Happy December ~ Springerle
It is Christmas cookie season again, and I decided to try my hand at something new this year called springerle. They are traditional German anise cookies that use a special mold. My parents gave me a metal springerle board last Christmas, and I am part German, so I thought I would give them a try! They are really sweet little pieces of art. 🙂
Springerle
2 eggs
4 oz powdered sugar
1 teaspoon anise extract
2 cups all purpose flour, plus a little more for the board and rolling pin if the dough is too sticky
1 teaspoon baking powder
Beat the eggs until light with an electric mixer on high speed in a large bowl. Reduce the speed and add the anise and sifted sugar. Beat until well combined. Sift the flour and baking powder and stir them into the egg mixture. The dough will be rather stiff.
Roll the dough to about 3/8 inch thickness. Imprint the dough onto the springerle board and cut apart with a pizza cutter. Place the cookies on a baking sheet (this recipe will make about 2 sheets worth of cookies), and let them dry uncovered overnight. This will allow the designs to stay crisp when they are baked.
In the morning, preheat your oven to 350. Bake the cookies for about 8-10 minutes, until cooked through but not golden.
It must be the same design cast aluminum springerle board that I’ve had for 25 or so years. I use baker’s ammonia available from King Arther which is traditional for this cookie and cake flour making mine and brush the bottoms with a little water 20 minutes before baking to get the little rise at the bottom called a “foot.” Your cookies look like they kept the imprint nicely. Good job.
Linda Albert
Thank you! The cast iron board is at least 25 years old, so it very well could be the same as yours! 🙂 My mom had it for years. I’ll keep the King Arthur flour and the water trick in mind for my next try. There is a definitely an art to these cookies. It sounds like you’ve mastered it :-). Thanks for the nice comment!
Thought you might like this. A link to a German baker who has been using “our” springerle board for years to turn out hundreds of cookies every year.
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2002/12/18/tem_food18lede.html
Linda
Thank you for the link! It does look like the same design on the cookies. I liked the part about them being so authentic that people send them back to Germany :-).