macaroon stars

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 125 g butter
• 100 g sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar
• 1 pinch of salt
• 2 egg yolks
• 250 g flour
• 2 egg whites
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 160 g powdered sugar
• 200 g ground almonds or nuts

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Cooking/baking time approx. 15 minutes; Total time approx. 1 hour 15 minutes

In the Christmas bakery…

For the shortcrust pastry, mix the not-quite-cold butter with the sugar, vanilla sugar, and salt. Add the egg yolks, gradually adding the flour, and knead everything into a smooth dough. Chill for about 30 minutes. Roll out the dough in portions, cut out stars, and place them on baking sheets lined with baking paper. For the macaroon mixture, beat the egg whites until very stiff peaks form, gradually beat in the sugar and lemon juice, and continue beating vigorously until the mixture is firm and glossy, then fold in the almonds or nuts. Preheat the oven to 170-180 degrees Celsius (top and bottom heat). Fill a piping bag with the macaroon mixture with a perforated nozzle and pipe small tufts onto the cookies. Bake the cookies until light yellow; this takes about 15 minutes. Depending on your oven! Note: This recipe yields 70-80 cookies, which I divide between 3 baking sheets. Of course, if you don’t roll out the dough so thinly and use fairly large cutters, you’ll end up with fewer cookies. And if you don’t have a piping bag, simply fill the mixture into a plastic bag and snip off a corner. Happy baking!