I am finally getting into Christmas mood. The Christmas tree is up and decorated and I got around to some Christmas Cookie baking – its not really Christmas time for me until I have baked a few German Christmas cookies. My favorite one being “Zimtsterne” (Cinnamon Stars). I was really lucky that my friend Astrid had time to come over and we could bake cookies together. Astrid showed me how to bake Nuernberger Lebkuchen (Gingerbread) and because the Christmas cookie jars needs some variety we also baked some Vanillekipferl and some Zimsterne. Now every time when I get up from the couch – which is every 2 minutes – I walk by the cookie jar and take out a cookie – earning me one of those – I can’t believe you are eating another cookie look – from Mike, but I don’t know what it is, I am not a cookie fan at all (choc chip, oatmeal, snicker doodle or any of those cookies can not tempt me at all) but Christmas cookies are just the best! Astrid and I had a great time baking and catching up on recent events and now both families have a big box full of cookies we can enjoy for the next couple of days – yes they are so good they won’t last long in the Petrucci or the Bounds household.

The furry companions partook in the tree decorating activities and if you are thinking that the dog looks really sad I think you are right. I tried on her Christmas coat and she completely busted out of it, hence her sad look, so no cookies for Sky!

I tried to convert my German gram measurements into cups but it doesn’t always work out to exactly 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 or 1 cup, so if you have a scale that shows grams, go by the gram measurements, they are more precise.

Ingredients: (for 40 cookies)

• 3 egg white
• 1,5 cups sugar (350 gram, its a tiny little bit less than 1,5 cups)
• 1 cup ground almonds (200 grams – which equals 0.8 cup) , you can buy whole almonds and just grind them up in the food processor or coffee grinder, same with the hazelnuts
• 1 cup ground hazelnuts (200 grams – which equals 0.8 cup)
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon
• pinch of ground nutmeg
• pinch of ground clove
• powdered sugar (for preventing the dough to stick to your work surface)

Directions:

1. Beat the egg whites really stiff and add the sugar really slowly. Beat on the highest setting of your mixer for 8-10 minutes. When done, keep 4 tablespoons of the egg white sugar mixture back for glazing the cookies.
2. Add the ground hazelnuts, almonds and spices to the egg white mixture and knead into a dough.
3. Prepare your work surface with a thin layer of powdered sugar and roll out the dough relatively thick (1/2 a centimeter, approx. 1/4 inch).
4. With a medium sized star cookie cutter, cut out 40 cookies and glaze with the held back egg white mixture.
5. Bake cookies at 350 degrees for 12 minutes – watch that the top of the cookies don’t turn brown, depending on  your oven you might want to bake at a little bit lower temperature or a couple minutes less, the glaze should stay white.

Enjoy the cookies and to all my friends, new found blogger friends and followers a very merry Christmas/Happy Holiday time and I hope it will be a relaxing  and peaceful time for you!

Frohe Weihnachten!