{9} Kürbiskernkipferl

You missed me? I normally try to get all my festive baking done before Christmas day so that I can then relax and enjoy my bounty over the holidays. However this year was busy (plus I started late!) and I figured that it made sense to take a little break rather than rushing to complete everything by a self-imposed deadline. Was it the right thing to do? Of course! Less stress for me in the kitchen, and now I’m feeling a renewed sense of enthusiasm after my mini-hiatus.

So here is the final tranche of festive recipes. Today we have Kipferl. These are traditional shortbread cookies that appear across Germany, Austria and Hungary (plus other countries – borders and culinary traditions rarely match easily). They are shaped into crescents, baked and then, while still warm, coated in vanilla-flavoured icing sugar.

Kipferl are traditionally made with ground walnuts, but other flavours also work well. I’ve made these before with cardamom and pistachio, but this year I decided to add a twist by using a quintessentially Austrian ingredient – these cookies are Kürbiskernkipferl, or pumpkin seed crescents. Green pumpkin seeds are used in Austrian cooking and baking, sprinkled on breads and salads, and most famously, turned into oil.

Pumpkin oil is a speciality of the southern Austrian region of Styria. I’ve been on holiday there, and seen fields and fields of the things. I assumed they were grown for their flesh, but no – the prize is those seeds. They are pressed to extract their oil, which is deep green and has a delicious nutty flavour. Indeed, it is so valued that it is referred to as “green gold”.

I’ve also been warned by two separate Austrians that if you are travelling by plane with the stuff, you need to keep it in your hand luggage, and then open it mid-flight to release a build-up of pressure, otherwise the container with shatter and ensure that everything nearby is coated with a deep green oily stain that can never be removed.

Thankfully, you can also buy pumpkin oil it in delicatessens. And if you see it, buy it! It is wonderful in dips, and drizzled on salads, risotto or even ice cream.

You might be looking at the pictures and wondering whether these cookies really are that green? I thought the same thing. I assumed other bakers had added green food colouring to get the bright shade. This assumption appeared to be validated when I ground down some pumpkin seeds, as the mixture looked rather grey. Even when the dough the colour was still rather muted. But during baking, I was proved wrong. The colour appeared and I can only assume that the oil is released and that is what gives you this pretty shade of green.

One important thing to know when making this recipe is that the dough will seem quite dry. This is because I have added cornflour to help the cookie keep their shape and to give them a crumbly texture once baked. For this reason, when shaping the cookies you just need to form the dough into balls and then press them into a crescent shape with your fingers. The traditional way to do it is the roll the dough out between your hands and form a horseshoe shape, but this dough is too fragile for that. Just make sure you avoid adding any water to the dough – it will completely change the consistency and they won’t bake properly.

Once you have shaped, baked and witnessed the miraculous colour change, you need to finish your Kipferl. Traditionally this is by dipping them in vanilla-perfumed icing sugar. In fact, you want to dip them twice. The first time when they are warm, which means that the butter in the cookies mingles with some of the icing sugar to form a sweet coating. Once they are cool and you are ready to serve them, roll them again briefly so they look snowy-white and pristine. This is also a good way to disguise any cracked cookies, so if they come out of the oven and look less than perfect, icing sugar is going to cover it all up.

However, there is also an alternative. Show off that green colour by just dipping the ends into dark chocolate. They taste great, look pretty and have more than a passing resemblance to Swedish cakes that look like vacuum cleaners (really!).

To make Kürbiskernkipferl (makes around 20):

For the dough

• 60g pumpkin seeds
• 100g plain flour
• 25g cornflour
• 80g butter
• 50g white caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• generous pinch of salt
• 1 egg yolk

To finish

• icing sugar or dark chocolate

1. Put the pumpkin seeds into a food processor and grind to a fine powder. Mix with the flour and cornflour, and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar, vanilla and salt until smooth. Mix in the egg yolk, then fold in the flour/pumpkin seed mixture. Mix to form a dough. It should be firm and seem quite dry. Wrap in cling film and chill for an hour in the fridge.

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

4. Remove the dough from the fridge. Divide into 20 pieces – each is around 15g – and roll briefly into a ball. Place on the baking sheet, then use your fingers to form into a crescent shape.

5. Bake the crescents for around 15 minutes until lightly golden (turn the tray around half-way to get an even colour and bake).

If coating in icing sugar…

6. Put icing sugar into a wide bowl.

7. Remove the cookies from the own. Allow to cool for a moment, then transfer a few of the hot cookies at into the icing sugar, ensuring each is completely covered. Remove when coated, then leave on a wire rack to cool completely. Keep going until all cookies are covered in sugar.

8. Re-dip the cookies in icing sugar just before serving.

If dipping in chocolate…

9. Let the cookies cool completely.

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

11. Dip one end of a cookie in chocolate, allow the excess to drip off, then dip the other. Transfer to a baking sheet. Repeat until all cookies are done. Leave to set.

{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.

{3} Mantecadas de Astorga

For the third instalment of our festive baking frenzy I decided to take things a little easier and go with a fairly straightforward recipe. These little treats are called Mantecadas de Astorga, and they are exactly what they look like – very simple but very delicious little cakes.

Truth be told, they are similar to sponge cakes or pound cake. While modern recipes suggest adding cinnamon, citrus zest of even just some vanilla, traditionally there is no additional flavouring. Does that mean they are not interesting? Well, they’re more interesting than our modern tastes might lead us to think.

A lot of Spanish baking uses olive oil or lard. Think of the similarly-named mantecados which are crumbly shortbread cookies where lard is essential to get the right texture. Seen against these other recipes, the use of butter was a differentiator. Perhaps a sign of a luxurious good when they were first created. Today we might see butter cookies are being rather plain, but there was a time when enjoying a sweet, buttery treat at Christmas would have been something quite special.

Of course, having just said all that, there are plenty of recipes for these case that use either just lard or a combination of lard and butter, but I’ve opted for the dairy-loving approach here as I don’t use lard in my baking.

These cakes hail originally from the Spanish city of Astorga in the north-west of the country near the border with Portugal. And if you are being correct, they should to be baked in little paper cases called cajillas. And to get authentic cajillas you need to take pieces of paper and carefully fold them so that when the cake is unwrapped we see the shape of a cross left on the paper. Of course I tried making them. I first gave this a go with some greaseproof paper but it didn’t work as the folds kept unravelling. The lesson: you need to use plain paper and ensure you have oodles of patience. And if you doubt the seriousness with which these paper cases are taken in the city of Astorga, there is even a mural in the old town to the ladies who specialise in making them.

While Mantecadas de Astorga are traditionally made in a small square or rectangle shape, it is not going to change the flavour if you use a round pan, but I do quite like the square shape as they look just a little touch more special. I’ve previously bought specialist square cupcake cases to use in a muffin tray with square holes, but then discovered that you can just use normal round cases, press them down, and they’ll fit the square shape. If you’re not folding your own cases, that is…

I did wonder whether these cakes would be worth making. No spice, no citrus, no chocolate, no nuts. It turns out they are really nice. Simple, but nice. Perfect with tea or coffee. Rich, buttery and sweet, but also very light. That said, they’re probably not a viable diet option (they do contain all that glorious butter after all) but they do seem light. Sort of in the way that a croissant is light, and we know we ought not to consume too many of those.

So I encourage you to try these – they’re easy to make, you probably have the ingredients already, and you get all the thrill of making your own paper cases. If you are so minded, I followed this online tutorial. It is in Spanish, but easy to follow, and after the first few you get into the knack of it. Soon you’ll be giving the mural ladies a run for their money!

To make Mantacadas de Astorga (makes 12-16, depending on size)

• 125g butter
• 125g sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 125g self-raising flour
• granulated sugar, to finish

1. Prepare your cake cases. Either make the paper moulds by hand, or line a muffin tin with paper cases.

2. Preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F).

3. Put the butter into a bowl. Beat until very soft. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Finally fold in the flour.

4. Divide the mixture between the prepared cake cases. Even it out with a spoon (it won’t be perfectly flat). Sprinkle generously with granulated sugar. Bake for 18-20 minutes until the cakes are risen and the tops are a rich golden brown.

{12} Vasilopita Cake

Happy New Year! We’ve made it out of 2020, and we’ve also reached the last instalment of our 12 Festive Bakes for the year. Or more accurately last year.

I normally try to finish everything before Christmas Day so that all the goodies are on offer over the festive holiday, ready to hand to all those guests who will be popping in. Except that imperative was not there this year, and we’re working our way through the various baked goods. Another thing that is different this year is that I’ve run a little later, and as the final bake was due to coincide with New Year, I decided to make something that celebrates this time of year. Well, I found out that in Greece it is traditional to eat a vasilopita. So I made one.

The name vasilopita means “St Basil’s pie”. It can be no coincidence that the Feast of St Basil is on 1 January, and he happens to be the patron saint of wishes and blessings. Very fitting for the time of renewal, new hopes and good intentions. The vasilopita can come in one of two forms. It can either be an enriched yeasted bread, or a cake. As I was making this late on New Year’s Eve, I decided to go the cake version as I thought it would be quicker to make. Truth be told, on that day I had already spent many, many hours outside in the park, and all that fresh air and very cold temperatures left me ready for bed quite early. Those New Year’s Eve celebrations where we partied until the wee hours seem but a distant memory these days…

There is also a lovely ritual that goes with these cakes. A coin is hidden in the bread or included in the cake when it is baked. When the vasilopita is served, it is cut into pieces and offered to guests in turn, from the oldest to the youngest. The one that gets the coin will enjoy good luck in the year to come. This is presumably on the basis that they’ve already enjoyed some good luck by neither ingesting the coin nor breaking a tooth on it? Anyway, I think this is a fun thing to do, but make sure you have a clean coin, wash it thoroughly in hot, soapy water, and wrap it tightly in tin foil. Safety first.

Vasilopita cakes are usually smooth, and decorated with a dusting of icing sugar. Often the year will be written in numebrs on top, either using a stencil, in icing, or perhaps using nuts. However, I decided that I would just dust with icing, as this was a good chance to use my intricate Dutch cake mould, which is shaped like a Zeeuwse Knoop. This is traditional symbol from the Zeeland region. It has twelve points on it rather like a clock, and that felt like enough of a link to New Year’s Eve to justify using it.

The traditional flavour in a vasilopita cake is orange zest, which I’ve used here. Note that I was quite heavy-handed and used the zest of two whole oranges, plus a bit of lemon zest. I loved the result, but I love citrus and this cake did pack a punch. If you want a more delicate flavour, use just one orange.

I also saw a couple of recipes that suggested using mahleb (the ground pits of the St Lucie cherry, which has a bitter-almond flavour) and ground mastic resin which is popular in Greek sweets and baking. The flavour and aroma of mastic are hard to describe, but I think it’s reminiscent of something light, fresh and resinous, with a touch of pine about it. So I added both of those since I happened to have them in the spice drawer. Neither dominates, but they add to the overall result – an aromatic, zesty cake.

After all those rich spices and chocolate over the last couple of weeks, this made a very pleasant change. We enjoyed it with breakfast on New Year’s Day, then set about taking down the decorations. We always do this on New Year’s Day, and it feels right. The festive period is drawing to a close, the house returns to a calmer state, and we get to marvel at how spacious and airy our home suddenly feels. Yes, in lockdown times it feels a little sad to be putting away all the sparkle and wrap all the tree ornaments in their protective paper, but I’m hopeful that we will be unwrapping them again in December 2021 surrounded by our nearest and dearest.

I mentioned that the vasilopita can be both a bread and cake. I think I’ll also have a go at the bread version. I’ve seen a couple of recipes, and it seems similar to an Italian panettone, but without the dried fruit and the inclusion of orange zest and mastic. If it’s good, perhaps it will make the 2021 edition of the Twelve Bakes of Christmas?

To make a Vasilopita Cake:

For the cake

• 150g butter
• 250g white caster sugar
• zest of 1 or 2 oranges
• zest of 1/2 lemon
• 1 teaspoon mahleb (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground mastic resin (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 225g self-raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 50ml whole milk
• 75ml yoghurt
• 2 tablespoons orange juice
• 25g ground almonds
• 25g flaked almonds, roughly crushed

For the glaze

• 100g icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons orange juice

To finish

• icing sugar, to dust

1. Prepare a 20cm (8 inch) diameter cake pan. Either line one with greaseproof paper, or if using a fancy mould, grease it generously with butter, then dust it with plain flour.

2. Put the butter in a large bowl, and beat until fluffy. Add the sugar and beat until smooth, then add the flavourings (orange zest, lemon zest, mahleb, mastica and vanilla extract). Mix well.

3. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until smooth. Add a spoonful of flour with each egg to prevent the mixture from splitting.

4. Mix the remaining flour and the baking powder in a separate bowl. Combine the milk and the yoghurt in another bowl. Add one-third of the remaining flour, and mix; then half the milk mixture; then next third of the flour; the rest of the milk mixture; then the last of the flour. Finally fold in the orange juice, ground almonds and flaked almonds

5. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking tin. If you’re using a fancy mould, spoon it gently so that you do not disturb the flour layer lining the mould.

6. Bake the cake for 1-1 1/2 hours until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Cover with tin foil after 45 minutes to prevent the cake from getting too dark. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

7. Make the glaze. Mix the icing sugar and orange juice until smooth, then cover the top and sides of the cake. Leave to dry.

8. Just before serving, dust the cake with icing sugar.

 

{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.

{9} Oriešky

When it comes to Christmas cookies, I have something of a penchant for acquiring yet more niche kitchen equipment.

So you can imagine that I was pretty happy to find jolly little oriešky from Slovakia which are baked to look like walnuts using special little moulds, and traditionally filled with a walnut cream. So yes, I’m now the proud owner of ten tiny walnut moulds.

Similar cookies pop up in a few countries across Europe, ranging from what you might think of as traditional cookie doughs to those made with a batter and thus somewhat closer in texture to wafers. If you are truly committed you can even go all out and invest in a little Russian walnut-making iron, similar to something you would use for making waffles. While I could justify buying a small set of walnut moulds, even I had to draw the line at an electric walnut maker. Sadly.

Finding a recipe that I liked the look of was tricky. I hunted high and low for one that would, firstly, not make about 400 cookies, and second, that I would actually like. There were a fair few recipes that I read and was not convinced by. The lack of pictures always makes me suspicious as to whether something has actually been tested. I did use one recipe which looked good, but the cookies ended up being so fragile that I baked two batches, saw most of them collapse in my hands, and I gave up. The failed cookies and the unbaked dough went in the bin.

Was I to be doomed to failure? No! I had a think about what I needed this recipe to do, and decided to adapt a recipe for Dutch speculaas cookies. I removed the spices and added a dash of cocoa powder and some ground walnuts. My little flash of inspiration worked like a dream. The dough is easy to make, easy to work with, very forgiving in terms of being handled, pressed into shape, trimmed and re-rolled, and the baked cookies are great.

The cookies keep their shape, go perfectly crisp during baking, and pop out of the moulds easily with just a sharp tap on the tray (full disclosure – my moulds are non-stick, and I’ve not tested this recipe with plain metal moulds). They also have the benefit of being a rich, deep nutty shade, so they do kind of look like walnuts. All this means they are easy to assemble, and after filling and some resting time, the cookie becomes a little softer and the whole thing is a little nugget of deliciousness.

In terms of actually shaping the cookies, it’s surprisingly easy. You pinch off a little ball of dough, then press it hard into the mould. And you really want to press – I don’t think there was more than a couple of millimeters of dough in there. At first I thought that there was not going to be enough, but have faith (and do a test bake) but they will puff up during baking. Thin dough means they will be crisp, and it also means that you’ll have a dimple afterwards that makes filling them quite easy. If the dough is too thick, the cookie will just expand and you’re going to suffer from a low filling-to-cookie ratio. No-one wants that.

If you are not in the market for investing in walnut moulds, then a small madeleine mould would work well. Otherwise you  could just roll out this dough and cut out circles to make sandwich cookies. But then they don’t look like nuts. And, well, if you’re going to all this effort, surely you want the whimsical sight of a bowl of edible walnut shells?

For the filling, you have options. I actually made two different ones – a whipped buttercream custard filling made with ground walnuts, and a whipped dulce de leche buttercream for some caramel goodness.

The walnut filling is based on a basic custard thickened with flour. While it might look complex, it’s a pretty easy method, and you get a lovely light smooth buttercream with a good walnut flavour to it. Just be warned that the amount would get will easily fill all 50 cookies, but I just could not make a quantity smaller than the one below without getting into silly micro-measurements. That said, the filling is delicious, so you can easily use it in other things. In fact, I made little sandwich cookies with some of my remaining paciencias and the walnut filling, and they were spec-ta-cu-lar. The dulce de leche filling is just caramel whipped with butter, so easier to make and if you’ve got extra caramel left over, that really is a nice problem to have.

Finally, for fun, I filled a few with some Nutella. They were just glorious. So if you are feeling lazy but still demand results, that’s defiantly the way go.

If you do decide to have a go at making oriešky, I recommend some trial-and-error testing. It seems obvious, but different moulds are different sizes, and will need different baking times. You’ll also want to check that you’re making them thin enough. It is really worth doing a rest run with just one and seeing how long it needs to bake. I often do this on a recipe that is very new to me or where I think the timings indicated might be off. Better to ruin one cookie than a whole batch.

One other thing to know – this will require a serious time commitment. Making the cookies is easy, but unless you’ve got lots of moulds, you’re doing this in a series of batches. The recipe makes 50 sandwich cookies, which needs 100 shells. I had just 10 moulds, so I had to bake 10 batches in total. I ended up spending a very, very long time filling, removing, and re-filling them…thank goodness they slipped right out and didn’t also need washing between each use too! But they look great, taste wonderful and they were fun to do. Because if your baking isn’t taking hours, does it even count as lockdown baking?

To make Oriešky (makes around 50)

For the shells:

• 95g butter
• 55g white caster sugar
• 55g soft brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 25ml buttermilk
• 200g plain flour
• 50g ground walnuts
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cocoa powder

1. Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Arrange the moulds on a baking sheet.

2. Put the butter in a bowl, and beat until soft. Add the sugar, salt, vanilla and buttermilk, then beat until creamy. Combine the flour, baking soda, cocoa powder and ground walnuts. Add to the main bowl and mix everything until you have a soft dough that comes away from the bowl.

3. Pinch off some dough and press into the mould. You want it to be pretty thin – 2-3mm at most. Trim off any excess with a sharp knife. Bake the cookies for around 8 minutes until the dough looks puffed and set, and they are a rich brown colour. Remove from the oven, allow cool for a moment, then remove from the moulds (I flipped them over and gave a sharp tap – the cookie popped out). Repeat until all the dough is used up.

4. Time to fill the cookies. Take a shell, fill it generously with the filling of your choice, then add another shell on top. Transfer the cookies to an airtight container, and leave to rest in the fridge overnight. Remove from the bridge 15 minutes before serving.

To make walnut cream filling

• 15g plain flour
• 100g white sugar
• 25g walnuts
• 120ml milk
• pinch of salt
• 110g unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon rum
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Put the walnuts and milk into a small saucepan. Use an immersion blender to blitz until smooth.

2. Add the flour, sugar and salt. Mix well. Place over a medium heat and cook until the sugar has dissolved. Keep cooking for around 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the mixture starts to thicken and looks slightly translucent.

3. Transfer the thickened mixture to a plate, cover with cling film and press it down on the surface. Leave to cool completely.

4. Put the butter in a bowl. Beat until light and fluffy. Start to add spoonfuls of the pudding mixture and beat well after each addition. Finally add the rum and vanilla. You’re done.

To make dulce de leche filling

• 100g butter
• 120g dulce de leche
• large pinch of salt

1. Put the butter in a bowl. Beat until light and fluffy.

2. Add the dulce de leche and salt and beat well. If the mixture seems too wet, add a little more butter and beat well to incorporate. You’re done.

To fill with Nutella

1. Open a jar of Nutella!

{4} Kakemenn

Today we’ve got something that is, quite simply, just delightful.  These are Norwegian cookies called kakemenn or “cake men”, but they also go by other more tongue-twisting names: julemanna, gøttekælla or kakekæller. Of course in these more inclusive times, it’s all about cake people rather than just men. And here are mine!

They are made from a very simple dough of flour, sugar, milk and a little butter. It can be left plain, or if you’re feeling daring you can pop in a little dash of vanilla or sprinkle in some cardamom. The white dough is then rolled out thinly, cut, and then baked in a low oven so that the cookies stay pale.

The leavening agent here is – surprise surprise – that Nordic favourite, baker’s ammonia. This gives cookies great lift and crispness, and a stinking waft of ammonia when you open the oven door. It’s easy to get online, but if you don’t have any, use a 50:50 mixture of baking soda and baking powder. And when I say lift, I mean lift. I rolled out my dough to 4mm, but they puffed up to about three times that during baking. This also means that you have a nice smooth surface for subsequent decoration.

Now, the catch. The dough is very simple, and as a result I found the flavour and texture of these cookies to be…underwhelming. I found lots of Norwegian bakers raving about them being the classic flavour of Christmas, but to me they were only slightly sweet, rather bland and nothing to really write home about. The texture was also not that amazing – kind of soft, kind of crisp around the edges, but again nothing being knocked out of the park compared to other festive cookies.

At first, I thought I had a duff recipe. I hunted for other recipes, and had several attempts at making them. I adjusting the relative quantities of sugar, butter, milk and raising agent to see if I was missing something. When I upped the sugar and butter and reduced the milk, I got a nicer cookie texture (albeit still pretty bland), but the surface was like a crater which did not lend itself to being decorated. So I decided that the connection Norwegians feel to them is emotional and linked to childhood memories rather than being based on flavour, and these really are just made for decorative effect. Or so I thought…

This year is the first Christmas that my son, who is five, has been really excited about. He found my tray of unadorned kakemenn and asked if he could have one. I expected he would take one bite and leave it, but instead he declared they were the best cookies and his “favourite” (which just means something he likes, since he’d never had them before). This was unexpected. I had imagined tempting him with marzipan or things dipped in chocolate. But no. When you’re small, it seems you like something that is simple and sweet. In fact, it’s become one of the preferred snacks since school wrapped up for the holidays. I felt this was success snatched from the jaws of defeat, and also a lesson for me not to judge a popular recipe so harshly! So I decided to post this recipe after all.

Beyond being popular with kids, the other reason I’ve included kakemenn is what you do once they are baked. You decorate them! You get to feel like a child and enjoy the whimsy of drawing on cookies.

This decoration is done with edible food colouring, so you can either paint them, or get hold of some edible pens and start colouring in. I’ll let you image the scene of the two of us sat there on Saturday morning, filling the time that would normally be football practice with a cookie colouring contest. It was fun, and they look really jolly when piled up on a plate. I am also reliably informed that the “cookie people” can also be easily included as part of playtime when you’re building complex railways with your wooden train set. Truly a cookie for all occasions. Their robust nature also makes me think they would be good if you want edible cookies on your tree – these things will defiantly withstand a lot.

For the decoration, I tried a few different approaches. By far and away the easiest is to use pens with edible ink. By which I mean the specialist ones you buy in the baking section. Don’t use normal pens that are marked non-toxic and hope for the best! What also worked well was painting on the colour. Either use liquid food colours, or use gel colours diluted with neutral spirit like vodka. The alcohol evaporates quickly, so the texture of the cookies is not affected, and you get strong, vibrant colours.

If you want a more natural option, you can actually have quite a bit of fun by experimenting – beetroot juice makes for a good pinkish-red colour; crush a saffron strand and add some hot water for a dazzling golden colour; matcha powder with hot water will give you a green. Of course they will still be more muted than food colourings, and I cannot promise that beetroot juice stains are any easier to remove from worktops and clothing!

I was particularly pleased with my little kakemenn families. We’ve got the snazzy family where dad is ready to party in a tuxedo and the lady of the house is wearing her jolly Christmas jumper. The children are dressed immaculately but who knows for how long? And the second family has a bit of a Nordic twist. Mr Kakemenn has something that looks a bit like traditional Norwegian national costume, while Mrs Kakemenn is in a floral print dress from Finnish design house Marimekko. And if you’re reading this thinking that I have put too much thought into all this, then you’d be right. I am getting desprate stuck at home!

One very practical thing to keep in mind – if you’re cutting out different sizes of cookies, try to bake the same sized cookies together, so that they bake evenly. I found the bigger figures needed a couple of minutes more in the oven than the smaller ones. Also, I tried rolling out the dough between sheets of parchment, but it doesn’t work. This is a dough you need to roll out on flour

And now the final-final thing. Here are the cookies that my son decorated, which I think are cute. He said they were the best, and ate those ones first!

To make Kakemenn (makes around 25-30 depending on size)

For the dough

• 50g unsalted butter
• 240g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
• 100g white caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baker’s ammonia
• 80ml milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch of salt

To decorate

• edible food colouring

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a gentle heat. Remove, and leave to cool.

2. Put the flour, sugar, baker’s ammonia and salt in a bowl. Mix well.

3. Pour the milk and vanilla into the butter. Stir, then pour into the flour mixture. Combine until you have a soft dough – it should pull away from the sides, but might be slightly sticky. If necessary add a bit more flour. Wrap in cling film and leave to chill – at least one hour, or overnight.

4. Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.

5. Lightly sprinkle the worktop with flour. Roll out the dough to 3-4mm thickness. The easiest way to do this is to find something of the right thickness (e.g. some magazines) and lay them either side of the dough to act as rolling guides. Cut out shapes, and transfer to the baking sheet. Gather the scraps and keep re-rolling and cutting until it is all used up.

6. Bake the cookies for 6-10 minutes. They should be puffed up and pale, and only just starting to colour at the very edges. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

7. Decorate the cookies, and store in an airtight container.