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Zimsterne - German Cinnamon Star Cookies

These sweet almond and cinnamon cookies – Zimsterne – are quintessential  Christmas cookies that you can find in Germany and other German-speaking countries such as Austria and Switzerland. Christmas is not Christmas without these crisp, spicy cookies. It is a German tradition for almost every family to make a batch of this kind of Christmas cookies at home.

  • Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes (plus chilling time)
  • Yield: 20 cookies

INGREDIENTS

For the cookie dough:

  • 6.2 oz (175 g) butter, softened
  • ½ cup + 2 ½ teaspoons (125 g) granulated sugar
  • 3 tablespoons (25 g) ground cinnamon 
  • 1 large egg
  • ⅓ cup + 1 ½ tablespoon (50 g) hazelnut flour 
  • ½ cup +1 teaspoon (50 g) almond flour 
  • 2 cups (250 g) flour

For the white royal icing:

  • 1 ½ cup + 5 teaspoons (200 g) icing (powdered) sugar
  • 2 tablespoons (30 g) egg whites (see note #1)
  • several drops of lemon juice

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. To make the cookie dough, place softened butter, granulated sugar and ground cinnamon in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix. Add egg, hazelnut, and almond flour and mix again. Finally, add all-purpose flour (use a flour sifter) and mix to combine. Remove the cookie dough from the bowl and form a ball.

  2. Roll the dough out with a rolling pin  between two sheets of parchment paper  (sprinkled with icing sugar) to the thickness of 0.4 inch/1 cm and refrigerate for 1 hour.

  3. To make the white royal icing, whisk the egg white with icing sugar and 3 – 4 drops of lemon juice using with an electric mixer.

  4. Take the cookie dough out of the fridge and spread a thin layer of royal icing with a bent spatula.  Chill the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or in the freezer for 15 minutes.

  5. Preheat oven to 300 F/150 C. Cut out cookie stars with a 2 inch/5 cm star-shaped cookie cutter, remove cookies by pushing them underneath and arrange them on a baking sheet covered with the parchment.

  6. Bake cookies for 12 to 15 minutes. They must be baked, but the royal icing must not color. Remove cookies from the oven and let them cool down.

NOTES

  1. 30 g egg whites approximately equal raw 1 fresh egg white from medium size chicken egg.
  2. Choose a six point star cookie cutter or a five point star cookie cutter to make these cookies.
  3. Wash and dry a star cookie cutter (if necessary) before cutting the next cookie. It makes cookies neat!
  4. If you do not have a star-shaped cookie cutter, make them diamond or triangle-shaped. Feel free to use your favorite but simple cookie cutter.
  5. Test and adjust your oven. Do not over bake cookies; otherwise, the royal icing turns brown. You strive to get the icing as white as possible, but a little brown tint can look beautiful, too.
  6. The remaining cookie scraps (falls) are not pretty as cinnamon stars, but you could bake them as well. They are delicious!
  7. Cinnamon star cookies can be stored in a dry, airtight container in a cool place for up to one month.

https://www.bakinglikeachef.com/german-cinnamon-star-cookies-christophe-felder/

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