I cannot stand the cold, dark and wet German winters. Sure, the long evenings can be homey, especially with some comfort food, candles and hot drinks, but after some weeks I inevitably start yearning for the sun.

The last years we celebrated Christmas at far flung – and warm – places like South Africa or Kenia. This year we decided to stay at home. I like it. Only sometimes, especially after gray days full of nonstop drizzle, I feel this yearning again, but I have learned that cooking and baking helps a lot, especially all the Christmas dishes we did not have the last years.

Hence, I was particularly happy the other day when I discovered the original recipe of Grandma´s Elisenlebkuchen in my mother´s cookbook collection. It´s been years since we last had them, and I was so eager to have them again. Unfortunately, my first attempt was quite a disaster.  But I didn´t give up and this time I got it right.

A tip for chocolate lovers:

My grandma always made the cookies with a lemon sugar glaze. But I am sure they are yummy with a chocolate coating, too.

Elisenlebkuchen – German Elise Gingerbread

Ingredients:

3 eggs

50 g (1,76 oz) sugar

50 g (1,76 oz) honey

150 g (5.3 oz) almonds, finely grounded

150 g (5.3 oz) hazelnuts finely grounded

50 g (1,76 oz) almonds roughly grounded

50 g (1,76 oz) hazelnuts roughly grounded

100 g (3,5 oz) candied lemon peel

100 g (3,5 oz) candied orange peel

1,5 tsp cinnamon

grounded seeds of 9 cardamom pods

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp coriander

1/4 tsp nutmeg

2 cloves, grounded

1 pckg. vanilla sugar

¼ tsp almond essence

12-15 oblates (very thin, paper like wafers)

Sugar Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tbsp water

1 tbsp lemon juice

Method:

1.   Whisk eggs with sugar, honey, vanilla sugar until they become a pale and stiff cream.

2.   Fold in nuts, candied peels and spices.

3.   Heat the oven to 150°C (300°F).

4.   Arrange the oblates on a baking tray.

5.   Form little balls, about the size of a small clementine (I simply used an ice cream scoop), place them on the oblates, and flatten the scoops. The gingerbreads should be about 1 cm (0.6 in) thick.

6.   Bake for 25-30 minutes. (Don´t use the air circulation of the oven.) The gingerbreads should rather dry than bake and remain soft.

7. Remove from the oven and let cool. In the meantime mix the sugar glaze. Still warm, brush the gingerbreads with the glaze and let sit on an cooling rack until the glaze has firmed up completely.

Enjoy!

Inspired by Just Bento

I just got a request for a new manuscript, and I should be writing. But as always I´m putting off the start and decided to clean up my recipe-link-list instead. I didn´t get far. Already the photo of the second recipe made me droole over the pictured gomashio cookies.

Since I had a sweeth tooth and the recipe did not include any sugar, I decided to play around with the ingredients. I added an egg and baking powder to make the cookies more cookie-ish and dredged them with brown sugar. The result was amazing! The rather salty dough contrasts greatly with the sweet crust and the texture of the cookies is a bit like shortbread. And best of all: They are not only absolutely delicious but healthy, too!

Ingredients:

30 g (1.05 oz) tahin

1 Tbsp. sesame oil

1 Tbsp. native coconut oil (if you don´t have coconut oil you can take olive oil)

3 Tbsp. gomasio (mixture of roasted, ground sesame seeds and seasalt)

50 g corn flour ((3.5 oz)

50 g whole weat flour

1 egg

1 tsp. baking powder

1 egg white, beaten

sesame seeds and coarse brown sugar for sprinkling

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Combine the wet ingredients (egg, oil, tahin) and mix.

Add flour, baking powder, gomasio, mix well with your hands or electric mixer, the dough should be pliable, but still a bit crumbly.

Form a ball, then a roll about 4 cm (1.6 oz) thick and cool it in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

Cut the dough in thin slices, toss them from both sides in sesame seeds and put them on the baking sheet.

Brush the beaten egg white on the upper surface of the cookies and sprinkle very generously with the sugar.

Bake for 20 minutes. Make sure that the cookies don’t get too dark, you may have to cover them with tin foil.