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| Christmas Tree with lighted candles |
The candles on the Christmas tree were lit last night in accordance with the Christmas Eve tradition in this part of the world. We did make a small compromise to tradition this year. While Magda's family tradition holds that the tree is not even put up until Christmas Eve, this year we put the tree up 5 days before. But it was not decorated until Christmas Eve. That was done just to eliminate the need to go out on the streets on the last shopping day before Christmas.
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| Homemade presents for 2011 |
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| Homemade Liqueur |
We did make some homemade gifts for friends and family this year. Three types of liqueur were bottled. These were made from red vineyard peaches, black currants and pears. We were particularly happy with the pear liqueur, probably because were did not have high expectations. But it turned out with a very nice pear flavor.
As mentioned in the previous blog, we made Christstollen according to the recipe out of the 1939 cookbook. But that was not the only baking we did. We put together packages containing 8 types of cookies. These included Tollhouse cookies because, as every knows, they are Santa's favorite (although they are not seen here in Germany much).
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| Tollhouse |
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| Snickerdoodles |
I also did Snickerdoodles this year as another example of a traditional American cookie. Yes, I know that the Wikipedia page for Snickerdoodles claim a German origin for these cookies, but I don't buy it. I have never seen Snickerdoodles in a German cookbook, nor are they easy to find on Germany cooking web sites. When I have found something call Snickdoodles, they are quite different, containing walnuts and raisins, than the simple sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon and sugar that is typical in the USA.
Magda is a big fan of shortbread, so those had to be included. And what would Christmas be without some cut out butter cookies?.
Add the these some traditional German cookies. Lebkuchen almost defines this time of year in Germany. The ones we made are, like our stollen, based of a recipe from a 1939 Dr. Oetker cookbook. Honigkuchen uses the same spices as Lebkuchen, but uses honey as the sweetener and does not use much ground almonds. Heidesand is a personal favorite. It is a butter cookie with a little marzipan mixed in. They are formed by rolling the dough into a log, covering the outside of the log with sugar and slicing off the cookies. And Schmaltznüsse are a shortbread cookie where half the butter is replaced by lard. In this case, coca powder was added to half the recipe to create the "black and white" Schmalrznüsse.
Frohe Weihnachten!
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| Butter cookies and Shortbread |
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| Homigküchen |
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| Heidesand |
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| Lebküchen |
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| Black and White Schmalzmüsse |
