The most popular Christmas pastries: gingerbread, cinnamon stars, spiced biscuits and more
Every year, just before Christmas, the stoves and ovens in most households run hot, because it is called "Christmas Bakery" again. As Rolf Zuckowski sang about in his song, there will be many a treat to be found there. So, it is time to bake cookies again.
Basically, one can say that every cookie is one of those pastries whose day of honor is actually today. But what exactly are patisserie products?
Patisserie?!
Actually, the grouping is quite simple. Any pastry that contains at least 10 percent sugar and - sometimes also or - fat is called fine pastry. This is how pastry differs from bread and rolls. In this respect, cakes, tarts, Danish pastry, stollen and rusk also belong to the category of pastry in addition to cookies.
Also, so-called "long-life baked goods", which are produced in a special way and then preserved, so that they have a much longer shelf life. In addition to the rusk just mentioned, these include cookies, for example butter cookies, gingerbread, sponge cake, waffles and macaroons. In addition, the Russian bread known from East Germany also belongs to the long-life baked goods and thus to the pastry.
In addition to selling these baked goods in their finished form, they are now also available as a baking mix in bakeries and retail stores. Sometimes you can even buy dough pieces, i.e. ready-made baking mixes, which you only have to put into cookie or cookie moulds and then put them in the oven.
Christmas pastries
In keeping with the season, a few of the Christmas representatives of the pastry wars are now to celebrate their appearance here:
- Gingerbread
A gingerbread is a spicy, dark pastry whose sweetness is created by rock candy, honey or syrup. Usually the gingerbread is decorated with sugar icing, fruits or nuts.
- Wafers
Simply put a wafer is a very thin and crispy wafer made exclusively from water, flour and starch. Sometimes other flavor carriers such as cocoa or nut are also incorporated. You can also find wafers with several layers and a creamy filling.
- Vanilla crescent cookies
Small croissants are formed with a short pastry made of butter, flour, sugar and almonds. After baking, vanilla sugar is added, which is enriched with a little vanilla pulp. This gives the vanilla croissants their special aroma. You can also work with vanilla sugar in the dough in your own Christmas bakery.
- Spiced biscuits
The spiced biscuits are also made of short pastry. In addition to the standard ingredients, they are provided with spices such as cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. The sweet taste comes from a molasses, which sometimes also brings a fine caramel note.
- Cinnamon stars
In contrast to the other rather nevertheless quite mealy representatives of the Christmas pastries, the cinnamon star stands out through its airy dough mixture. For this, beaten egg whites, sugar, cinnamon and almonds are mixed with only a little flour, at most 10 percent. The top of the cinnamon star is decorated with a glaze of egg white, which, however, only coagulates and does not take on any color due to the short baking time.
- Coconut macaroons
Even less flour is contained in the macaroons, whose ingredients are limited to sugar, coconut flakes and protein. However, the preparation of these cookies is one of the most complicated due to the previous roasting of the dough.
- Stollen
The Christstollen is probably one of the most famous German stollen. The Dresden Stollen actually made a name for itself. A Stollen is a yeast dough that can be mixed with raisins, nuts and pistachios. You can also find stollen in the form of marzipan, butter, almond, nut and quark stollen.
A Christmas good appetite! But please consume with care, the production of the cookies takes much longer than the consumption.