I just realized that I don’t have that many recipes here on the blog that remind me of my childhood. This probably has to do with the fact that we moved so much. I was born in Uruguay, then we spent three years in the U.S, came back to Uruguay before we finally settled in Germany. Needless to say that my four grandparents all have a German passport, however, all of them were born in the former Soviet Union. Thus, our food and dishes were influenced by a lot of different cultures. Dear to my heart is the Uruguayan cutlet called milanesa, I also love the Russian Napoleon cake or Polish pirogi. I also wouldn’t say no to Ukranian Easter bread named paska. Just recently I tried one of the many peppermint cookies from my grandma she has many recipes for. In this mix of cultures and dishes I am going to throw in a new one, Russian-German twoiback or double buns. You can think of brioche, it is a very soft dough with butter and you will see two balls that are attached to each other. My sister described them as an unfinished snowman. I couldn’t have said it any better.
This fluffy and soft braided bread is traditionally served for breakfast on Easter in Germany. I made it the first time last year in 2020 when Europe was in heavy lockdown due to COVID19 and it was hard to get flour and yeast. I was grateful I always have active-dry yeast on hand, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to make this delicious bread. I have tried many different types of this bread, but this one is by far the fluffiest and softest and for that reason I am confident to present it here.
Today is December 6, which is Nikolaus in Germany! Children will put their freshly cleaned boots outside the door, which are going to be filled with sweets and cookies. So for that reason we need cookies today! I decided to make a variation of the most baked, rated, and clicked recipe on this blog, which are the brownie cookies. I decided to make these brownie cookies with sourdough. Yes, you read right. When I heard about this the first time, I thought people were crazy. But then I made these vegan brownies with raspberries and was sold. Since my husband bakes all of our bread, we always, always have sourdough in our house. This in turn means that we often have to throw sourdough as it needs to be fed. Since I liked sourdough in brownies, I figured they it would be as good in brownie cookies.
Snickerdoodles are America’s answer to German cinnamon stars! I love snickerdoodles and I find it super exciting every time a German tries one and declares it the new favorite cookie. Snickerdoodles are easy to prepare and are similar to how sugar cookies are created. You will need cream of tartar for these beauties to stay soft and puffy. The recipe does not require any chilling.
Let’s talk about cookies. Cookies are my comfort food. Cookies are the best. I prefer them to a fancy dessert any time. I know, I am crazy, but cookies call me from afar. They remind me of my childhood. They usually don’t require that much time to prepare and they are easy to freeze, to ship, to make somebody happy, including myself.