Painted Springerle Cookies Recipe

Technically a German treat for Christmas, I made and painted Springerle cookies with spring in mind.

Like French macarons, German Springerle are known for their 'feet', which are created when the tops of the biscuits are allowed to dry before baking, causing the still-moist bottoms to rise in the oven to create a little platform.

In fact, the texture of these biscuits is a little like macarons, too: crisp outer shell, soft, chewy interior.

Traditionally, they're flavoured with aniseed, but this flavour isn't everyone's cup of tea – mine included. So instead, I flavoured mine with vanilla and cardamom, but you can use either just vanilla or just cardamom. Some people also like using lemon zest.

They're originally made with baking ammonium (ammonium carbonate) as a leavening agent. But it's a bit of a niche ingredient in the UK, and can only be found in specialist shops. Regular baking powder (a mix of bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar) works just as well, so that's what I use.

They're also traditionally made with wooden Springerle moulds, which imprint a pattern into the dough when pressed into it. Here, I've used one of my 30g mooncake moulds, since I have so many of them. Might as well use what I have!

You'll need at least a couple of days to make this, as they often need to be dried overnight before baking. When baked for Christmas, they're left to dry out for days after baking too, so they harden enough to be used as Christmas tree ornaments. But in this case, we're going to be decorating them and eating them fresh for spring.

You don't have to paint your Springerle – they're beautiful either pure snowy white from the oven or painted with food colouring and edible lustre dust. I simply mix a little of both with vodka to make a painting medium that dries quickly.

You can also watch me make these on my YouTube channel, Tashcakes:

Ready? Let's go.

(Makes about 58 Springerle cookies.)

Ingredients:

4 medium eggs
500g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cardamom
1/3 tsp salt
500g plain flour
Pinch of baking powder
Additional plain flour (for dusting)

Method:

1. Crack the eggs into a large bowl and give them a quick whisk with an electric mixer to break them up.

2. Add the icing sugar, vanilla, cardamom and salt, whisk to incorporate, then keep whisking until thick and creamy.

3. Stir in the flour and baking powder to form a dough. Cover with clingfilm to stop the dough from drying out too quickly.

4a. If you're rolling the Springerle out, simply take small pieces of dough at a time, roll them out, stamp with a Springerle stamp and cut out before placing on a baking parchment-lined baking tray.

4b. If you're using a 30g mooncake mould, measure out 20g chunks of the dough, roll into balls, place into a separate bowl and cover. Now lightly dust each ball with additional flour before stamping with your mooncake mould and placing on a baking parchment-lined baking tray.

5. Once you've rolled out and shaped all your dough and placed your cookies a couple of cm apart on your baking trays, leave uncovered to dry for up to 12–24 hours. You'll know they're ready to bake when the tops are dry, but if you turn them over, the centres of the bottoms will still be moist, with a dry ring framing them.

6. Once you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 150°C.

7. Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, or until the bottom edges of the 'feet' are just starting to turn golden but the tops are still white.

8. Leave to cool completely. If you like, once they're cool, you can dust off any excess flour with a clean fluffy brush, then mix a little food colouring with vodka to paint the tops.

Enjoy, and have fun.