Cinnamon Stars for Christmas

⭐️

Every Christmas I make these cookies. And many others too, like the Bernese hazelnut leckerli. These, however, are a favorite. They’re always the first to magically disappear from the red tin box.

The recipe was given to me by a very dear Swiss friend of my family, years ago. It was hand written on a Christmas card. She had been making them already for many years and her family probably many years before her.

So I would call it an authentic tried and tested Swiss recipe.

Throughout the years I have reduced the amount of sugar in the original recipe.

If you can, make them several weeks before Christmas. They get better with time. These cookies do not contain any flour.

⭐️ Cinnamon stars (Zimt sterne) ⭐️

Ingredients:

450 g almonds with skins on
300 g of light colored sugar
2 ½ tablespoons ground cinnamon (freshly ground is better)
1 tablespoon kirsch
3 egg whites
Star shaped cookie cutter

1. Mix the almonds in a food processor until you have the texture of crystallized sugar. Pour in a mixing bowl. Grind cinnamon sticks in a coffee or spice grinder to obtain the required amount of powder. The fragrance will be more powerful and aromatic than ready-made powder.

2. Add the sugar, cinnamon, kirsch and the stiffly beaten egg whites. Mix with a wooden spoon and then with your hands until the mass holds together. The kneading and the warmth of your hands will extract the oil from the almonds.

3. Lightly wet a wooden surface with your hands. Take a piece of the dough and flatten it with your hands after dipping them in cold water. Also dip the cookie cutter in water before cutting out the shapes. After you’ve made a few cookies dip the cutter in water again. Wetting hands, board and cookie cutter enables you to work the dough without it sticking to the surfaces. Not too much water. Just enough.
Place them on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper previously sprinkled with a little sugar.

4. Let the stars rest several hours or overnight at room temperature without covering them. They need to dry a bit.

5. Heat the oven to 180°C. Place the cookie sheet on a rack in the middle of the oven and cook for a maximum of 10 minutes. The cookies once cooled off should remain soft. Don’t be tempted to cook any longer thinking they are not done. They are.

6. Keep in an airtight container without any other type of cookie made with flour. The latter would lose their crispness because of the humidity of the cinnamon stars.

P.S. Usually, I leave these cookies as they are. The year of the photo my granddaughter wanted a pretty white icing that “looks like snow”. I made it with a mixture of icing sugar and lemon juice. You can also replace the lemon juice with kirsch for a more grown-up cookie. Wait for the cookies to cool a bit and spread the icing while they are still slightly warm.