How easy is that??  They keep for a while in an airtight container apparently (and actually taste better and better the more they "age" - aged cookies, now there's a gimmick!), not that Pose let them last that long.  Even when I was making them I kept going into the kitchen to find cookies missing from the cooling rack.  To say she loved these cookies would be a gross understatement.  She's been begging me to make more since!  My little sister took one bite and said they tasted like the cookies mum used to buy.  I hadn't discussed the background to making the cookies so I took that as an almighty thumbs up.

Just one point to note - The actual recipe provides for a meringue glaze instead of the icing but I'm not going to lie, the-OCD-hate-to-throw-anything-away-nutjob-in-me couldn't bear to waste 3 egg yolks.  Plus the reviews generally criticised the meringue glaze so I figured I could do without.  I may try it next time though.