Christmas baking: cinnamon star cookies

Christmas approached too quickly this year. During the past few weeks, people around me went to Christmas markets, drank hot mulled wine, bought christmas presents and meanwhile, I was at home or at the library spending most of my time on studying or working. But what annoyed me most was that I didn’t get to bake – I wanted to bake a loooot of christmas cookies this year, for my boyfriend, my friends, my family and of course my flat mates! All I managed to bake until last week were two kinds of quickly-made cookies, baked sometime in the middle of the night or between classes during the last month and all already eaten since too long ago (you can’t imagine how quickly three batches of cookies can dissolve if you tell your three flat mates to help themselves – I baked, went to a class, and came home after about three hours. The result was worth an iPhone-quality before-and-after photoshoot:  You see, I had a serious baking problem this year.

So after having finished an important presentation last week, I decided to treat myself with some baking – I made cinnamon star cupcakes. Cinnamon stars are a traditional kind of christmas cookies around here. These star-shaped cookies consist of a cinnamon-spiced dough containing almond and/or hazelnut meal and they are typically sugar-glazed. The cupcakes I made also contained different nuts & cinnamon. I frosted them with a white chocolate butter cream, sprinkled some shredded coconut on top of them (to make the frosting look winter-ish, like snow) and added a cinnamon star cookie for decoration on top of each cupcake. The result was satisfying, they didn’t only look adorable but also tasted pretty good!

When writing down the recipe, I realized that a vegan version of these cupcakes would take only one or two ingredient substitutions. And although my previous attempts at vegan baking mostly failed (or at least didn’t turn out as yummy as I wished they would have), I want to give it a try before sharing the cupcake recipe with you. Until then, I have another recipe for you: cinnamon star cookies. They’re also vegan and I made them for decorating the vegan version of the cupcakes

Cinnamon star cookies makes about three batches of cookies

Ingredients: 50g ground hazelnuts 200g flour 200g marzipan 40-50g powdered sugar + about 120g for the icing 125g margarine or other vegetable fat 2 tsps. ground cinnamon

Combine ground hazelnuts, flour, 40g powdered sugar, marzipan, margarine and cinnamon and knead until you have an even dough. Taste and if necessary add the remaining 10g powdered sugar. Form dough to a ball, cover with foil and let rest in the refridgerator for at least 2 hours. Roll out a part of the dough, cut out small star-shaped cookies and bake at about 160 degrees C for 5-10 minutes, just until they start getting brown on the edges. Take out of the oven, let cool completely. Meanwhile, prepare the icing: Put 120g icing sugar into a bowl, add a little water, teaspoon by teaspoon and mix – add just enough water to get a thick icing, you don’t want it to get too liquid! Glaze the cookies with the sugar icing, let dry and enjoy

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