Christmas Cookies from Switzerland - Mailänderli
“Mailänderli” is a very popular Christmas cookie in Switzerland. These buttery-mellow cookies are very easy to bake with only a few ingredients. They are perfect to use up leftover yolk. I usually bake Cinnamon Stars and Mailänderli at the same time because for the former just the eggwhite is needed while the latter turns out better with just the yolks.
Beat
250 g soft butter
225 g sugar
1 pinch of salt
3 yolks
1 egg
2–3 tbsp. milk
to ribbon stage. Add the
grated zest of 1 lemon and
500 g white flour
Knead everything into a dough and let it rest covered in a cool place for a minimum of two hours. If the dough is too dry and crumbly, add some more milk.
Roll out portions of the dough on some flour and cut cookies with cookie cutters of different shapes. Is the dough to sticky, just knead some more flour in. Place the cookies on a baking tray lined with baking paper and cool for 15 min.
Mix
1 yolk
1 egg
well and coat the cookies with it by using a baking brush. Bake at 200° C in the middle of the preheated oven. Let the cookies cool down and enjoy them!
Here you can watch the recipe as a short video.
For the version with whole eggs just use three whole eggs instead of the yolks and the milk. So beat
250 g soft butter
225 g sugar
1 pinch of salt
3 eggs
to ribbon stage. Add
grated zest of 1 lemon
500 g flour
and proceed as described above.
You might get creative with the Mailänderli dough and use orange zest instead of lemon zest, or use vanilla sugar, vanilla seeds or gingerbread spice.
Fancy some more Christmas cookies?
Did you already try my vanilla crescent cookie recipe?
Did you already try my cinnamon star recipe?
Did you already try my chocolate cookie balls recipe?