The Swiss Hotel School shares spitzbuben recipe
The traditional Swiss jam cookies are delicious and perfect for sharing at Christmas time.
Now is as good a time as any to bake traditional Swiss Christmas cookies in practice for December.
The Swiss Hotel School shared its recipe for spitzbuben (Swiss jam cookies) for veteran and aspiring bakers alike to enjoy.
“On crisp South African winter days, I often remember the cold and dark and snowy winter days in Switzerland and remember the time my mother baked traditional Swiss Christmas cookies,” said the Ferndale institute’s director and conductor, Stephen Hickmore.
“The smell of freshly baked cookies lingering in the air gathering all of us in the kitchen to see and taste of what is going on. Sitting around the kitchen table, helping roll out dough, shaping cookies and then waiting for the delicacies to finally come out of the oven and taste… the baking of Christmas cookies was always the starting point of the Christmas season and brought with it candles, carols, burning fires, wrapping of gifts, decorating trees and the anticipation of the magic of Christmas.”
He said he has kept up with the tradition and still bakes the Christmas cookies, especially during winter.
“It is calming, entertaining, fun and the perfect thing to do during a cold winter weekend.”
The recipe below makes about 200 cookies
Ingredients:
- 1 kg butter (soft)
- 500g icing sugar or sugar
- Four pinches of salt
- 10 ml vanilla essence
- Four egg whites
- 1.4 kg flour
- 800g jam (apricot or strawberry)
Method of Preparation:
Place butter, icing sugar, vanilla essence and salt in a mixing bowl and whisk until light in colour and fluffy;
beat egg white slightly and mix into the butter mixture;
add the flour and lightly kneed into a dough;
wrap in plastic and let rest for two hours in the fridge.
Preheat oven to 200°C;
Roll dough in smaller portions between plastic sheets to about 2mm thickness. Cut round disks 4cm in diameter;
On half of the disks cut out a hole in the center.
Place disks on a lined baking sheet (baking paper) and rest in a cool place for 15 minutes.
Bake for approximately six minutes. Move biscuits to a cooling rack and allow to cool.
Heat the jam in a pot and then spread on the flat side of the cookie (the one without hole) place the cookie with hole on top and dust with icing sugar.
Enjoy.
