You may have had enough from cookies, but I don’t care, I decided to blog a last-minute recipe: German hazelnut crescents with five ingredients. This recipe was passed down to me by a lovely lady in Munich. Just as these Heidesand cookies and this Dresdner Eierschecke are recipes from readers, this one has a funny backstory. The German platform Nebenan.de works like a community platform, I got curious when I saw that somebody was asking whether German bakeries in the vicinity sold homemade cookies. I learned that his mother had requested homemade cookies during the season. Since she had recently moved to a nursery home, she couldn’t make them herself anymore. He didn’t dare to make some, so I inquired. One thing let to another and after all I managed to bake these crescents according to his mother’s recipe. Yes, of course she got a batch right away.
Every year I make a Christmas cookie plate with different cookies, usually with around 10+ cookies. I wanted to share my two plates with you for inspiration. How to ship cookies is explained in this blog article, another article looks at how to deal with sugar cookies. If you want to freeze egg whites, this article may be for you. So let’s start with the cookies I made in 2023 and 2022:
Today we are making vegan gingerbread hearts with jam filling. If you so desire, you can also make them vegan, you only need to swap out the butter for vegan butter as the dough naturally does not contain any eggs. You may find this gingerbread surprising as it contains jam and chocolate. I can assure you, this is a very German recipe. In fact, every year these gingerbread hearts are sold as of October. I always thought it was impossible to make them at home. But one time when I was eating a store-bought heart, I thought, let’s see how they are actually made and consulted the Internet. To my surprise they are much easier to make than originally thought. You make gingerbread dough (check), you cut out hearts with a cookie cutter, then you place a bit of jam on one heart and seal it with another heart on top. You bake them and dunk them in chocolate. That’s it!
Right before Christmas I wanted to share a sugar cookie with royal icing made to wreaths. I use these for our Christmas tree, but obviously you can also just eat them like this or give away as a gift. My Christmas tree ornaments always need to be homemade, at least most of them. I usually decorate my Christmas tree with gingerbread. As we have a dog now, we do have some “fake” gingerbread ornaments, mainly hanging at the bottom so that there is no danger. However, this year I decided to also decorate with the sugar cookies made as Christmas wreaths. Continue Reading…
The good thing when you get married to somebody from another country is that you can start your own traditions. I got married to a Colombian 12 years ago, but we have been living in Germany since the start. Christmas is traditionally something we have discussed extensively. I have explained the difference between Colombian and German Christmas in this blog post. Man, we have discussed so many things, should it be the traditional bird as is common in Germany or should we go for the many snacks Colombians like to serve for Christmas? Should we make tamales, which is corn, veggies and meat steamed in banana leaves and which require a lot of work? Should we focus on the gifts instead or spend hours on the food? One thing we have learned over the years is that what works best for us is to create new traditions. Traditions that are neither German nor Colombian, but just us. New traditions we like and enjoy.
Shame on me, somehow I never manage to take care of a proper Advent wreath on time. When I finally decide to buy one, they are always sold out or only very sad ones are left. I am talking about the traditional ones with candles and fir branches. But not this time. This time we will have an advent wreath made from gingerbread. I love making things from gingerbread. Years ago, when I was a poor university student, I started this tradition of making everything from gingerbread as I didn’t have money to buy any expensive Christmad decoration. I decorated the Christmas tree with gingerbread, the nativity was made from it, I even hung some igingerbread n the windows. It is definitely something I hold dear. So this year I decided to make the advent wreath from gingerbread as well.
I learned recently that it is common in Germany to serve a plate full of Christmas cookies on the first of advent (this year on November 27th). I know, this is different than in the U.S. Christmas is already full in force here as we don’t have Thanksgiving. So I figured I would show you more than 20 cookie recipes to choose from. I decided to pick unusual recipes, recipes you haven’t tried yet, many of them from the U.S., but also from Latin America and some German ones that are not that common. I hope you find some to your liking.
#1 Brownie cookies from the U.S.
Today I have some ultra-cute nutcrackers for you guys made from sugar cookies with royal icing. Yes, they do require a bit of work, but for me that’s the best way to relax. Especially since you can make each step on a different day (like make the dough, bake, decorate), which I find super convenient. I love the fact that these cookies keep and will look great in any cookie box. You can also wrap them individually and give them as a gift to somebody. What do you say? You can of course use other cookie cutters, such as ugly sweaters and the like…
Today I have the honor of introducing to you Colombian Christmas, rituals, and customs. Of course I am going to introduce to you typical Colombian recipes for Christmas as well. I by no means consider this extensive and is more based on my personal experience. As a German I can say though that Colombian Christmas is happier, louder, and more carefree than German Christmas. Maybe it has to do with the fact that Germans usually meet with their nucleus family; during these short winter days you need to be at home behind closed doors. Colombians, on the other hand, are found travelling in large groups to relatives, Christmas celebrations can start at 30 people or more, you may encounter a birthday cake for Jesus and see Colombians dancing Salsa happily. Of course the food plays an important role as well. Usually you will find a large amount of people being involved in some food preparation as it requires many hours of labor. By the way, New Year’s Eve is not that different from Christmas, usually Colombians will visit one side of the family on Christmas, and the other on New Year’s. Prepare yourself for eating large amounts of food. But let’s first get started with Christmas in Colombia!
Do you want to make a Colombian happy during the holidays? I have a very simple solution for you, just make him or her natilla, this is an easy milk custard, which doesn’t require you to turn on the oven. Natilla is, and this was confirmed by many Colombians, beside the deep-fried cheese balls buñuelos THE most Colombian Christmas snack. Yes, you read right, Colombians don’t necessarily have a main dish they associate with Christmas, instead it is the snacks, which are served beforehand which are dear to them. The most common ones being said milk custard named natilla or the buñuelos, which are deep-fried cheese balls. These are served throughout the season and on the 24th the very latest.