Recipes: German Cookies

I usually seek out a couple of new cookie recipes every Christmas when I'm starting to plan my baking marathon. The trouble is finding recipes that are easy enough, tested and don't require an unreasonable amount of time to complete.

This year I tried 2 new recipes - one had been tested (by me!) a few a months ago. 

Spritz cookies

I'd made a huge batch of these earlier in the year, and they were a huge hit at the office.The recipe yielded a ridiculous amount, and it wasn't overly complicated. The troubling part was getting the batter into the piping bag and quickly piping the cookies before the mixture warmed up. With a few people in my kitchen, it was easily 24 degrees, so the batter was getting difficult to work with. I decided to pipe simple rosettes and keep things simple before pushing the middles down and adding a dollop of apricot & raspberry jam! The baking time was quite short, and once cooled I decided that they should also be semi-dipped in chocolate. All in all, very manageable and makes a good quantity that seems to satisfy even the toughest cookie critic!

Heidesand ("sand") cookies

These traditional german treats were recommended by a fellow baker who makes these sugar cookies regularly. These are quite different from regular shortbread, despite the fact that the ingredients are identical. The first difference is that you must use unsalted butter - not sure if I agree with this. I prefer salted butter, especially when I make shortbread. The next difference is that the butter is browned. I'm not particularly fond of this process as it requires patience, but it is usually worthwhile in the end, creating a lovely nutty flavour. Once the dough is formed into a log, it must be chilled for an extended amount of time... more waiting! I didn't get to thaw and slice the cookies until the next evening, by which time I was already fed up. Ensuring consistent cookie width was also quite painstaking in my opinion. The logs I formed weren't perfectly round, so my cookies weren't consistent in shape. Finally, the baking process took extra long as I had to monitor the buttery cookies for over-browning in the oven. The end-to-end process took too long, and I'm not sure the payoff was worth it. People certainly devoured them, but I didn't care for the extra-long chilling and monitoring required. I don't think I will be baking these ones again.

My top five cookies for 2011

(Clockwise: Spiced Gingerbread, Cranberry & Pistachio Biscotti, Spritz, Shortbread and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip)