CHOCOLATE CHRISTMAS COOKIES

As I mentioned in earlier posts about Christmas baking in Germany, cookie baking is a kind of national sport in German homes. The more you bake the merrier is the Advent season, and the happier is your family!

These scrumptious chocolate cookies have all the ingredients for a melt-in-the mouth tasting experience. Flavoured with cinnamon, cardamon and cloves, they combine all the warm flavours of Christmas. Finally, their buttery crumbliness with the crunch of the roasted hazelnut in your mouth will make you long for more.

Baking tips:

1. Roast nuts the day before to save time.
2. Mix all ingredient with your hands until all dry ingredients are almost incorporated with the butter and crumbly.
3. If you have strong hands, continue kneading until you get a smooth dough.
4. If you want to save your energy, transfer the crumbly mixture into a food processor and pulse few times until you get a smooth dough. Don’t use processor with ingredients before combining them. See step 1. You will have a small mess.
5. Transfer the dough onto a clean kitchen surface and divide into 3 to 4 parts. Roll each part into a log of 2-cm thickness. Wrap with plastic cling and chill for two hours. This will make it easier to work the dough. Work the dough until soft again and roll into a 2-cm thick rope.
6. Finally, if baking other cookies, you can organize yourself and prepare dough and chill overnight.
7. Recipe can be easily doubled. You might want to do that as you will love them!

Dina Kohl

Chocolate Christmas Cookies

Fragrant crumbly cookies

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 45 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Servings: 30 Cookies

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: German

Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients

  

• 125 g soft butter
• 50 g confectioner’s sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 125 g corn starch
• 35 g flour
• 15 g cacao
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon cardamom
• 1 pinch cloves optional
• Roasted hazelnuts or almonds to fill

Method

 

1. Place the confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, cornstarch, 2 tablespoons of the flour, spices and cacao in the bowl of a stand mixer. Hand whisk to combine the dry ingredients. Add the butter in cubes. With a paddle attachment mix on low speed 1 for few minutes. At this point you have a fine crumble texture. Increase to speed 6 and mix for few minutes until well blended.
2. Transfer dough onto a clean working surface. Add the rest of the flour and knead well with your hand for 2 minutes until you get a nice soft dough. Roll and form into a 5-cm thick log. Wrap with plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours.
3. Line one baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven 190°C/ 375°F. Remove dough from fridge and with a sharp knife cut the log into 4 pieces. Roll each piece into a 2-cm thick rope. Cut 1-cm thick slices. Press one nut in the middle of a slice and roll into a ball in the palms of your hands. Place on prepared baking sheet and bake on 2nd lower for 15-20 minutes. Let cool on a rack and dust with confectioners’ sugar.

Notes

All images and text © Dina Bayoud Kohl