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!
Espejitos or small mirrors is the literal translation of these cookies from Uruguay. They are made as a shortbread cookie, filled with jam and the caramel cream dulce de leche and have a chocolate covering. Sounds good? I just love these cookies, jam PLUS, caramel, PLUS chocolate, who can say no to that? Unfortunately it never takes long and they disappear so quickly whenever I make them, I simply can’t say no. These are my fourth recipe of my Uruguayan cookie week, check out the other recipes here.
Why does baking make me so happy? Why does it relax me, why do I even bother and sometimes (not often, but still) take hours in the kitchen preparing something? There are many reasons for this. Let’s give it a shot: Because it relaxes me, because it is so much fun to watch others when they enjoy something I baked, because I can collect my thoughts while I follow instructions one step at a time, because kneading somehow makes me feel more down to earth, because I feel it is a mini-workout when I knead dough and that makes me proud and because it is creative.Maybe it is precisely because baking requires you to follow the rules strictly, especially if you are a beginner, why I find it challenging and fun to be creative. I may decide to change a basic recipe, turn it up a notch, or I mix flour, butter, sugar and eggs together and hope for the best.