Recipes for Christmas

Christmas and delicious food belong together, either a festive meal for the holidays, or a traditional one for the Holy Night, steaming and smelling baked apples, or Christmas cookies to sweeten the Advent. On this page I would like to recommend you my favorite recipes.
 

Aunt Ingrid's Christmas Short Bread

 

I know no better Christmas short bread! Aunt Ingrid's cookies always were wonderfully soft and short, never too dark, simply perfect. And they were the thickest ones I know.

Pastry:
250 g butter
250 g sugar (fine)
ground peel of a lemon (if you like the lemon taste)
500 g flour (plain, not self-raising)
8 egg yolks
if you like, an extra egg yolk to spread on the biscuits

Stir the butter until it is foamy, add sugar first, then the egg youks and stir until all is soft and fluffy. Add the lemon peel, sieve in the flour, knead well. Cook in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. If the pastry is too sticky after that, add a little bit of flour. Roll out on a flour-covered surface (how thin you do that depends on your taste). Cut out the biscuits, put them on a baking tray, and spread egg yolk on them. Bake in the oven by 190°C until they are very light brown.
 

 

Christmas Chocolate With Walnuts

Delicious chocolate with a wonderful Christmas flavour thanks to the fine spices. And it is very easily done. It should be stored in a cool place and soon be eaten.

Ingredients:
200 g semi-sweet couverture
200 g milk chocolate couverture
200 g nougat
100 g butter
1 teaspoon liquid vanilla flavouring
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
300 g walnut kernels

Chop both sorts of couverture coarsely and melt them together with the nougat and the butter in a hot double boiler. Stir in the spices and walnuts. Lay out a square form (20cm side lenght) with sandwich paper or baking paper. Fill in the chocolote and make the surface a bit wavy. Let it cool down in the fridge, take out of the form, and cut into cubes of about 2cm side length.
(Source: Brigitte 23/96)

 

Chocolate Tarte

The Chocolate Tarte is rather new in my collection. It is only for really tough chocolate junkies because it is very very rich. If the dark chocolate is too strong for you, you can mix it with milk chocolate. I had Creme fraiche instead of Creme double and peaches instead of cherries, and it was yummy, too.
For a Christmassy touch you can add some spices to the cover, e.g. cinnamon, aniseed, cardamom...

Pastry:
120 g white flour
30 g icing sugar
1 pinch of salt
50 g cold butter
1 egg yolk
Cover:
400 g Creme double
400 g semisweet chocolate coating
1 teaspoon brandy (if you wish)
1 glass of candied cherries (125 g Einwaage) - or other fruit (candied, canned or fresh)

Mix the pastry ingredients in a bowl and knead, then put it in the fridge for awhile. After cooling put it into a tarte form (diameter 24 cm) and buil a ring. Prick with a fork and bake it in the pre-heated oven by 175°C for 15 minutes.

For the cover, heat up the Creme Double in a pot and let it boil a bit, then add the chocolate and let it melt. Add the brandy. Spread the fruit on the pastry, then pour the cover on it. Let it get cold and hard.

 
(Source: Brigitte 22/99)

Red Wine Spicy Cake

This is an excellent cake for Advent, which I love to bake. It is best be made in a star-shaped baking dish. I bought one especially for this cake, and haven't regretted it since. It might taste almost as good if it's made in a normal baking dish.

Pastry:
100 g semi-sweet couverture
50 g dried dates
250 g soft butter
250 g icing sugar
4 eggs
175 ml red wine
1 pinch of salt
1 package baking powder
1 tablespoon corn starch
1 package gingerbread spice (20 g)
50 g drinking chocolate powder (not the dark cocoa for baking)
250 g flour
grease + breadcrumbs for the tin
Icing:
160 g icing sugar
4-5 tablespoons red wine

Chop couverture and dates. Stir butter and icing sugar foamy. Mix in eggs, then couverture, dates, red wine, and salt. Add baking powder, starch, spices, chocolate powder and flour (you can sieve them if you like), mix all together.

Cover the inside of a greased baking tin (preferably a star form of 28 cm diameter, or normal round tin of 26 cm diameter) with breadcrumbs. Fill the dough. Bake for 1.25 hours in the pre-heated oven at 175°C. Take care that it doesn't get to dark on the top, and cover it in time with aluminum foil.

Take the cake out when it is done, let cool down shortly, then turn it out. Let it cool down. Mix 150g icing sugar with 4-5 tablespoons red wine, apply on your cake.

(Source: Für Sie 24/2000)

Curd Cheese Stollen

This stollen I baked for the first time a few years ago, and it was excellent, very aromatic and juicy. It is a perfect recipe for people who don't like to work with yeast and who don't bake in advance because you can eat it right away and don't have to store for several wees first.

Zutaten:

500 g flour
1 package baking powder
200 g sugar
1 package vanilla sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
grated peel of 1/2 orange and 1/2 lemon
1 pinch of cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom
2 eggs
200 g butter
250 g curd cheese
125 g raisins and 125 g corinths
50 g chopped candied orange peel and 50 g chopped candied lemon peel
125 g peeled and grounded almonds
2 tablespoons rum

For decoration:
50 g butter
icing sugar

Mix flour and baking powder in a bowl, make a hollow in the middle and add (or mix in a separate bowl) sugar, vanilla sugar spices, and eggs. Mix together those ingredients. Add chopped butter and curch chesse plus the rest of the ingredients, and mix all together until you have got a nice dough. If it too sticky, add some flour. Form a stollen and put on a baking tray. Bake for about 1 hour at 180°C. (Mine took 10 minutes longer, but was quite dark on the outside, so perhaps covering with aluminum foil would be good.) Take out of the oven, melt the 50g butter and spread on the stollen, then sieve a thick layer of icing sugar over it.

(Source: "Rezeptbuch für Weihnachstbäckerei" by Ilona Franz. Heyne Verlag, 1978)

 

A good website for converting measurements: http://jumk.de/calc/gewicht.shtml