{12} Pignoli

We’ve made it to the end of another instalment of the 12 Days of Baking! This cycle has gone on a little longer than I planned and well into the New Year, but I’d rather that than pile on the stress of trying to do everything by Christmas Eve. Also, spreading things out gives friends and family a sporting chance of being able to enjoy what I bake, rather than turning it into an endurance event whereby cookies need to be eaten as fast as they are made…

To bring things to a conclusion, we’re finishing with a classic Italian cookie: pignoli.

These morsels are delicious almond cookies, crisp and lightly golden on the outside and with a soft and chewy centre. They are generously coated in pine nuts which toast lightly in the oven. They are simultaneously simple and luxurious. I love their festive appearance which will look good on any cookie tray, but they are equally at home any time of the year with a cup of good coffee for a quiet moment of reflection.

Pignoli originate from the island of Sicily in Southern Italy, where both almonds and pine nuts feature in local cookies. They’ve also made their way to the US, where there are also a favourite in Italian-American families at Christmas.

While my festive baking this year has included some complex bakes, pignoli are (comparatively) easy. One bowl, no resting, no chilling, just roll, coat in nuts and bake. And this is a delightful recipe as it gives you a lot of deliciousness for minimal effort.

When it comes to pignoli recipes, many are based on almond paste, which is mixed with sugar and egg whites. Almond paste is a 50/50 mixture of almonds and sugar, and not the same thing as marzipan here in Britain (marzipan here is typically 25/75 almonds to sugar). However, almond paste is not an ingredient that is easily available in stores here, so I’ve come up with an easy recipe that just uses ground almonds and sugar. It gets us to the same place, and I think it is easier – there is no need to break down a lump of almond paste into a smooth mixture.  Essentially I’m offering a route that involves less work, getting you more quickly to delicious pignoli.

However, even if there is less work involved, we need to be honest. These are clearly luxury cookies. A good amount of almonds, and then lots and lots of pine nuts. This is not a cheap recipe, but hey, they are called pignoli and so pine nuts should be used generously. And you want them to taste of something. I tipped two large bags of pine nuts into a bowl for coating the cookies and assumed I had over-calculated. The rest could be toasted and sprinkled into a salad perhaps? But no. I think I ended up with about a dozen pine nuts left in the bowl at the end. So just a word of warning – get those nuts in, and don’t think you’ll be able to wing it with that half-used bag lurking in the baking cupboard.

If you want to play around with the flavours you can add lemon or orange zest, and they would still be pignoli. Or you could skip the pine nuts and use other nuts to coat the cookies – flaked almonds, or chopped hazelnuts, pistachios or cashews would all work – except that you’re then not making pignoli. They’ll still taste great, but they will be something else. This is, of course, a good way to make a batch of visually different cookies using one basic recipe (or if you ignored my warning and ran short of pine nuts…).

One final point worth knowing – there is no flour, butter or milk in pignoli so these little guys just happen to be naturally gluten and lactose-free. This makes them a great choice if you want to impress and you know someone who needs to avoid either in their diet.

To make Pignoli (makes around 20):

For the dough

• 2 large egg whites
• 175g ground almonds
• 100g icing sugar
• 100g granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

To decorate

• 200g pine nuts
• icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 175°C (345°F) and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

2. In a large bowl, briefly whisk the egg whites until foamy. Add the rest of the dough ingredients and mix to a smooth dough. It should be sticky but you should be able to form it into balls. If too dry, add a little water. If too sticky, add a teaspoon each of ground almonds, granulated sugar and icing sugar and mix well.

3. Take a teaspoon of the dough (around 25g) and form into a ball. Roll in the pine nuts. Transfer to the baking sheet. Leave around 5cm between each cookie, and keep going until all the dough is used up.

4. Lightly press each cookie to flatten slightly, then bake for 15 minutes (turn the tray around half-way to get an even colour). When baked, remove from the oven, allow to cool on the tray. Lightly dust with icing sugar before serving.

{11} Bauernbrötchen

We’ve already had one culinary jaunt to Austria this year with our pumpkin seed crescent cookies, and we’re going back for our penultimate recipe: Bauernbrötchen which translates as “farmers rolls”. But plain and rustic little breads these certainly are not!

At first glance, these seem to be chocolate crinkle cookies. They look like they contain chocolate, they are white and have that distinctive cracked appearance. Have I just made some of those and called them Austrian?

Of course not! But maybe these are their ancestors from the old country? I did look to see if I could find out more about how these cookies got their name, but drew a blank. My first guess was that it is something to do with the fact they use a lot of nuts, and that nuts were prevalent on farms. Of course this theory fall down quickly – the recipe uses a lot of chocolate, which is historically a luxury ingredient. My second guess, which seems more likely, is that they have more than a passing resemblance to large loaves of Austrian rye bread which is coated in flour with decorative cuts. Which theory do you think is right? It’s got the be the second, right?

Anyway, the method and ingredients  for making these is very different from crinkle cookies. They are made mostly with ground nuts and grated dark chocolate, with just a little flour to hold everything together. So in my book, that makes them even better than crinkle cookies. They are rich but also substantial and taste very, very festive. They also skip spices or citrus flavours, so provide something different on a holiday cookie plate too. I also really like the random cracked appearance which is a real contrast to perfectly identical cookies.

For the nuts, I have used walnuts. These seem to be common in many recipes, and in my mind this is also a very Austrian ingredient. It features in Austrian baking, but there is also a giant walnut tree growing in the garden of the parents of an Austrian friend down near the Slovenian border. So in my head, they make a lot of stuff with walnuts there, and that was what I would do.

However, you can make some adjustments if you want (or depending on what you have to hand). Almonds, hazelnuts, cashews or pecans would all make fine substitutes, either on their own or in combination. I would steer clear of pistachios and pine nuts simply because their flavour would vanish in these cookies and they are are at the pricier end of the nut world.

There are also recipes (including on the Dr Oetker website) which use coconut. If you’re a coconut fan then I am sure this would work, but you may wish to use a mixture of coconut flour and coconut flakes as I can see the recipe remaining too moist otherwise. I’ve had past experience using using coconut flakes when I should have been using coconut flour. So take this with a warning that I have not tested this – if you want to have a go with coconut, do let me know how it works out.

You will see that some of the cookies have a lovely white appearance, while others are more mottled. This was due to oil from the nuts and chocolate coming to the surface during baking. It does not affect the taste in any way, but the easy way to fix this is double rolling. When you shape the cookies, you roll them into a ball, then roll them in icing sugar. Fill the whole tray, then roll each one again in icing sugar. This created a slightly thicker coating, and gives you that picture-perfect crinkle look.

I was pleased with how these turned out – they are pretty easy to make, and the only pain was grating the dark chocolate. With hindsight I might have done this in a food processor. I did it by hand, and chocolate on a grater goes crazy. It creates lots of static, with small pieces of chocolate flying everywhere. I’m not sure there is really anything you can to prevent this, but it is just useful to know so that you’re not wearing your best white clothes as you do this, and at least you are prepared for the mess. Good luck!

And finally, the taste test. The flavour is really good – in spite of containing a fair amount of sugar and chocolate, they are not particularly sweet. The flavour is delicious, rich and nutty. The combination of lots of walnuts with chocolate gives them what I think of as a very “central European flavour”. They also keep very well when stored in a tin. Indeed, I think they actually improve over a couple of days, which is helpful when the recipe makes 50!

To make Bauernbrötchen (makes around 50)

For the dough

• 3 medium eggs, separated
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 150g white caster sugar
• 250g ground nuts (traditionally walnuts)
• 160g grated dark chocolate
• 60g plain flour

To decorate

• icing sugar

1. Put the egg yolks, sugar and vanilla into a large bowl. Whisk until light and thick (around 3-4 minutes).

2. Fold in the ground nuts and grated chocolate. The mixture will seem very thick and dry.

3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until you reach soft peaks. Vigorously mix the egg whites into the main mixture until evenly combined. Finally stir in the flour – the mixture should be soft and slightly sticky. Cover and leave to rest overnight.

4. The next day, preheat the oven to 175°C (345°F) and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

5. Take generous teaspoons of the mixture (around 25g) and form into a ball. Roll in the icing sugar, then transfer to the baking sheet. Repeat until the tray is filled, leaving 5cm between each cookie to allow for spreading. At this point, you can re-roll each ball in icing sugar to get a good, even, thick coating.

6. Bake the cookies for 14 minutes, turning the tray half-way to get an even bake. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for a moment (they are very soft when hot), then transfer to a cooking rack.

{10} Struvor

When I made my Slovak ginger cookies I boasted proudly that I had not bought a special cutter to make them. This was not due to some new-found restraint on my part, but because I had already bought my novelty baking item for the year. That item was a rosette iron, which is used to make light, crisp, fried cookies in intricate patterns.

In English these are called rosette cookies and are popular in parts of the US with Scandinavian heritage. They appear with similar fancy patterns in Norway and Denmark, and as funnel cakes in Finland, but I’ve gone with the Swedish name struvor as I’ve lived in Sweden, and have used the recipe from Johanna Kindvall at Kokblog as my inspiration this year.

I must admit making fried cookies is a style of baking I’m not familiar with. I’m all for enjoying a donut or fried snacks, but making them at home tends to leave me a bit uneasy as I’ve got a bit of a fear of cooking things in a big bubbling vat of oil. But in a year that has made doing many things impossible, I felt it was right to give them a go. I also made sure I had suitable fire safety equipment in my kitchen, so I felt a bit happier with the big sizzling pan knowing that I was probably not going to set fire to the house (spoiler: the house is still fine).

While they look complex, they are actually quite easy to make if you have the equipment and enough time. But this is not a recipe to make when you have pets or small children running around!  The mixture is similar to pancake batter, so takes just a few minutes to mix up. You then heat the rosette iron in the oil, then when it is very hot, you dip it carefully into the batter. A thin layer of the batter will cook on impact, and then when you put the iron back into the oil, the cookie will release itself from the iron and fry to a golden colour.

I learned from experience that you need to let the rosette iron get very hot in the oil before you start. My first two attempts were really bad – the iron was not hot, so the dough did not stick, and they were a complete mess. It was just trial and error that helped me work out how to do it properly. Apart from that, the only advice I can offer is to make sure you have lots of kitchen paper on plates to drain excess oil from the cookies, and to make sure you’re able to open lots of doors and windows so your house does not enjoy the lingering aroma of cooking oil! Once you’ve got the knack, you’ll be able to turn out plate after plate of these little guys.

With the frying part done, I finished my struvor off in a few different ways. Some were dusted with icing sugar, and they were delicious. I dipped some others in cinnamon sugar and a few I finished off with sugar and ground cardamom. All tasted good, but my favourite (and the one recommended by Johanna) was the cardamom. It is a fresh, citrussy flavour that brings a bit of zing to these cold dark days.

So, how are they? Really, really great. They’re crisp, sweet and really feel very festive. They’re certainly not something you would eat every day, but that’s pretty much the point isn’t it? They transported me to a Christmas market where some sort of sweet, fried delight is de rigueur.

Struvor are best made fresh, but if you struggle to eat them all in one sitting (which is easy as even a small batch can easily run to 30…) you can store them if you don’t put sugar on them right away. Put them in an airtight container and pop them in the freezer, then revive them in a warm oven when you’re ready to eat them. While they’re not quite as good as when freshly made, they will regain their crispness and a sprinkling of sugar will revive their charm.

To make Struvor (makes around 30), based on the recipe on Kokblog

For the batter

• 150ml whole milk
• 1 tablespoon cream
• 1 egg
• pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons lager
• 90g plain flour
• 300ml vegetable oil, to fry

To finish

• icing sugar, cardamom sugar or cinnamon sugar

1. Prepare your work area. Layer several sheets of kitchen roll on a couple of large baking sheets.

2. Make the batter. In a large bowl, beat the egg. Add the milk, cream, salt and lager and. Finally add the flour and salt and mix until smooth. Leave for 10 minutes to rest.

3. Get your sugar ready. Mix caster sugar with spices of your choice, and spread out on a plate. If using icing sugar, put some into a small sieve and keep close at hand.

4. Time to fry! Put the oil into a saucepan, and heat to 180°C. When up to temperature, dip the rosette iron into the oil to heat it – you want it to be good and hot, so leave for at least 30 seconds. Take the iron out, and dip just the bottom part of the iron into the batter (be careful that it does not come all the way up and cover the iron, or the cookies will not form).

5. Put the iron back into the oil, and submerge the batter in the oil. The cookie should start to peel off like magic, but you may need to give it a little helping hand with a knife.

6. Let the cookie fry for a few seconds, then turn it over and cook for another few seconds until golden. Remove the cookie from the pan, allow excess oil to drain, then transfer to the tray lined with kitchen roll. Allow to cool for a moment.

7. If using cardamom or cinnamon sugar: press one side of the still-warm cookie into the sugar, then leave to one side to cool completely. Now start with the next cookie…

8. If using icing sugar: when you’ve cookies all your cookies, dredge liberally with icing sugar.

{8} Benne Wafers

Today’s recipe contains none of our traditional festive flavours. Meet the benne wafer: very thin, very crisp cookies that are caramelised and buttery, and flavoured with toasted sesame seeds. They’re utterly delicious, they hail from the American South and they have been presented in recent years as a great addition to the holiday cookie platter.

I’m always keen to find new recipes and I’ve said before that the USA is under-represented in my festive baking exploits. So I was keen to find out a bit more.

Benne wafers are from the city of Charleston in South Carolina, and they get their name from the word for sesame (bĕne) in the Malinke language spoken across parts of West Africa. When I started to research recipes for this year’s baking, I was initially excited to find an American recipe that goes back in time as this is quite the contrast to elaborately-iced sugar cookies.

However, it was really obvious really fast that recipes talking about “colonial times” and “African influences” were employing euphemisms. Benne was brought to South Carolina by enslaved people. This was upsetting, especially when I found out that the culture of those enslaved people saw benne seeds as being a source of good fortune, and for this reason they would grow them where they could. But I also found something hopeful in the fact that the original name has endured and become part of the culture of modern Charleston, rather than just being squeezed out by the English term as could so easily have happened. They are benne wafers, not sesame crackers. You might think that this is rather heavy commentary for a baking blog, but it simply did not feel right to skip over this point.

I also reflected on what this means for the history of the recipes that we make today, and in many cases hold dear to our collective consciousness. The history of food is the history of the world. This made me want to learn more about how the food we eat today has been influenced by our joint history – the good, the bad and the ugly. I sense some some heavy reading on my Christmas reading list this year, but I am confident that it is going to be illuminating and thought-provoking.

But to the baking. Unlike many of the recipes I have made this year, benne wafers are some of the easiest that I have tried. You just mix up the batter, spread on a baking sheet, then bake. No waiting, no chilling. And for your work you are rewarded by truly delicious, thin, crisp cookies. I happen to think that they are a very attractive shade of golden caramel with the pale sesame seeds peeping out. If you want to make them look a little more fancy-fancy, add a couple of spoons of black sesame seeds to the mixture to provide a bit of contrast.

Indeed, I would go so as to say that these might be the best cookies that you’re not making. They certainly give you a lot of reward for comparatively little effort. They also do not contain most of the traditional holiday flavours – no spice, no citrus, no fruit, no chocolate – so they offer a different flavour profile which I am confident will fly off the serving platter when (if?) we have friends round to our houses again…

Having said benne wafers are easy, there is one tip I want to share: bake a test cookie before you start with whole trays. Ovens can be fickle, and you want to work out how dark you want the cookies to be. They are delicious if lightly golden, and they are delicious is a deep caramel colour. It’s a matter of personal preference, but you do want to make sure you don’t over-bake as their thin, sugary nature makes them easy to burn too. Just a little tip to make life easier!

So there you have it – a cookie with a bit of history. But benne wafers are not unique in this regard. It doesn’t take too much to imagine what is behind the sugar and exotic spices that are much used in many traditional European festive bakes. This doesn’t mean that I will stop making these recipes, but it cannot be a bad thing to learn more about the history around them.

To make Benne Wafers (makes around 50)

• 150g sesame seeds
• 300g soft brown sugar
• 185g butter
• 1 medium egg
• 125g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, finely ground
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

2. Put the sesame seeds into a large frying pan. Cook over a medium heat for a few minutes, stirring constantly, until light golden brown. Watch them very carefully as they can burn very quickly. When done, pour onto a plate and leave to cool (they will keep cooking and burn if you leave them in the pan).

3. Put the butter in a large bowl, and beat until soft and creamy. Add the sugar and mix well. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until it is smooth and well-combined.

4. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt, then fold into the main bowl. Finally, add the toasted sesame seeds and mix well.

5. Take half-teaspoons of the mixture and place on the baking sheet, leaving at least 5cm (2 inches) between each – I put 12 on each tray. Slightly moisten your fingers with cold water, then press the dough into flat discs about 1/2 cm (1/4 inch) thickness. You don’t need to be precise about this.

6. Bake the cookie for 6-7 minute, turning half-way to get an even colour. Remove from the oven, and allow to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Note: store the cookies in an airtight container otherwise they will absorb moisture in the air and turn soft.

{7} Hausfreunde

It is nearly Christmas, so we really need to have something with chocolate. On today’s cookie platter we have Hausfreunde, which are little German cookies made of shortbread, filled with apricot jam and marzipan, and topped with dark chocolate and walnuts.

I also find the name to be is utterly charming. Or I did. I translated it as “friend of the house” or “family friend”, but thought it might be good to double-check in case my German is rusty. According to the website of the Langenscheidt dictionary (which I spent hours leafing through in paper form when learning German all those years ago, and hence now have no need for Google Translate) it can also mean “lover”. So I was sitting there thinking that these were adorable, and the name reflected that they are wholesome and traditional and familiar at the most magical time of the year. Certainly I found the flavour to be very traditional, if anything on the less sweet side, and that felt like a nod back to times past. But now I am left wondering if they are a nod to forbidden fruit, and a platter of these little guys is more about irresistible temptation? I may, perhaps, be over-thinking this.

They certainly look impressive, and you might think they are difficult to make. Certainly there are a number of steps, but each is individually fairly easy and the recipe lends itself to being made over a couple of days.

But, of course, I did decide to make life a little harder than it has to be. This is mainly because in London we’re kind of not really going anywhere indoors at the moment, and I’ve had my fill of multiple trips to the local funfair in the freezing cold. Yes, once again socialising means lots of standing outside in the cold, or being harassed to hold yet another online game of bingo for a bunch of 6 year olds on Zoom. You can see why pottering (hiding?) in the kitchen is so appealing.

So what did I do? It was the marzipan. I could have used the perfectly good and high-quality marzipan I already had in the baking cupboard. But no, I decided to have a go at making it myself. I’d already done it with my Goan Marzipan sweets, so when on a roll keep rolling.

For these cookies, I used this recipe from Anna Olsen, and it is pretty straightforward. You make a syrup of white sugar and acacia honey, then pour the hot mixture onto almonds and mix it well. The flavour is good, so it is nice to know that it is very easy if you want to make marzipan with other nuts: pistachio, hazelnut and walnut are all options to explore. I get the creeping feeling we’ll get a lot of time to practice things in the kitchen come the new year…

The flavour of these cookies really is excellent. The combination of shortbread, apricot, marzipan and chocolate really is a winner. They have that “central European Christmas” flavour vibe and I’m here for it. I started out wondering whether such a labour of love was worth the effort, but I was pleased to discover that it was. They are surprisingly not particularly sweet and seem all the more sophisticated for it.

Now, are there any tips I can share with avid bakers keen to embark on a grand project? Really, it is just about the chocolate. It is best if you temper the chocolate so that it looks shiny and has a pleasing crack when you bite into the cookies. The easiest way I have found is to put chocolate in a bowl, and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. Another 30 seconds. Stir. Another 30 seconds. Now the chocolate should be starting to melt. Now microwave in 10 second bursts, stirring after each. The key is you want to just melt it but to keep the temperature as low as possible. Basically chocolate in bars has been tempered, and it will return to that state if you melt it only slightly. But if you’re keen to get more scientific, then BBC Good Food will explain all!

Speaking of chocolate, I’ve suggested melting 300g (about two bars) of dark chocolate for dipping. This seems (and is) a lot, and you won’t use anywhere near all of it. But it makes it much easier for the dipping stage. Once I’m done, I just spread it onto a sheet of greaseproof paper and let it set. Then just break it up and use it in another recipe (unless someone else in the house finds it first and eats it).

So, Liebe Leute – we’ve passed the half-way mark in the 2021 edition of the Twelve Bakes of Christmas. I hope you’re enjoying them, and that they may even have provided a little inspiration. And I promise there is more chocolate to come!

To make Hausfreunde (makes 24)

For the dough

• 225g flour
• 25g cornflour
• 75g icing sugar
• 165g butter
• zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extraxt
• 1 medium egg, beaten

For the marzipan

• 125g ground almonds
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 100g caster sugar
• 45g acacia honey
• 1 tablespoon water

To assemble

• 200g apricot jam

To finish

• 300g dark chocolate
• 24 walnut halves, lightly toasted

Make the cookies

1. Put the flour, cornflour and icing sugar in a bowl. Mix well and set aside.

2. In another large bowl, beat the butter until light and fluffy. Stir in the lemon zest and vanilla. Add in the dry ingredients. Stir in the beaten egg until you have a soft dough – if it is sticky add a little more flour.

3. Wrap the dough and chill for an hour, or overnight.

4. Time to bake. Preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F) and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

5. Roll the dough out to around 1/2 cm (1/4 inch) and cut out circles (5m diameter). Keep going until you have 48 discs. You will need to bake them in batches.

6. Transfer the cookies the baking sheet. Bake for around 10-12 minutes, turning half-way for an even colour. The cookies should be lightly golden when done. Leave to cool.

Make the marzipan

7. In a heatproof bowl, mix the ground almonds and almond extract.

8. Put the sugar, honey and water into a pan, and heat until the sugar dissolves. As soon as it comes to a rolling boil, pour the syrup onto the almonds and work to a paste with a silicone spatula. When smooth, wrap in greaseproof paper and leave to cool at room temperature.

Assemble the cookies.

9. Match the cookies in pairs by size (there is always some variation in size no matter how careful you are).

10. Warm the jam in a saucepan. Sieve if you want (you don’t have to), then add a teaspoon of apricot jam to each base (keep some jam back for the tops of the cookies). Gently place the partner cookie on top, and leave for a moment so the jam can set.

11. Marzipan time! Knead your marzipan (if it is very stiff, you can add a few drops of water to soften it). Sprinkle a worktop with icing sugar, and roll the marzipan out to around 4mm. Cut out marzipan circles using the same cutter as you did for the cookies (5cm diameter). Brush the top of each cookie with the remaining jam, then place a disc of marzipan on top. Press down gently.

Time to dip in chocolate!

12. Melt and temper your chocolate (BBC Good Food will explain all).

13. Dip the top of each cookie into the chocolate so that the marzipan is covered, but the sides of the cookies are left exposed. Let any excess drip off, then flip back the right way up. Immediately place a walnut half on top of the cookie. Repeat until all cookies are done. Leave to set.

{6} Zázvorníky (Slovak Ginger Cookies)

Last year I had great success with walnut cookies from Slovakia that looked like walnuts. So I was naturally delighted to find another Slovakian recipe, this time for ginger cookies. And guess what? They’re shaped to look like root ginger. Pretty clever, yes?

I loved the look of these cookies as they combine three things I really like in baking – an interesting shape, lots of warming ginger, and I get to use baker’s ammonia (aka my favourite novelty raising agent). Fun times!

Baker’s ammonia is an uncommon ingredient today, but is has a long history that pre-dates baking powder (indeed, baking powder was invented only as recently as 1843 by Alfred Bird when he was looking for a leavener that was both egg and yeast-free). Baker’s ammonia was originally derived from the ground-up antlers of red deer, hence its other name “salt of hartshorn”, but it is now made chemically.

In its pure state, it has a really pungent smell of ammonia and you can’t eat it, but the benefit of baker’s ammonia is that it gives cookies great lift and crispness as it breaks down completely during baking to create gas. This does mean when you open the oven door you are treated to a really pungent waft of ammonia. The cookies themselves are completely ammonia-free, but it is important that anything you make with baker’s ammonia is fairly thin so that they can expand and that stinky gas can escape. For this reason it is not used as a raising agent in cakes. And be warned – you can’t try the cookie dough that has baker’s ammonia in it!

You can see in the picture below what effect baker’s ammonia has. The cookies will double or triple in height during baking creating a lightness that baking powder can’t beat.

You might look at this recipe and wonder if two tablespoons of ginger is really right? Yes it is. The flavour is ginger, and only ginger (with the addition of a dash of vanilla, which the Flavour Thesaurus tells me is a good pairing). So if you’re making a cookie which is all about ginger, then you really want to make sure that there is enough in there to really pack a punch. After baking the flavour really is delicious – they’re fairly sweet, but after a moment the warmth of the ginger tempers that. Heck, you might even want to add a third tablespoon of ginger is you want them really fiery. And if you wanted to make them even more special, dipping the bases into dark chocolate would be fabulous, as you’ll have the awesome ginger-chocolate combination along with the crunchy biscuit.

There is also a special cutter for making zázvorníky. I’ve seen people describe it as looking like a piece of ginger root, and that is enough for me. If walnut cookies are shaped like walnuts, it is just a matter of logic that ginger cookies should look like ginger. But it does feel like we are starting to veer into Doctor Seuss territory where cookies must only ever be shaped like the thing they are flavoured with.

Sadly, I could not find a zázvorníky cutter anywhere, so I had to improvise. I had three options. First, I could have gone online and ordered a bespoke cookie cutter based on my design which would be 3D printed. This was my original plan, but I’ve been warned on more than one occasion that I have too much kitchen equipment already. Second, you could just freestyle them with a knife and perhaps a paper template, which I think could be very meditative but would also take a bucket load of patience.

Which brings me to the third option: I improvised by cutting the rolled dough into rectangles (2x8cm), then I used a large round piping nozzle to cut half-circles along the sides. This proved to be really easy and effective, plus I got a bit of credit for not buying another single-use item. Win-win!

These cookies need to rest overnight, and in the morning you get to bake them with the joy of your kitchen already being clean. The drying is essential – it means they keep their shape, and the lift from the ammonia is directed down so that the gain a lot of height. As a result, I think they do sort of look like ginger rhizomes after baking. What do you think?

I really enjoyed these. They’re fairly easy to make, and the shape is unique and fun, and they really taste great. A clear yes from me.

To make Zázvorníky (makes 50)

• 250g plain flour, plus 50-75g extra as needed
• 2 tablespoons ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoons baker’s ammonia
• pinch of salt
• 250g icing sugar
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 4 tablespoons melted butter, cooled
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Put 250g flour, ginger, baking ammonia and salt into a bowl. Mix well and set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, add the eggs and icing sugar. Beat with an electric whisk until pale and fluffy, around 5 minutes. The mixture is done when a lifted beater leaves a “ribbon” on the mixture.

3. Add the cooled melted butter (and vanilla if using) and fold gently. Finally, add the flour mixture and mix well until if forms a firm dough. You may need to add more plain flour – add 25g at a time until you have a firm dough. I added an extra 50g in total.

4. Roll out the dough to about 1/2 cm thickness. Cut out whatever shapes take your fancy, and transfer to a baking sheet. You can make different shapes, but try to keep the same sizes on each sheet so that they bake evenly. I cut rectangles of 2×8 cm, then used a large piping nozzle to cut semi-circles along the edges.

5. Leave the cookies to rest, uncovered, overnight so that the tops dry out.

6. The next day, preheat the oven to 170°C (340°F). Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes. They are done when they are puffed up and lightly golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Note – store in an airtight container. Cookies made with baker’s ammonia can soften over time, but you can restore their crunch by putting them in a low oven for a few minutes to dry them out a little.

{5} Muskazinen

Today’s festive item is a regional German cookie associated with the town of Dettelbach in northwestern Bavaria. And they come with a delightfully whimsical origin story. Back when Dettelbach was a hotspot on the pilgrim trail, a local baker called Urban Degen sought to capitalise on all that passing trade. He created a spiced sweet, and derived the name from the German word for nutmeg (Muskat). Apparently Herr Degen was rather vain, and felt himself to be the best-dressed baker in town. As a tribute to himself, he shaped his sweets into the form of a bow tie.

The cookies themselves are fairly dry and crunchy, which is often the case with traditional bakes that needed to keep for extended periods. They are heavily spiced, with a lot of nutmeg.  Various different versions do exist, with a number of bakers in the town of Dettelbach selling versions based on their own secret recipes. I have used a recipe from the excellent site of Milk and Hanni which includes spices, walnuts and candied peel. I absolutely love them – spiced, fruity, crunchy and a really interesting bake with gives you the sense of something with a bit of history to it. They also keep very well in an airtight jar, so good to have on hand for your morning coffee or tea in the afternoon.

I have to confess when I first came across these, the shape did not scream “bow tie” to me. I thought they looked more like bunches of wheat which had been bound in the middle.  I did hunt high and low for the right mould, but the only one I could find was on Etsy and had been sold some time ago. My search for an exact match was otherwise fruitless. Either this is the must-have kitchen accessory for 2021, or they are just really hard to track down.

But fear ye not – I was able to buy a wooden shell mould which did the trick just as well. If you want to have a go and are struggling, a madeleine pan may work, or you an just form shapes freehand. They will taste as good, and it can be a good creative outlet on dark evenings.

The dough is really easy to make, with the art being in making the shapes. There is no fat in the recipe, so the dough is rather sticky. I tried using flour and icing sugar in the mould, but the cookies kept getting stuck (meaning I had to clean the mould, which delayed proceedings). It turns out the easy fix was to roll a ball of dough, put it on the tray, cover in cling film, then press the mould on top. Just like that – perfect little scallop shapes! They might not be bow ties, but I still think they look adorable.

One of the features of muskaziner is that when they bake, they puff up and develop “feet” similar to macarons. After shaping, it is essential to leave the surface to dry out (in this case, overnight) so that in the oven, all the lift in the cookie is directed downwards. It is a similar approach to making highly decorated German Springerle or  Swiss Chräbeli.

To make Muskazinen (makes around 60 cookies), recipe by Milk and Hanni

• 250g plain flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 75g finely chopped walnuts
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground mace
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 teaspoons mixed spice 
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 40g candied citrus peel
• 2 medium eggs
• 200g white caster sugar

1. Mix the flour and baking power. Set to one side.

2. Finely chop the walnuts, and then the candied peel. Put in a bowl with the spices and mix well. Set aside.

3. Put the eggs and sugar into a large bowl. Beat for at least 5 minutes until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is pale and fluffy.

4. Add the nut-spice mixture and stir. Fold in the flour to form a dough.

5. Pinch off portions of the mixture and shape (freehand or using a mould). Place on sheets of greaseproof paper.

6. Leave the sheets of cookies to dry at room temperature overnight.

7. To bake, pre-heat the oven to 200°C (390°F). Bake the cookies for around 8 minutes until risen and lightly browned.

{1} Gozinaki

Greetings of the season to each and every one of you! Yes, it’s that time of year again when we’re back with another edition of the Twelve Days of Festive Baking!

Did you miss me? I’ve missed you. But blogging has not felt like a priority this year. Work, home schooling, lockdowns and the like have left us all frazzled, and I was frankly a bit baked-out from last year. Even as a keen baker there is a limit to how many cakes and cookies you can or should consume when not really going far from the house.

As we head into the final weeks of 2021, we can look back on what has been one heck of a year. When we finished 2020, we reflected on a year which turned so many lives upside-down. We got used to new ways of living, we wondered what changes were here to say, and we shared the losses of so many. And I think many of us imagined that 2021 was somehow going to be a lot better; we invested emotionally in the promise of New Year’s Eve, only for those of us here in London to go right back into a lockdown and another round of trying to coax recalcitrant children to do their schoolwork. But the year did get brighter. We travelled. We reconnected. We even got to be spontaneous. But now many parts of Europe are going back into various levels of restrictions. It’s not easy, and we need to seek comfort and reassurance in whatever ways we can.

So having said that, let’s embark on our annual festive frolic with our tempting dozen delights from around the world. We can still visit lots of places via their culinary heritage, in the anticipation of actually being able to physically travel again at some point in 2022…

Our first festive treat comes from the country of Georgia. If you love honey and nuts, then this little taste from the Caucus mountains is just the thing for you.

I just happened across the recipe, and it proved to be the trigger for doing the 2021 series. I was in two minds about whether to do it this year with all that is going on, but in the end I was drawn to the comfort of tradition and familiarity. Having decided to do it, I would love to say that there are lots and lots of recipe out there that I still need to try and that I’m loving exploring them. The reality is I’m now into the 11th cycle of my Twelve Days of Festive Baking (which means 132 separate festive recipes!).

As a consequence I’ve already made lots of the more familiar recipes, so I need to look harder and harder to find inspiration. I’ve got a few criteria: things need to look interesting; they need to be somehow distinctive; and I like them to come from a specific place. Bonus points if they feature a novelty ingredient or need a special culinary tool. This means each year there is an ever-increasing need for detective work to get ideas, but it also means I get to explore food cultures I’m less familiar with. That is always a good thing. Actually I find it curious that thanks to pure happenstance one recipe is very well known, while another – which might be even more delicious – remains tucked away and known only in its home territory.

So I was frankly delighted when I was leafing through my copy of a Dorie Greenspan cookie book, and found this recipe. An interesting approach, great flavours, and from a new country for our Christmas baking list. It just had to feature.

The ingredient list for gozinaki is short – walnuts, honey, sugar – and you probably have these things in the cupboard already. Essentially this is like making praline or nut brittle, but the texture should be a little softer. They remind me very much of those little sesame brittle bars you get in health food stores, and which I remember consuming as a child on the basis they were a “healthy snack”. Were they really healthy? I’m not sure that lots of sugar counts, but they sure were tasty.

Given there are so few ingredients here, you want to make them shine. Toasting the walnuts lightly will bring out their flavour. And you also want a decent honey. Don’t use the expensive stuff that you bought on holiday (holidays – remember those?), as you’re going to boil it, but something that has a bit of flavour will serve you well. I used a decent runny honey and added a couple of teaspoons of Scottish heather honey for flavour while not overpowering the recipe.

Walnuts are traditional and feature in most Georgian recipe websites, and are also favoured by Dorie. But you can easily use other nuts if you prefer – hazelnuts, almonds or pecans would all be good, albeit less authentic. However, you can also avoid nuts completely. Sunflower and pumpkin seeds also feature in some websites, and will also develop a rich, nutty flavour when lightly toasted. One tip here is that you are best to start off with more nuts (or seeds) than you need, and chop by hand to get pieces about the size of a grain of puffed rice. Next, sieve the nuts to remove any power. This is actually just ground nuts and can be used in another recipe, but the sieving will help you avoid them mixture getting claggy when you mix in the caramel.

And so to the baking. I’ve stuck with Dorie’s version on the basis “who am I to question?” but with one small tweak. I’ve added a dash of sea salt, which was ground to a fine powder. I thought this would help provide just the slightest balance to the sweetness of the honey and sugar and makes for a more complex flavour profile. This really is about a tiny enhancement, and I was not aiming for a salty-sweet taste.

The method is fairly simple. Just make sure that you take the usual sensible precautions when you are working with very hot sugar (keep children and pets in another room), have everything ready so you can move quickly once the honey-nut mixture is up to temperature, and remember that greaseproof paper and silicone spatulas will serve you well here. You’re basically in a race against time to transfer the mixture to a tray, flatten it out, and then score it so that you’ll be able to get pretty diamond shapes rather than a tray of something that looks like shattered glass. Even if you struggle with the shapes it will still taste wonderful, but if you can get looks and flavour, then so much the better.

The big question: how do they taste? I thought they would be really sweet, but as you are using a lot of nuts in this recipe, they were surprisingly balanced. Very nutty, then sweet from the honey, so much so that they did seem to be more like a cookie than a piece of candy. And the salt was a smart addition too. But labels don’t matter, suffice to say they taste great and make a superb addition to a holiday cookie platter when arranged to form a dazzling golden star.

To make Gozinaki (makes around 30 pieces)

• 300g chopped walnuts (weight after sieving)
• 170g honey
• 100g white sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon flaky salt, finely ground
• neural oil, for greasing

1. Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and rub lightly with neutral oil. Get a silicone spatula and keep it to hand.

2. Toast the nuts. Put them into a clean frying pan. On the lowest heat, gently toast until lightly golden. It is important to stir them constantly and watch like a hawk – they go from toasted to burnt very fast. When done, pour onto a plate (do not leave in the pan – they will keep cooking and burn). Set the warm walnuts to one side.

3. Make the syrup. Put the honey and sugar into a medium saucepan. Heat until the sugar has dissolved, then bring to a rolling boil. You can either use the scientific method and cook it to 120°C/250°F on a candy thermometer, or drop a little of the mixture into a glass of cold water. It first it should form a stringy-looking mass, but when it starts to form clear flattened balls, you’re good.

4. Remove the pan from the heat. Immediately add the warm nuts and salt, and stir vigorously. Quickly transfer to the baking sheet. Use a silicone spatula to press and shape the mass into a large rectangle, around 1cm deep. You can use a silicone rolling pin to get it smooth, or you can use a normal rolling pin and place a sheet of oiled greaseproof paper on top before rolling.

5. While still warm and pliable, cut the gozinaki. Get a very sharp knife, and rub lightly with oil. Cut the rectangle into whatever shapes you like. You may need to clean and re-oil the knife several times. Diamond shapes are traditional, but you can also cut squares or triangles.

6. Leave to cool completely. Store in an airtight container (if it is not airtight, the gozinaki will go soft and sticky).

{11} Italian Rainbow Cookies

My previous festive baking post offered simplicity, so it was only inevitable that today we’d go back to complexity. And as it is New Year’s Eve, albeit the low-cal and less exciting version, it is only fitting that we do something that is colourful and has a bit of panache to it.

Earlier in this year’s baking extravaganza I posted some cookies from the Philippines and mused that I had not made many recipes from outside of the gingerbread-spice world of Western Europe. Then I got a suggestion from a helpful reader, Jamie, who suggested I have a go at Italian Rainbow Cookies. In spite of the name, they are a staple of American Christmas baking, particularly amoung the Italian-American community, so would tick the box of stepping beyond Europe for holiday inspiration. So…I did just that. I did actually have another recipe in mind for the No 11 slot this year, but for better or worse it has been bumped. Maybe it will make the cut for the 2021 edition?

Truth be told, I’ve seen these before, but I’ve been put off from making them as they look complicated. However what with lockdowns and the like, I’ve got plenty of time on my hands (i.e. my excuse has gone), so we were all set for some lurid rainbow cookies. All fabulous seven layers of them. And here is what I made!

I’m beyond thrilled with how they worked out. Seeing them all laid out neatly like this I have the vague feeling that I’ve made some sort of edible interactive Tetris set. I originally arranged them in neat lines all in the same way but it looked too orderly. Hence the more random arrangement. It’s chaos within order.

These little guys are also called Seven-Layer Cookies, and it’s easy to see why. There are three layers of almond-flavoured sponge, sandwiched together with jam, and then the top and bottom have a layer of dark chocolate. They are made as one giant sheet, then cut into individual bite-sized cubes.

I find them both cute and oddly extravagant. But are they Italian? Are they a rainbow? And are they really cookies? The last two are easy. You could go with any colour you wanted, but the red/white/green tricolore seems to be pretty ubiquitous. The tricky thing is to get more of a rainbow, you need more layers, which makes them more complex, and the size would become impractical. I also think it is wise to go with colours that could be natural as opposed to blues and purples. So they’re not a real rainbow, but I think the three colours do work well together.

Are they cookies? Well, not in the sense of something that is made from dough that has been rolled out and shaped or cut. But neither are they cookies made from balls of dough, or drops of batter. While the term “cookie” is pretty flexible, these guys are really are more like little cakes. The closest I can think of are petit fours, those fancy little bite-sized French cakes you might get with afternoon tea or after a special dinner.

So, they’re at least Italian, right? This is where things get more mixed. Some think they’re not Italian at all, while others think they must have at least a tenuous link to the old country. Other sources suggest the recipe was developed within the Jewish community that lived alongside Italians in American cities. Whatever the true origin, they have acquired the “Italian” moniker and they seem to be a key part of an Italian nonna’s festive baking repertoire, and given that it’s probably best not to argue.

But where to start with baking them? Jaime pointed me in the direction of the Smitten Kitchen recipe from Deb Perelman. I’ve followed some of Deb’s recipes in the past, and been pleased with the results. In a pretty crowded online recipe world, and with what seem like dozens of YouTube videos of those nonnas making these things, I decided to go with a recipe that I was pretty confident would work. She also writes with candour about how she found the process and offers tips for getting it right, which is something I always like to see. A tricky recipe being described as “easy” or “a breeze” does no service to the reader and it underplays the work of the baker too.

I planned to do this over two days, as they baked cake part needs to chill for at least 8 hours with a weight on it. I think the idea is that this helps to ensure the cookies are perfectly flat, the layers bond to each other, and I think it helps with the texture too. I figured I could do all the baking and assembly one day, then do the chocolate and the chopping the next. I recommend doing it in this way as it helps keep you sane. The kitchen does end up covered in a fair few bowls coated in many different colours.

But was the whole process a breeze? I did have one major wobble. Once I’d done the baking, assembling and chilling, I removed the tray from the fridge to start doing the chocolate layers. I trimmed the sides, partly to neaten it all up, and partly to have some offcuts to eat. With a nice sharp knife it was a dream to cut. Then I was frankly horrified upon doing a sneaky taste – the cakes seems dry and hard. I panicked. Had they been over-baked? Had I wasted my time? In fact, they were just cold. As they came up to temperature, they softened and that delicious jammy almond flavour emerged. So yeah, just note that this happens!

The chocolate layer was the bit that worried me. You need to do the top and the bottom. Now, I can temper chocolate, but it takes time and patience. Plus it is about 1 degree (centigrade) outside, so our old London brick house is freezing which makes it all the more tricky to get chocolate to a precise temperature – not too hot, not too cold. This was a problem that the Smitten Kitchen recipe had too. Well, it turns out the answer was actually mercifully simple – you just add a little unsalted butter to the melted chocolate. No tempering, and this also means the chocolate has a bit of “give” so that it becomes easier to cut.

And what’s the verdict? Well this comes in two parts. How much work were they, and how do they taste.

In terms of effort, they are a lot less work than I thought. I probably spent one hour doing all the baking, and that was alongside keeping an eye on my son, who also tried to help (and promptly made a mess). Then maybe 20 minutes assembling it all before leaving to chill overnight. The chocolate was the job for the second day. Splitting it up in this way makes it quite easy. Manageable mess, and you don’t end up going doolally from it all. Italian Rainbow Cookies are also quite fun to make them if you’re slightly obsessive about precision in your baking. For indeed, my much-treasured Japanese steel metal ruler helped get those sharp lines and equal cuts.

In terms of how they taste, I love them. They have an intense almond flavour and lovely fruitiness from the jam (which I boosted with a little amaretto and some cherry liqueur). This is all balanced by the dark chocolate. I’d even go so far as to say that they taste much better than they look. While I’m all up for a bit of whimsy in the baking, the red/white/green colour scheme is a touch lurid for my tastes. But then, it is iconic, and I wonder if anything else really would do? Plus, where else are you going to find cookies that can symbolise the flags of Italy, Hungary, Ghana and Mali depending on how you place them? They are certainly some of the most striking things I’ve ever made in terms of the looks department.

So there we have it – my efforts in accepting one reader’s challenge. I’ll wrap up by sharing a tip of my own for recipes like this one where you have to divide the batter and the jam into equal portions. Get some electric scales, and weigh your bowls before using them. This makes it really easy to work out by weight how much batter or jam should be in each portion. I happen to know my main mixing bowl is 580g. Believe me, it saves a lot of guessing, eyeballing and general culinary angst. And it does help get even layers when making something like Italian Rainbow Cookies where you want to be precise to show off just how fancy you can get with your baking.

To make Italian Rainbow Cookies (recipe from Smitten Kitchen, with some tweaks)

For the batter

• 4 large eggs, separated
• 200g white caster sugar
• 200g almond paste (see note)
• 285g unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 260g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• red food colouring
• green food colouring

To fill

• 1 x 340g jar apricot jam
• 4 tablespoons water or amaretto and cherry liqueur (I used Luxardo Maraschino)

To finish

• 200g dark chocolate
• 20g unsalted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Prepare 3 sheets of greaseproof paper to fit a 33 x 23cm (13 x 9 inch) baking pan.

2. Put the egg whites into a large bowl. Beat until you have soft peaks, then add 50g of caster sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until it forms stiff peaks – it should look like a meringue.

3. In a separate bowl, grate the almond paste. Work with your hands so that it gets soft, then add the remaining 150g caster sugar and the butter. Beat until pale, fluffy and everything is combined. Add the yolks, almond extract and vanilla extract, and keep beating on high speed. If you can still see a lot of flecks of almond paste, keep beating to get it super-smooth. When done, fold in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix well.

4. Add half the meringue mixture to the other bowl, and fold in to lighten the batter. Then add the rest of the meringue mixture and fold that in.

5. Split the batter between 3 bowls. Add red food colouring to one, and green food colouring to another. Put the green batter into the fridge, and put the white batter to one side. Pour the red batter into the prepared baking tray, and spread as evenly as you can. Don’t worry if the batter does not seem very deep – it is supposed to be just under 1/2 cm (1/4 inch) deep.

6. Bake the red layer for around 10 minutes. It will still look a bit wet on top, but a cocktail stick should come out clean. You don’t want more than the lightest of browning at the edges. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for a couple of minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack.

7. Remove the green batter from the fridge to bring it up to temperature. Set aside. Now prepare the baking tray again, and bake the white layer. When that’s done, repeat for the green later.

8. While the cakes are cooling, prepare the jam. Put it into a saucepan, add 4 tablespoons or water or a mixture of amaretto and cherry liqueur, and bring to the boil. Pass through a sieve, and set aside to cool.

9. Once all the layers are completely cool, prepare a shopping board or tray by lining with a sheet of greaseproof paper. Flip the green layer onto the paper. Spread with half the cooled jam mixture, getting it as even as you can. Then flip the white layer onto the green layer, and spread with the rest of the jam. Finally, flip the red layer and place on top. Wrap the whole lot in cling film, place in the fridge, then put a heaving baking tray on top and add a few jars to weigh it all down. Leave to chill overnight.

10. Time to finish it off. Remove the tray from the fridge. Use a clean straight knife to trim the edges. You’ll notice that they seem quite firm and dry – this is normal.

11. Prepare the chocolate. Put 100g chocolate in a bowl, and microwave in 30 second bursts until it is melted. Add 10g of unsalted butter, and mix well. Spread evenly on the red layer, getting it as smooth as you can. Place in the fridge for a few minutes to set.

12. Remove the tray from the fridge, and flip it onto another tray (so now the chocolate is at the bottom, and you have a green sheet of cookie facing you. Melt the rest of the chocolate, then add the rest of the butter. Spread on top, and put it back to the fridge for 5 minutes to set.

13. Use a serrated knife to score lines on top of the chocolate, marking first vertical, then horizontal Go back over the vertical lines to cut through the layer of chocolate. Then switch to a clean straight-edged knife to cut through the cake layers, and swap back to the serrated knife to cut through the bottom lawyer of the chocolate. You should have long strips of rainbow cookies.

14. Take each strip and place on its side do you can see the pattern facing you. Use a small sharp knife to cut into individual pieces in a swift downwards motion. Keep going until all the cookies have been done. Store in an airtight container in the fridge, but allow to come to room temperature before serving.

Note: this recipe calls for almond paste (which is 50/50 almonds and sugar). The brand I used was Odense Mandelmassa that I panic-bought earlier in the year. The stuff you find in British supermarkets called marzipan is usually 75% sugar, 25% almonds. It’s great for decorating, but it’s not right for this as the sugar content is too high.

{10} Brune Pinner

For this year’s tenth festive bake, we’ve gone back to Norway. Land of mountains, forest, fjords and a seemly endless supply of cookie recipes. These ones are called brune pinner or “brown sticks”. There was lots of imagination at play when someone came up with that name. Perhaps it’s a nod to those forests?

This year I’ve done a few recipes which are complex, take a lot of time, or need specialist equipment. Today’s recipe is the complete opposite of that.

These cookies are very easy to make, and they might just be about to become your new favourite accompaniment to morning coffee. They are thin, crisp, and by turns buttery, caramelised and lightly spiced. Christmas might be drawing to an end for this year, but we’re still in the middle of winter, and we need those little moments of comfort to keep us going, especially this winter. Everyone is facing the next wave of coronavirus in their own way; in London everything except essential retail is closed, hospitality is take-out only, and we’re limited to meeting one friend outside in the park. It is looking like the New Year will see us heading to Lockdown III and the closure of schools. So I’d wager this is not quite the ideal time to start resolving to give up cookies in 2021…

So. Brune pinner. These are part of the Norwegian tradition of syv slags kaker. Busy Norwegians try to do out-do each other by making seven different type of cookies to offer their guests over the festive period. I’ve made a few different ones over the years – serinakaker, krumkaker, berlinerkranser, sirupsnipper – but there are still plenty more to try. Among the “plenty more” are mainly the ones that need to be fried rather than baked, and I’ve still not managed to overcome my aversion to deep-frying things at home. Who knows – perhaps I’ll get round to them in 2021?

In my research for this recipe, I did find something that made me chuckle (which, to keep banging the same drum, we do need right now!). The Norwegian Christmas diet apparently involves quite a lot of butter, but back in 2011 and 2012 those hardy Nordic folk lived through the smør-panik (“butter panic”). Butter shortages were triggered due to heavy rains affecting grazing pastures earlier in the year, leading to a nightmare world of illicit butter smuggling, Swedish stores along the border jacking up butter prices, and a Danish TV show running a butter emergency telethon to get 4,000 packs of butter to desperate Norwegians. Clearly getting that syv slags kaker spread ready for guests is a serious business to the good burghers of Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim!

The method for making these is really very simple. Cream butter and sugar and add in the rest of the ingredients. You divide the dough into six sausages, then shape each just be pressing them down with your fingers. Easy! No oddly-named Norwegian cake devices needed, no cutters, no piping, no chilling overnight, and no layering of icing or jam. You then brush what looks like mega-cookies with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar and chopped nuts, and bake. The raising agent is good ol’ baking soda, so they puff up, expand, and then collapse, which is a process that makes for very crisp cookies. Once you’ve baked the dough portions, you whip them out of the oven, and while the dough is still soft you immediately cut them into thin strips – either with a pizza cutter or a good sharp knife. Within a minute or two, they are cool, crisp and a bit more like sticks. There’s a helpful video from Norwegian butter producer Tine here (and yes, they were caught up in that butter crisis a few years ago).

For the topping, I have used pearl sugar, also called nibbed sugar, and some chopped almonds. If you can’t get hold of pearl sugar or don’t want another item cluttering up the baking cupboard, you could use coffee sugar crystals (give them a good crushing first) or large-crystalled demerara sugar. For the nuts, these would work equally well with chopped hazelnuts, pistachios or pecans. A good tip is to mix all the sugar and nuts together before you start, then divide it into six portions to use on the dough. This avoids ending up with the first batch being lavishly decked in sugar and nuts, and the final batch looking a bit spartan. I think you could skip the topping completely if you wanted to, but I liked the extra crunch and flavour, especially from the almonds, so I’d recommend sticking with it.

One note of advice: I found that these cookies are crisp when they are fresh, but if left out overnight they will soften quite quickly. You can easily fix this by popping them back in a low oven (120°C/250°F) for a few minutes to dry them out. Otherwise get them into an airtight container as soon as you can after baking, and they will stay crisp and delicious for your morning coffee as you start to contemplate the fact that you’re about to start another cycle of working at home. But at least you’re cookie game will be on point!

To make Brune Pinner (makes around 70), adapted from Tine

For the dough

• 200g butter
• 100g white caster sugar
• 100g soft brown sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tablespoon syrup (see note)
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 300g plain flour

To finish

• 40g pearl sugar
• 50g almonds, skin on
• 1 egg, beaten

1. Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Prepare three sheets of greaseproof paper.

2. Prepare the topping – chop the almonds, and mix with the pearl sugar. In a separate bowl beat the egg. Set it all to one side.

3. Make the dough. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolk, syrup, cinnamon, vanilla and salt, and mix well. Combine the flour with the baking soda, then add to the bowl and work to a soft dough. Pop into the fridge for 5 minutes to firm slightly.

4. Divide the dough into six pieces. Take a piece of dough, form into a thin sausage about 24cm long. Next press it down with your fingers until it is 1/2 cm thick – it will get a lot wider too. It should look like a long, flat pitta bread. Repeat so that you have 2 pieces of dough on each sheet of greaseproof paper.

5. Bake the sheets one at a time. Take the first sheet, and brush the two pieces of dough with the beaten egg. Sprinkle each with the mixture of pearl sugar and chopped almonds.

6. Bake for 10 minutes – the dough will have expanded and have a rich brown colour. Remove from the oven, and immediately cut into diagonal strips, around 2cm thick, using a pizza cutter or a sharp knife. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet, then when they are firm, transfer to a wire tray to cool completely. Repeat for the rest of the dough. Stoare in an airtight container.

Note: many of the recipes I found called for “light syrup” which is a particularly Nordic thing. You can buy it online. I happened to have a bottle of Swedish “dark syrup” which I used – this is very sweet and like dark caramel, not molasses. The closest substitute I can think of otherwise would be golden syrup or maple syrup.