Merry Christmas!

300 g flour

110 g sugar powder

1/2 vanilla pod

2 egg yolks

200 g butter

1 jar cherry jam

1/2 vanilla pod

So, sift the flour, add sugar powder, vanilla pod seeds, 2 egg yolks, butter and mix it all thoroughly. Let it rest in the fridge or 2 hours.
Choose a lovely cookie cutter in shape of a heart or a Christmas tree.
Cut the cookies and bake them for 10-12 minutes at 180-200 °C.
When they are ready, let them cool down.
Warm the jam (I prefer cherry) and mix it with vanilla seeds, put it on the cookies, then stick them together. It is nice to cut a hole or a heart in on of the cookies. It looks very lovely (I was just in a hurry ;).
So that's it. Enjoy.

Spice up the coming winter!

What I love about December is the smell of Christmas cookies and different spices I always connect with this magical time of year. Recently I have discovered a lovely recipe (that I had of course to change a bit as usually) of a Winter Punch.
Usually I buy a mix of spices for mulled wine, but this time I went for apple cider with a range of well chosen spices. It was amazing and definitely worth trying!

You will need:

1 bottle of cider
70 g of brown sugar
10 pods of cardamom
1 vanilla pod
3 aniseed pods
2 cinnamon sticks
8 cloves
a piece of fresh ginger
1 organic orange

Take half a cup of cider and let all ingredients simmer for a while. Then put everything into a pot with the rest of the cider and let it heat (do not let it boil!).
There is also the option to put some cider in a jar, to add the spices and let it for a couple of days in the fridge and use the extract then, but I did not have the time. Anyway it was just delicious.