cookies, classes and holidays
Happy Holidays from Bake Austin
Can you believe its this time of the year?!
Here are some of the highlights:
We will be at Cherrywood Art Fair again this year, with our wonderful authentic German Christmas cookies.
I joined Kitchen Underground and I am teaching two Adult class this holiday season: Dec 2nd 6pm-9pm as well as Dec 19th form 6pm-9pm (see below)
Also there is one more holiday baking class for kids on Dec 19th. (see below)
Keep scrolling, I will give you one of my favorite recipes... :)
I think it is the first time that we bought a tree this early in the year, but I felt like I really needed one in the house to get in the mood this year. So the boys picked out the perfect little tree and we brought it home, decorated it, drank hot apple cider and listened to holiday songs on Pandora.
As we were decorating the tree, I thought of my mother and how she always had red ornaments (so do I), I remembered all of our holiday traditions and it made me miss Germany a bit. Advent was huge and my mother had the advent wreath out as soon as possible, with 4 big fat red candles and every Sunday of December we burned another candle and had cookies and tea and listened to christmas songs. The day before Christmas, Christmas is the 24th in Germany, we got the tree and decorated it. On the eve of the 24th she made us stand in front of the tree and sing songs. :) As little kids this was fun, but as my brother and I got older it became embarrassing and and annoying.
Haha, I should really make my body do that! Now I understand these things way better!
I am not as organized when it comes to Christmas traditions, I try to get the advent calendar together before December 1st.... which is tomorrow! Yikes! This year I will be a bit late.
I never really have an advent wreath, I am too worried I will forget the candles are on before running to get more butter and eggs from the store and I most certainly do not wait until December 23rd to get the tree.
But the one thing I have kept alive is the baking. That I do! I bake all of my grandmothers recipes that were handed down to me, plus a few more and I don't just bake a few hundred, I bake thousands! And very rarely are any left over for us as a family.
If you would like to order Christmas cookies from Bake Austin, please email me at bakeaustin@gmail.com or come by Cherrywood Art Fair. We will have a limited amount of cookie tins this year, so preorder if you know you would like some.
They go fast!
UPCOMING CLASSES
GERMAN CHRISTMAS COOKIES
ADULT CLASS, DEC 2ND, 6-9PM
GERMAN CHRISTMAS COOKIES
ADULT CLASS, DEC 19TH, 6-9PM
Our last kids camp this year.
Christmas cookies!
We will bake and decorate sugar cookies and learn how make them look like like pro's.
Saturday Dec 19th, 10am-2pm, Ages 9-14, $40
“Heidesand” a delicate short bread cookie is baked with browned butter which gives it a light caramel flavor. Our cookies have a touch of sea salt, which gives them the perfect flavor of sweet and salty.
This classic christmas cookie is a Northern German staple and it is important to let it cool properly. It is said that these cookies should cool for at lest 4 hours before storing them.
Once baked and cooled these cookies will stay fresh for 3 weeks, as long as they are stored properly.
Heidesand Plaetzchen
300 g butter, cut into small pieces
400 g flour
175 g sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1TBSP coarse sea salt
Brown the butter in a pot, pour into a bowl and let it get solid again. Cut butte into small pieces before getting the dough together.
Mix all ingredients together incorporating the cold butter in slowly until a smooth dough forms. Roll the dough into rolls about 1 inch thick, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 325F. Cut the roll into 1/4 inch thin slices and place each cookie on a parchment covered baking sheet. Bake for 11-13 minutes until lightly browned. Let these cookies cool completely before storing them in an airtight container.
Enjoy!