The 12 days of Christmas Cookies: Day 8 - Sour Cream Cookies

How is it Sunday already? Didn't the weekend just start?!? Well, at least there's only 5 working days left until my Christmas vacation starts. Hallelujah. And for quite possibly the first time this year, I actually have about 8 days of absolutely nothing to do but lying on my couch ahead of me. No interviews to do (well, until my second week off that is) and I'm definitely not taking home any work from job 1&2 (though I probably should considering that I'm not getting around to doing anything at work lately aside from sitting in meetings). My Christmas wish this year? For my (former) bosses to finally find a replacement for me so I can start concentrating on my new job. Cause right now I kinda feel like I'm not doing either of them justice. And that's exhausting. And frustrating. And sometimes, plain annoying.

So let's talk about less frustrating stuff. Cookies, for example. I made these sour cream cookies for the first time this year and I have to say right away: you probably won't be winning any beauty contests with them. But at least they taste nice. They're moist and creamy and just yummy. So there's that. Just keep them for yourself instead of giving them away and you'll be fine. I was a little concerned at first that they'd go bad after a week because of the sour cream, but they're still fine after three weeks now and I didn't refrigerate them, so don't worry about that.

Sour Cream Cookies

For the cookies:
175g softened butter
a pinch of salt
50g sugar
250g flour
200g sour cream

For the decoration:
2tbsp coarse sugar (I used "Kluntinchen", which is a tea sugar)
Sprinkles, if you want them


1. Cream the butter, sugar and salt until light yellow and fluffy.

2. Slowly add the sugar and about 5 tablespoons of the sour cream.

3. Wrap the dough in clingwrap and put into the fridge for at least 2 hours.

4. Line your baking trays with baking paper and preheat your oven to 180°C.

5. Take the dough out of the fridge and knead for a minute.

6. Roll out the dough to a thickness of about 7 to 10mm and cut out shapes (best are mostly round shapes).

7. Spread a little bit of sour cream onto every cookie (How much depends on how big your cookies are. They should be completely covered in about 3 to 5mm of sour cream.).

8. Sprinkle the coarse sugar on top (NOT any other kind of sprinkles!)

9. Bake for about 10 minutes. The cookies aren't supposed to change color.

10. If you want to add sprinkles of any kind, add them immediately after taking the cookies out of the oven and gently press them into the cookie a little so they'll stay on.


Enjoy!
♥ Nicole

The 12 days of Christmas Cookies: Day 6 - Angel Eyes

I know, I know, we should be on day 10 or something already, but I've been having computer trouble for the past week or so (namely: whenever I try to update this blog and open photobucket, my graphic card crashes), so I've spent the past few nights trying to install my new laptop. I guess I need to hurry up a little, though, if anybody still wants to try any of these cookies in time for Christmas (though they all work throughout the year as well, so don't you worry.)

Anyway. These are one of my all time favorites. They go by about 39,827,423 different names here in Germany, but I call them Angel Eyes. These are the cookie I'm mostly likely to bake again once the first batch has been eaten and whenever I give away cookies, I'm really stingy with these, cause I'd much rather eat them myself. So this year I compromised: I filled them with two different kinds of jam - one I really like, one I don't like as much myself. Then I gave away the ones I didn't really like anyway and I didn't feel bad about having to share.

They originally go with redcurrant jelly, but you can substitute that with whatever flavor you want. I've used raspberry and apricot before (the latter being the one I myself don't like as much) - so use whatever flavor suits you best.

Angel Eyes


For the cookies:
200g all-purpose flour
1 egg yolk
60g white sugar
1 p. vanilla sugar (alternatively: 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract)
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp lemon zest
125g softened butter

For the filling:
100g redcurrant jelly (or any flavor you like, just make sure it's not jam, because we don't want fruity bits)
30g powdered sugar


1. Sift the flour onto your workspace (I usually work right on my kitchen counter) and make a hole in the middle of the flour. The sugar, salt, egg yolk, lemon zest and the vanilla sugar go in there.

2. Cut the butter into small pieces and evenly distribute around the sides.

3. With your hands, start kneading everything until you have a smooth dough.

4. Cover the dough in clingwrap and put it in the fridge for an hour.

5. Line your baking trays with baking paper and preheat your oven to 200°C.

6. Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out to about 3 to 5 mm in thickness.

7. Choose cookie cutters in whatever size and shape you want and start cutting out shapes (squares and circles are easiest and make sure you always have an even number of each shape you cut out). Put one half of the cookies on your baking tray like that (those will be the bottom cookies), and use a smaller cookie cutter to cut another, smaller shape out of the other half of the cookies. Those will be the top.

8. Bake for about 8 minutes.

9. After the cookies have completely cooled down, stir the jelly a little, so it's less jelly-like in consistency and easier to spread on the cookies. Spread a little jelly on the bottom cookies (how much depends on the size of your cookies and how much you like), but make sure it doesn't reach the edge.

10. Lightly press one of the cookies with the cut-out shape on top.

11. Dust with powdered sugar.

Enjoy!
♥ Nicole