holiday baking

SPRINGERLE COOKIES

sallybr4 Comments

For a little tutorial on painting the cookies, visit my youtube channel here.

Baking Springerle turned into an annual tradition for me. I love the slow pace, the patience involved. The dough takes a bit of time to put together, whisking the eggs to achieve maximum volume, slowly incorporating flour, then rolling, pressing the molds, and letting the cut cookies sit and dry for a couple of days before baking them. In gentle heat, so they never get dark. For my default recipe and to learn a little more about these delicate cookies, click here . And now let me share some of the biscuits I made this past holiday season.

My recipe starts with 3 eggs, and that makes a large enough batch for about 30 cookies, although of course it depends on their size. Once they are baked and cold, it is time to paint them…

My favorite method is mixing luster powder with alcohol, either vodka or everclear. Vodka dries a little slower, so it is more forgiving to use. This year I got to play with a new color, called Mermaid (featured in my recent In My Kitchen post).

The same design will look quite different depending on the color scheme you choose.

One of my favorite shapes is the Flower Staff mold because is is so unusual…

You can see it better here, next to another favorite of mine, a special mold I received as a gift years ago…

In every batch I like to mix some modern shapes with the classics, because they can be fun too…

Here they are, sitting in the sun on a winter day…

Springerle is perfect to bake romantic, flowery motifs… Think Valentine’s!

The Flower Staff in a more subtle coloring…

Finally, a very special mold, the center one below, a gift from Phil. It is not easy to find molds made from real wood, those are pretty much antiques. He managed to find one, and it is so so beautiful, the intricate details… I love it!

Painting Springerle is one of the most relaxing activities…

Traditionally these cookies are flavored with anise oil, which for some is not a very pleasant flavor. If you like the overall look but prefer a different flavor, orange oil is a great alternative.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

sallybr7 Comments

Sharing the last collection of cookies for the season, these are simple to make, and I like their almost minimalist look, particularly the Christmas tree. I wish I had saved the source of my inspiration for the little gift packages, but I took a screen shot of some Instagram stuff, never saved the actual post and was unable to find it again.

Apart from simple Royal icing details in red and green, fondant details make them special. I always use white fondant and paint in any color I want later.

You can do a lot with just three colors of icing, and during Christmas season, it’s pretty much all you need…

Two tones of green can also make a pretty cute wreath design, when coupled with red accent sprinkles…

Just pipe them as shown below and run a needle through the center, drawing a circle.

This year I’ve done a lot of Christmas trees, but not as many ornaments…

It is now time to say goodbye to Christmas cookies… makes me sad, but in a way every season that ends leaves that feeling that too many cookies were left unbaked. But another season comes to get excited about… Can you feel the Valentine vibes forming?

CHRISTMAS COOKIES

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Still in the spirit of the season, a few more ideas for your holiday bakes, starting with socks to hang by the fireplace…

They were made after a video from Marlyn (Montreal Confections), using a “frankencookie” approach (watch it here). A sock cutter is combined with a little head to form the final design. From that point, it is pretty straightforward: ice the different areas, let them set. Pipe decorative lines with black Royal icing, and the detail on top of the sock with a star tip and stiff consistency icing. While that part is still wet, carefully place a mini candy cane as decoration. The eyes and mouth were made with a food-safe pen.

The hexagons were featured recently in the blog (click here for the original post). Once the franken-sock cookie was fully set, I painted a bit of luster pearl on the white part of the sock. Because bling makes everything better.

Moving on, another very cute idea from Marlyn: when a Christmas tree and a dress fall desperately in love and have a baby… You can check her IG video for this cookie with a click here.

Marlyn used a template to get a perfectly symmetrical shape for the dress, I went free-hand. Each layer of the dress is piped independently, starting with the bottom layer. A darker tone of green is air-brushed on the edges, a step that adds quite a bit of pizazz to the dress. The red details and top of the dress are added later, as well as the black belt (with tip Ateco #44).

Finally, my own contribution to this post, with a super simple design using mini-cookie cutters from Sugarbelle. These are tiny, two-bite little things, perfect when you don’t really feel like indulging too much in sweets. All you need is green, red and white icing, plus sprinkles. The fern cookies require some piping consistency icing, but you can conceivably just use a food pen to simplify things quite a bit.

I am definitely going to be using mini-cutters quite often in the future. They are adorable and the set comes with 40 shapes plus a cool “idea sheet” to offer alternative ways to decorate each shape.

I hope your holiday season is going smoothly. For many, plans had to be canceled, meetings with family postponed once again due to the virus that won’t leave us in peace. Let’s hope for a much kinder year ahead…