Vaniliekranse – Vanilla wreaths
Recipe by Dane Uploaded by Drimble Wedge
Christmas over here is a time of cookies. Crazy amounts of cookies. These are about as christmasy as it gets over here. A wonderful juxtaposition of sweet and slightly savory, crunchy and slightly chewy. And they yield a shitload of cookies for not all that much work. This is my standard recipe, but a lot of families will have their own that’s been handed down for ages. I’m sure HappyHat’s is different and he might share it if you ask him nicely.
Note: When possible, measurements are by weight. Also this recipe freezes well in its unbaked state, so you can make plenty of dough well in advance.
These are fairly basic shortbreads that get their special look from a specialized tool. I use a huge machine, powered by windmills and solar panels, and equipped with a space-age device that makes magic (basically a faceplate formed like a star).
Contents
Ingredients
- 60g / 2.1 oz by weight almonds, skinned and ground fine. Alternately same amount of store-bought almond flour.
- 250 g / 0.55 lb flour
- ½ tsp Hartshorn / Baker’s ammonia / Ammonium Carbonate. You can substitute baking powder but know that the fluffiness will suffer.
- 125g / 4.4 oz by wt caster sugar
- 1 ½ vanilla pod
- 200g / 7 oz by wt cold butter
- 1 egg yolk
- A pinch of salt
Method
Skin your almonds (see the Brunkager - Brown cakes recipe for instructions) and blitz them in your blender until you have a slightly coarse flour.
Sieve together your flour and hartshorn (or appropriate substitute). Mix in sugar, almond flour.
Seed your vanilla pods. Mix the seeds in the flour. Use your de-seeded pods appropriately. I chose a Conference/Doyenne de Comice/Concorde/Vodka infusion and a jar of caster sugar as appropriate receptacles for mine:
