German Heart Cookies Food

23 GERMAN COOKIES WE CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT

Steps:

• Select your favorite recipe.
• Organize all the required ingredients.
• Prep a German treat in 30 minutes or less!

GERMAN HEART COOKIES

Steps:

• Combine flour, 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter, white sugar, and eggs in a large bowl and knead into a smooth dough. Shape into a ball. Flatten, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 2 hours.
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease 2 baking sheets or line with parchment paper.
• Dust a work surface with flour and roll out dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut out hearts with a heart-shaped cookie cutter and arrange cut-out cookies on prepared baking sheets.
• Bake in the preheated oven until lightly browned, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from baking sheets carefully and transfer to wire racks. Cool completely, about 20 minutes.
• Mix 1 cup of confectioners' sugar with as much lemon juice needed to form a thick icing. Cover half of the hearts with the white icing. Mix the remaining 1 cup confectioners' sugar with raspberry syrup and cover the other half with pink icing. Let cookies stand until icing dries completely, about 2 hours, or up to overnight.

GERMAN GINGERBREAD HEARTS (MARKT LEBKUCHENHERZEN)

Steps:

• Gather the ingredients.
• Bring the butter, honey, sugar, cocoa powder and gingerbread spice mix to a boil in a medium-sized saucepan.
• Boil for several minutes until the sugar dissolves, then remove from heat and cool slightly.
• Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt into a bowl.
• Make a depression in the bowl and add the egg, then pour the honey mixture over the flour and mix on low speed until a ball of dough can be formed.
• The ball of dough might still be shaggy but will form a smooth dough as it cools down, so do not add extra flour.
• Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and put in a safe place at room temperature for 4 to 48 hours.(This dough should rest overnight before baking for best results.)
• Heat the oven to 350 F.
• Roll out half the dough to 1/2-inch thickness on a lightly floured board.
• Use a large, heart-shaped cookie cutter or your own template to cut out large, heart shaped cookies.
• If you want to hang these hearts from a ribbon, create 1 or 2 holes about 3/4-inch below the rim of the cookie before you bake it.
• Repeat with the rest of cookie dough. This dough does not reroll well, so take care to roll it into the right size the first time.
• Place the cookies on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until the cookies are set in the middle and lightly browned on the bottom. Bake the trimmed scraps to use for practice decorating.
• Let the cookies cool completely on the baking sheet. They will harden as they cool. Although they are edible, this dough is most often used to make decorative cookies that are hung on the wall or around the recipient's neck and are seldom eaten.
• Use tinted royal icing to decorate the cookies. You only need about half of the recipe, but you will want to practice decorating with your baked scraps, and you might want to use several colors, so make the whole batch.
• Tint some of the icing in a separate bowl using normal food coloring. if the icing is not completely tinted you can create swirls of lighter and darker colors as you pipe it.
• Place the icing in a decorator bag with a leaf tip attached to make the border. Use a writing tip for the words. Find out more about filling and using pastry bags here .
• Decorate as you like. It is traditional to write cute sayings in the center and give the cookies to people you like.

LINZER HEART COOKIES

Steps:

• Heat oven to 375 degrees. Toast hazelnuts until skins darken and begin to split, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a clean dish towel, and rub vigorously to remove skins; discard skins. Place nuts in a food processor; pulse until medium fine.
• Line two baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter and granulated sugar at medium-high speed until light and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs; beat until smooth, about 3 minutes. Beat in vanilla.
• In a large bowl, combine flour, hazelnuts, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and zest. Add to butter mixture; beat to combine, about 1 minute. Place in freezer until very firm, about 30 minutes.
• Liberally dust a clean surface with flour, and roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Using a 3-inch heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out seventy-two hearts. To make top halves of cookies, use a 1-inch heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out centers from thirty-six of the hearts.
• Transfer cookies to prepared baking sheets, and bake until golden brown, about 8 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack until completely cooled.
• Lightly sift confectioners' sugar over cookie tops. Spread about 1 teaspoon jam on each of the bottom halves, and sandwich both halves together. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

GERMAN EGG YOLK COOKIES (EIER KRINGEL)

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375°F.
• Put the hard cooked egg yolks through a wire sieve. (To do this easily, press them through with your fingers). Add the raw egg yolks and mix well.
• In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar; add the egg mixture and mix thoroughly. Stir in the flour, cardamon, and lemon zest; blend well. Chill dough for 1 hour.
• Roll out small portions of the dough at a time on a lightly floured board to 1/8" thickness. Cut with a 2 1/2" cookie cutter. Brush with egg white, then sprinkle the tops with the sugar and almond mixture.
• Place on ungreased cookie sheet.
• Bake for about 10 minutes, or until delicately browned.