Christmas Cookies and more

“Totenbeinli” are - despite their macabre name - a very delicious traditional Swiss Christmas Cookie that may also be enjoyed during the year with a cup of steaming coffee or hot tea. “Totenebeinli” means “bones of the death”. Their shape and their crunchiness gave these hazlenut cookies their name. They are not very pretty to look at but their taste with a touch of cinnamon and roasted hazlenut is fantastic. 

Since the 16th centuries grifters in German speaking countries were called «Spitzbuben». The cookie with the same name is usually a circular cookie consisting of a base and a lid, filled with jam and a funny face formed by the holes pierced in the top cookie. Outside Switzerland, this cute Christmas cookie is also known as “Linzer Augen” or “Hildabrötchen”. There are countless different Spitzbuben recipes: with and without ground almonds, with whole eggs or just egg whites, filled with jelly or jam. I make my Spitzbuben according to the following recipe.

I love chocolate in every possible way – cream, cake or cookies. Therefore, every Christmas I bake these super yummy chocolate ball cookies, that are made with chocolate powder and ground nuts. They turn out nice when sticking to the recipe, monitoring them through the baking process (just around 3 min) and using enough cornstarch as a binding agent.

“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.

Cinnamon star cookies are a very traditional European Christmas cookie. Those sweet stars do not only look very pretty but are also super tasty. I personally bake the cinnamon star cookies without icing because baking might give the icing a yellowish color which I do not like. I love my icing snow-white.

Christmas is cookie baking time! I love to bake these sweeet little treats and give them as gifts, but also eat them myself. I particularly like vanilla crescents cookies or “Vanillekipferl”, as we call them in Switzerland. These cookies are easy to roll by hand without using cookie cutters. I will also show you two variations of this delicious cookie.