Vegan Cinnamon Stars with Meringue Topping

First of all, egg whites are made from aquafaba and sugar. (Aquafaba is the cooking water from chickpeas or other beans or legumes. You can use the liquid from chickpeas from a can or jar or the cooking water from chickpeas that you cook yourself It is important that the liquid is not too salty, otherwise the cookies later taste salty. For example, about half of the liquid from a 350g glass of dmBio chickpeas works well.) The Aquafaba is beaten with a hand mixer until stiff. The sugar is gradually added. The finished egg whites should be so firm that you can briefly see a knife cut.

The cinnamon is stirred into the egg whites. Then about 1/2 cup of the egg whites is set aside. The cinnamon stars should be coated with it later.

Make a sticky dough from the remaining egg whites and 250g of the almonds.

Sprinkle the worktop with ground almonds and roll out the dough about 1 / 2cm thick on it. The almonds under the dough are important so that the cookies can be easily removed from the work surface. If the dough is too sticky to roll out, the dough can alternatively be flattened by hand.

Cut stars out of the dough with a suitable cookie cutter and place on a tray lined with a baking mat or parchment paper. (A smaller cookie cutter tends to be more suitable. My star shape has a diameter of about 2cm.) If the dough does not come out of the cookie cutter well, it helps to dip the cookie cutter in a little water in between.

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees top / bottom heat and coat each star with a little egg whites. (The best way to do this is with a pastry brush.)

Bake the stars for about 12 minutes. The stars are ready when they are dry to the bottom but not yet completely dry.

The recipe is enough for about 1 1/2 trays of cinnamon stars. They taste best when you leave them in a cookie jar or something similar for a few days. Immediately after baking, the cinnamon doesn't taste that good.