Friday, January 7, 2011

mandel schnitte

I've heard stories of a family tradition of three generations getting together before Christmas every year to make these cookies. I've now made them a few times with my mom. I was anxious today waiting to hear some news and decided to channel that energy to baking which I did not do at all this holiday season. So I attempted to make mandel schnitte. I modified the recipe slightly based on the equipment I have and and what was available when I went to the local store.

Ingredients:

6 eggs (* I only had 5 so made it with 5 eggs)

2 Tblsp vanilla (small bottle)

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cloves

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup honey

1 1/2 lbs. Grated mik chocolate (*I used high quality chocolate chips and used the food processor to grate them)

1 tsp allspice

1 1/2 lbs blanched whole almonds (*I could not find blanched or raw almonds to blanch myself so I used blanched slivered almonds)

flour

Frosting – powdered sugar and heavy cream

Pre-heat oven to 500 then turn down to 325 for baking

Beat eggs slightly, add sugar, stir until well mixed, then add honey and vanilla, then blanched almonds (tossed thoroughly in some of the flour) then add the chocolate. Sift spices and baking powder with flour then add 1 1/2 cups flour to mixture, keep adding flour until you absolutely cannot stir in any more

Take a ball of dough about the size of a baseball and roll this into narrow strips on a well floured board and place carefully on cookie sheet. Turn oven down to 325 and bake for 15 minutes. When cool slide strips off cookie sheet onto waxed paper and when cool enough ice with a mixture of powdered sugar and heavy cream.

Allow to cool completely then cut diagonally into slices like biscotti place in cookie tins in layers with waxed paper between the layers

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