Tuesday: Zimtsterne

Zimtsterne, Cinnamon star in English is popular in whole Switzerland also in some parts of Germany and Austria. It's, as the name says, always a star shaped and made essentially of almonds, egg white, sugar and of course cinnamon. The stars are topped with an egg white glasur before baking and the baking temparature has to be kept low enough for the topping not to start to brown.

Zimtsterne

The website Kulinarisches Erbe der Schweiz tells that the Zimtsterne can be dated back to the 16th centry. Back then the cinnamon was a very expensive spice so the Zimtsterne would mostly have been eaten by the small upper class. The first recipes can be found in the German cook books from the 18th century and in the Swiss cook books as late as the second half of the 19th century.

I took my recipe from the Saison Küche and it worked out good. By the way, for those speaking German, French or Italian is the Saison Küche worth of a glance. They have pretty nice recipes and ideas.

The needed ingredients

 Zimtsterne

300 g finely grinded almonds

2 tbsp maizena

3 tbsp cinnamon

1 tbsp cacao powder

1/2 lemon

2 (60g) egg white

250 g icing sugar

(bitter almond aroma)

1/2 tbsp Kirsch or lemon juice

* Mix almonds, maizena, cinnamon, cacao pulver and grated lemon zest

* Beat the egg whites into a foam and add the icing sugar to it one by one

* Take about 1 dl of the eggwhite-sugar foam and place in the fridge

* Continue beating the eggwhites until shiny and forms tips

* Mix the eggwhite foam with the dry ingredients quickly into a dough

* Wrap in platic foil and place in the fridge for about 1 hour

* Roll out the dough 1 cm thick between two baking papers

* Cut out stars of desired size

* Mix Kirsch with the eggwhite-icing sugar glasur which was place in the fridge earlier

* Coat each star with the glasur

* Let the stars dry over night in a cool and dry place

* Bake in 170 degrees for about 6 min. The top shouldn't get any colour.

Roll out the dough between two baking papers

Coat the stars with the egg white-icing sugar glasur