Cinnamon Stars (Zimtsterne)
List of Ingredients
Cinnamon Stars (Zimtsterne)
Wilhelm Preisendanz's Recipe
1 lb. Finely ground almonds
1 lb. Confectioners Sugar (powdered sugar) about 5 Cups
8 egg whites (can be 7)
1/2 lemon
2-3 tsp cinnamon
Beat egg whites until stiff, adding powdered sugar, juice of lemon
and grated rind of lemon. This should be so stiff that it won't run
off a spoon. Remove one Cup of this and set it aside in the
refrigerator.
This will become the icing. Beat the remainder until it is much
stiffer,
then fold in the almonds and cinnamon. Sprinkle a board or pastry cloth
with flour and then granulated sugar. Cover the rolling pin with a
cloth.
Roll out the dough "finger thick" and cut into star shapes. Dip the
cutter into cold water between cookies, or it will stick.
Place cookies on a well greased cookie sheet. By the time that the last
cookie is cut, the first ones will be dry on top and ready to frost with
the set aside egg white mixture. You can frost with a narrow spatula
like Wilhelm Preisendanz the baker, or with a narrow pastry brush like
my mother.
Bake at 325 degrees for 8 - 10 minutes.
Notes from Hildegard (Preisendanz) Lamparter:
Getting the cut cookies onto the cookie sheet takes some juggling. My
mother turns the cookie upside down while transferring it to the cookie
sheet, then turns it right side up and jiggles the cookie out of the
cutter onto the sheet. The dough is like working with Silly Putty.
They have always stuck to the cookie sheet, but began to really stick
terribly when my mother began to have to grind her own almonds. Before
this she bought them in 1 lb packages and they didn't stick as much.
One idea which hasn't been tried yet is to cover the cookie sheet with
aluminum foil and spray it with PAM. After baking you'd peel the
cookies off the foil. If this doesn't work with regular aluminum foil,
it might require the heavy gage aluminum foil.
If the dough is runny, just add some bread crumbs.
If the cookies are too runny when you put them on the cookie sheet,
don't ever scoop up the cookie and put it back into the dough. The
grease from the cookie will cause the egg white in the mixture to become
runny and the whole batch of dough will be ruined.
If too much sugar from the previous batch is on the cookie sheet, the
cookies will stick.
Another untried idea is to grind the almonds the night before, and
spread them on several layers of paper towels to let the nut oil soak
out of the nuts so that the cookies will hold together better.
Recipe
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