Creation & Illustration by Chef Steve Anderssen ©copyright 2009
CHRISTMAS COOKING
When I was a child, it seemed that every year about November, Mum and Aunty would start cooking for Christmas. There were certain family favourites that would be stored in air tight containers and hidden in cupboards, high up and out of reach. There were sweet treats buried deep in the bottom of the chest freezer and in old biscuit tins stashed in ‘out of bounds’ areas. All this sweet hibernation was to protect these delights from my thieving little fingers. These were not to be eaten but hidden from my sugar craved eyes, to be offered to unexpected visitors at a later date, or so they thought! Inevitably the batches had to be doubled and tripled to account for stock that mysteriously went missing in action.
GERMAN HONEY BISCUITS
These were the best cookies ever! They keep for months in air tight containers and would usually be made in huge batches to last us through until Easter .From April to November Mum made me hang out for the big, once a year, production day .Something like a gingerbread but without the ginger ,yet still exotically flavoured with Christmas. This recipe will make a reasonable sized batch, to share with your friends and family, but you may wish to halve the quantities the first time you try to make it. This recipe has been handed down from generation to generation and as far as I can tell, it originated over 100 years ago from the German settlers in the Hahndorf Valley, (a famous wine growing region in South Australia).
Ingredients
500 g caster sugar
500 g honey
2 eggs
1 tsp mixed spice
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground cloves
2 tsp bi carb soda
1 kg sifted plain flour (and some extra for dusting the bench during rolling)
1 pinch of salt
1 pkt of blanched skinless almonds or nice walnut halves (for decoration)
Cooking spray to grease the tray
You also will need
an electric mixer with dough hook or beater paddle
a rolling pin
a clean bench space for rolling
several ‘Christmas shaped ‘cookie cutters
flat oven trays
air tight storage containers
Method
1. Heat the honey in the microwave so it becomes warm liquid.
2. In the electric mixer, combine the honey and sugar and beat until the sugar dissolves.
3. When the mixture cools enough, add the eggs and beat.
4. Add the spices, bi carb soda and salt and mix.
5. Add the flour and mix slowly using the dough hook until combined. If doing this by hand, it becomes less strenuous as the honey in the mixture warms up.
6. It is very important that you need the dough well. It becomes more pliable the more you ‘work it’.
7. With a rolling pin, roll out the mixture to less than 1 cm thick on a clean & well floured bench. Once again, the mixture becomes less strenuous to work with, as it becomes warmer and more pliable. The honey factor makes it sticky, so it’s advisable to flour your hands and the rolling pin as well.
8. My mother used to use different shaped cookie cutters to make it fun for the kids but if you don’t have these you may use a small glass or a knife to cut out shapes. Some of my favourites were the stars, hearts, Christmas trees and ginger bread men shapes. As it is a sticky mixture you need to carefully pry each cookie from the bench with a knife (keeping its shape). Place them on an oven tray, pre- greased with cooking spray, about 3 cm apart. Place a nut in the middle of each biscuit and press it down to stick.
9. Bake them in a slow oven (about 170 degrees C), for about 10 – 15 minutes. If the oven is too hot the honey in this recipe will burn easily. The bottom of the cookies will colour first, so carefully with a knife lift one cookie to check for a golden colour. If you over cook them they will become hard when cooled. I prefer to roll them slightly thicker and undercook them to get more chewy bread like consistency. As with most cookie recipes I find that, the more times you make them, the better they turn out, (as you get used to the variables such as using a different oven).
10. Let them cool on the tray as they are soft when warm and will harden enough to pick up when cold.
VERY BERRY CHRISTMAS TREES IN 3D
This is a decorative dessert using specially shaped German honey biscuits layered with cream and berries. The finished product is an attractive addition to the Christmas table.
• Cut the honey biscuit dough into 5 star shapes (for each tree), decreasing in size. The largest will be the base of the tree and the smallest will be the top. If you don’t have the appropriate cutters, you may free hand with a knife.
• Place them on cooking trays in order of size. Bake them and allow cooling as per previous recipe.
• Whip some cream with caster sugar, to full peak, then mix in some mascarpone cheese.
• Layer the star biscuits with dollops of the cream mixture, starting with the largest and ending with the smallest. As you place each star on the stack twist slightly so that an non uniform 3D tree shape forms .As each star is placed on the pile make sure that there is enough cream to ooze out. This is where the’ decorations’ go. Use berries, nuts & dried fruit of different shapes and colours to stick in these spots ,as the Christmas decorations.
• Pass icing sugar, through a sieve, over the top of the trees to make a snow effect and carefully transfer the trees onto a serving platter.
• If made in advance the cream softens the biscuit making it into a cake texture.
• If you wish you could replace the cream & berries with royal icing and coloured M&M’s for a more permanent version that can be made weeks ahead and requires no refrigeration…HEY GET CREATIVE!
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