These classic German Christmas cookies (Zimtsterne) are similar to a macaron, but with more nuts, very chewy, and with lots of cinnamon!
Prep Time50 minutesmins
Cook Time20 minutesmins
Total Time1 hourhr10 minutesmins
Course: Cookies
Cuisine: German
Keyword: Christmas, Cinnamon, cookies, Zimtsterne
Servings: 60cookies
Calories: 75kcal
Ingredients
Dough
100gwalnuts
100ghazelnuts
100galmonds
100gplain flour
1tbspcinnamon
3egg whites
250gcastor sugar
1tspvanilla essence
1/2tsplemon essenceoptional
Glaze
150gicing sugar
1egg white
1tbsplemon juice
Instructions
Dough
If using whole nuts, grind them all in a blender until fine, but not to a paste. You can use store bought ground nuts instead too, but make sure they're fresh.
Add cinnamon and flour to the nuts and mix well. The dough should come together into a lump, but feel very soft. Set aside.
Start whisking the 3 egg whites together with vanilla and lemon essence. When they are foamy with very tiny bubbles, then very slowly rain in the sugar while continuing to whisk. Keep beating the mix until you get soft peaks.
Fold in the dry ingredients until well mixed and you have a coherent dough that you can roll out. It will be very soft, probably softer than you may know from making other cookies, but not so wet that you can't cut out stars with a cookie cutter. If too wet, add a little bit more flour or nuts.
Generously flour a silicone mat or your work bench. Roll out the dough to 8mm thickness.
Glaze
Use a whisk to mix together all the glaze ingredients until very smooth. The consistency should be like runny honey. If too thin, add more icing sugar.
Thinly spread the glaze over the rolled-out dough, all the way to the edge.
Cover the bowl with the remaining glaze with cling wrap to prevent it from drying out.
Making the cookies
Use a wet (!) and clean (!) cookie cutter for every cookie you cut out. Place the cookies onto a lined baking tray and let them rest for 30 minutes until the glaze is dry. If you don't want to use a cookie cutter but just cut little squares with a knife (which is much less time consuming and so much easier), hey, who am I to judge :)
The remaining dough can be mixed together again, rolled out, and re-glazed for another round of cookies. Repeat the process until all dough is used up. If it gets too wet, add more flour or nuts.
Pre-heat the oven to 150C. When the cookies are dry, bake them on a medium-low rack for about 20min. Don't let the glaze turn brown.