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I figured I could do all the baking and assembly one day, then do the chocolate and the chopping the next. I recommend doing it in this way as it helps keep you sane. The kitchen does end up covered in a fair few bowls coated in many different colours. But was the whole process a breeze? I did have one major wobble. I trimmed the sides, partly to neaten it all up, and partly to have some offcuts to eat.

With a nice sharp knife it was a dream to cut. Then I was frankly horrified upon doing a sneaky taste — the cakes seems dry and hard.

I panicked. Had they been over-baked? Had I wasted my time? In fact, they were just cold. As they came up to temperature, they softened and that delicious jammy almond flavour emerged. So yeah, just note that this happens! The chocolate layer was the bit that worried me.

You need to do the top and the bottom. Now, I can temper chocolate, but it takes time and patience. Plus it is about 1 degree centigrade outside, so our old London brick house is freezing which makes it all the more tricky to get chocolate to a precise temperature — not too hot, not too cold.

This was a problem that the Smitten Kitchen recipe had too. Well, it turns out the answer was actually mercifully simple — you just add a little unsalted butter to the melted chocolate. Well this comes in two parts. How much work were they, and how do they taste. In terms of effort, they are a lot less work than I thought.

I probably spent one hour doing all the baking, and that was alongside keeping an eye on my son, who also tried to help and promptly made a mess. Then maybe 20 minutes assembling it all before leaving to chill overnight. The chocolate was the job for the second day. Splitting it up in this way makes it quite easy. For indeed, my much-treasured Japanese steel metal ruler helped get those sharp lines and equal cuts.

In terms of how they taste, I love them. They have an intense almond flavour and lovely fruitiness from the jam which I boosted with a little amaretto and some cherry liqueur. This is all balanced by the dark chocolate.

But then, it is iconic, and I wonder if anything else really would do? Plus, where else are you going to find cookies that can symbolise the flags of Italy, Hungary, Ghana and Mali depending on how you place them? Get some electric scales, and weigh your bowls before using them. This makes it really easy to work out by weight how much batter or jam should be in each portion.

I happen to know my main mixing bowl is g. Believe me, it saves a lot of guessing, eyeballing and general culinary angst.

And it does help get even layers when making something like Italian Rainbow Cookies where you want to be precise to show off just how fancy you can get with your baking. Prepare 3 sheets of greaseproof paper to fit a 33 x 23cm 13 x 9 inch baking pan.

Put the egg whites into a large bowl. Beat until you have soft peaks, then add 50g of caster sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until it forms stiff peaks — it should look like a meringue. In a separate bowl, grate the almond paste.

Work with your hands so that it gets soft, then add the remaining g caster sugar and the butter. Beat until pale, fluffy and everything is combined. Add the yolks, almond extract and vanilla extract, and keep beating on high speed. If you can still see a lot of flecks of almond paste, keep beating to get it super-smooth.

When done, fold in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix well. Add half the meringue mixture to the other bowl, and fold in to lighten the batter. Then add the rest of the meringue mixture and fold that in. Split the batter between 3 bowls. Add red food colouring to one, and green food colouring to another.

Put the green batter into the fridge, and put the white batter to one side. Pour the red batter into the prepared baking tray, and spread as evenly as you can. Bake the red layer for around 10 minutes. It will still look a bit wet on top, but a cocktail stick should come out clean. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for a couple of minutes, then transfer to a wire cooling rack.

Remove the green batter from the fridge to bring it up to temperature. Set aside. Now prepare the baking tray again, and bake the white layer. While the cakes are cooling, prepare the jam. Put it into a saucepan, add 4 tablespoons or water or a mixture of amaretto and cherry liqueur, and bring to the boil.

Pass through a sieve, and set aside to cool. Once all the layers are completely cool, prepare a shopping board or tray by lining with a sheet of greaseproof paper. Flip the green layer onto the paper. Spread with half the cooled jam mixture, getting it as even as you can. Then flip the white layer onto the green layer, and spread with the rest of the jam. Finally, flip the red layer and place on top. Wrap the whole lot in cling film, place in the fridge, then put a heaving baking tray on top and add a few jars to weigh it all down.

Leave to chill overnight. Time to finish it off. Remove the tray from the fridge. Use a clean straight knife to trim the edges. Prepare the chocolate. Put g chocolate in a bowl, and microwave in 30 second bursts until it is melted. Add 10g of unsalted butter, and mix well. Spread evenly on the red layer, getting it as smooth as you can.

Place in the fridge for a few minutes to set. Remove the tray from the fridge, and flip it onto another tray so now the chocolate is at the bottom, and you have a green sheet of cookie facing you. Melt the rest of the chocolate, then add the rest of the butter. Spread on top, and put it back to the fridge for 5 minutes to set.

Use a serrated knife to score lines on top of the chocolate, marking first vertical, then horizontal Go back over the vertical lines to cut through the layer of chocolate. Then switch to a clean straight-edged knife to cut through the cake layers, and swap back to the serrated knife to cut through the bottom lawyer of the chocolate.

You should have long strips of rainbow cookies. Take each strip and place on its side do you can see the pattern facing you. Use a small sharp knife to cut into individual pieces in a swift downwards motion. Keep going until all the cookies have been done. Store in an airtight container in the fridge, but allow to come to room temperature before serving. The brand I used was Odense Mandelmassa that I panic-bought earlier in the year. Filed under Christmas , Recipe , Sweet Things.

Tagged as 12 Days of Christmas , almonds , america , american food , baking , biscuits , butter , cake , chocolate , christmas , christmas baking , christmas cookies , cookies , dessert , eggs , flour , food , italian rainbow cookies , jam , nuts , rainbow , rainbow cookies , Recipe , seven-layer cookies , sugar , sweet , twelve days , twelve days baking challenge , twelve days of christmas , vanilla.

Land of mountains, forest, fjords and a seemly endless supply of cookie recipes. There was lots of imagination at play when someone came up with that name. These cookies are very easy to make, and they might just be about to become your new favourite accompaniment to morning coffee.

They are thin, crisp, and by turns buttery, caramelised and lightly spiced. Brune pinner. These are part of the Norwegian tradition of syv slags kaker. Busy Norwegians try to do out-do each other by making seven different type of cookies to offer their guests over the festive period.

In my research for this recipe, I did find something that made me chuckle which, to keep banging the same drum, we do need right now!

Butter shortages were triggered due to heavy rains affecting grazing pastures earlier in the year, leading to a nightmare world of illicit butter smuggling, Swedish stores along the border jacking up butter prices, and a Danish TV show running a butter emergency telethon to get 4, packs of butter to desperate Norwegians. Clearly getting that syv slags kaker spread ready for guests is a serious business to the good burghers of Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim! The method for making these is really very simple.

Cream butter and sugar and add in the rest of the ingredients. You divide the dough into six sausages, then shape each just be pressing them down with your fingers. No oddly-named Norwegian cake devices needed, no cutters, no piping, no chilling overnight, and no layering of icing or jam.

You then brush what looks like mega-cookies with beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar and chopped nuts, and bake. Within a minute or two, they are cool, crisp and a bit more like sticks.

For the topping, I have used pearl sugar, also called nibbed sugar, and some chopped almonds. For the nuts, these would work equally well with chopped hazelnuts, pistachios or pecans. A good tip is to mix all the sugar and nuts together before you start, then divide it into six portions to use on the dough. This avoids ending up with the first batch being lavishly decked in sugar and nuts, and the final batch looking a bit spartan.

One note of advice: I found that these cookies are crisp when they are fresh, but if left out overnight they will soften quite quickly. To make Brune Pinner makes around 70 , adapted from Tine. Prepare the topping — chop the almonds, and mix with the pearl sugar. In a separate bowl beat the egg. Set it all to one side. Make the dough. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the egg yolk, syrup, cinnamon, vanilla and salt, and mix well. Combine the flour with the baking soda, then add to the bowl and work to a soft dough. Pop into the fridge for 5 minutes to firm slightly. Divide the dough into six pieces. Take a piece of dough, form into a thin sausage about 24cm long. It should look like a long, flat pitta bread. Repeat so that you have 2 pieces of dough on each sheet of greaseproof paper. Bake the sheets one at a time. Take the first sheet, and brush the two pieces of dough with the beaten egg.

Sprinkle each with the mixture of pearl sugar and chopped almonds. Bake for 10 minutes — the dough will have expanded and have a rich brown colour. Remove from the oven, and immediately cut into diagonal strips, around 2cm thick, using a pizza cutter or a sharp knife. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet, then when they are firm, transfer to a wire tray to cool completely. Repeat for the rest of the dough. Stoare in an airtight container. You can buy it online. The closest substitute I can think of otherwise would be golden syrup or maple syrup.

Tagged as 12 Days of Christmas , almonds , baking , baking soda , biscuits , brown sticks , brune pinner , butter , christmas , cinnamon , cookies , eggs , flour , food , noreg , norge , norway , norwegian baking , norwegian food , Recipe , spice , sugar , sweet , syrup , twelve days , twelve days baking challenge , twelve days of christmas , vanilla.

When it comes to Christmas cookies, I have something of a penchant for acquiring yet more niche kitchen equipment. Similar cookies pop up in a few countries across Europe, ranging from what you might think of as traditional cookie doughs to those made with a batter and thus somewhat closer in texture to wafers.

If you are truly committed you can even go all out and invest in a little Russian walnut-making iron, similar to something you would use for making waffles. While I could justify buying a small set of walnut moulds, even I had to draw the line at an electric walnut maker.

Finding a recipe that I liked the look of was tricky. I hunted high and low for one that would, firstly, not make about cookies, and second, that I would actually like. There were a fair few recipes that I read and was not convinced by. The lack of pictures always makes me suspicious as to whether something has actually been tested. I did use one recipe which looked good, but the cookies ended up being so fragile that I baked two batches, saw most of them collapse in my hands, and I gave up.

The failed cookies and the unbaked dough went in the bin. Was I to be doomed to failure? I had a think about what I needed this recipe to do, and decided to adapt a recipe for Dutch speculaas cookies. I removed the spices and added a dash of cocoa powder and some ground walnuts.

My little flash of inspiration worked like a dream. The dough is easy to make, easy to work with, very forgiving in terms of being handled, pressed into shape, trimmed and re-rolled, and the baked cookies are great. They also have the benefit of being a rich, deep nutty shade, so they do kind of look like walnuts.

All this means they are easy to assemble, and after filling and some resting time, the cookie becomes a little softer and the whole thing is a little nugget of deliciousness. You pinch off a little ball of dough, then press it hard into the mould. At first I thought that there was not going to be enough, but have faith and do a test bake but they will puff up during baking. No-one wants that. If you are not in the market for investing in walnut moulds, then a small madeleine mould would work well.

Otherwise you could just roll out this dough and cut out circles to make sandwich cookies. For the filling, you have options. I actually made two different ones — a whipped buttercream custard filling made with ground walnuts, and a whipped dulce de leche buttercream for some caramel goodness.

The walnut filling is based on a basic custard thickened with flour. Just be warned that the amount would get will easily fill all 50 cookies, but I just could not make a quantity smaller than the one below without getting into silly micro-measurements. That said, the filling is delicious, so you can easily use it in other things. In fact, I made little sandwich cookies with some of my remaining paciencias and the walnut filling, and they were spec-ta-cu-lar.

Finally, for fun, I filled a few with some Nutella. They were just glorious. It seems obvious, but different moulds are different sizes, and will need different baking times. It is really worth doing a rest run with just one and seeing how long it needs to bake. I often do this on a recipe that is very new to me or where I think the timings indicated might be off. Better to ruin one cookie than a whole batch. One other thing to know — this will require a serious time commitment.

The recipe makes 50 sandwich cookies, which needs shells. I had just 10 moulds, so I had to bake 10 batches in total. But they look great, taste wonderful and they were fun to do. Put the butter in a bowl, and beat until soft. Add the sugar, salt, vanilla and buttermilk, then beat until creamy.

Combine the flour, baking soda, cocoa powder and ground walnuts. Add to the main bowl and mix everything until you have a soft dough that comes away from the bowl.

Pinch off some dough and press into the mould. You want it to be pretty thin — mm at most. Trim off any excess with a sharp knife. Bake the cookies for around 8 minutes until the dough looks puffed and set, and they are a rich brown colour. Remove from the oven, allow cool for a moment, then remove from the moulds I flipped them over and gave a sharp tap — the cookie popped out. Repeat until all the dough is used up. Time to fill the cookies. Take a shell, fill it generously with the filling of your choice, then add another shell on top.

Transfer the cookies to an airtight container, and leave to rest in the fridge overnight. Remove from the bridge 15 minutes before serving. Put the walnuts and milk into a small saucepan. Use an immersion blender to blitz until smooth.

Add the flour, sugar and salt. Place over a medium heat and cook until the sugar has dissolved. Keep cooking for around 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the mixture starts to thicken and looks slightly translucent. Transfer the thickened mixture to a plate, cover with cling film and press it down on the surface. Leave to cool completely. Put the butter in a bowl. Beat until light and fluffy. Start to add spoonfuls of the pudding mixture and beat well after each addition.

Finally add the rum and vanilla. Add the dulce de leche and salt and beat well. If the mixture seems too wet, add a little more butter and beat well to incorporate. I came across a recipe for Cinnamon Stars from the royal kitchens of Buckingham Palace original here , including a video of how they do it.

So, of course, I just had to have a go at making them. These may be familiar to you as German Zimtsterne , or cinnamon stars. You start off making a dough with ground nuts and cinnamon, then finish them with a meringue topping. They are also topped with snow-white icing and feature a bit of elaborate piping. When I read the recipe, I was convinced by the idea.

However, I had a couple of quibbles with the method. The suggestion was to make a meringue, and use two-thirds of it to make the dough. Then you roll out the dough, cover it with the reserved meringue, and then cut out shapes.

I think the idea is that the cookies are then pre-iced? This struck me as quite wasteful, as you would not be able to re-roll the offcuts since the meringue would make it all too sticky.

Also I knew that smearing something with meringue was likely to be a messy affair with a child in the house who is enjoying touching everything within reach. So I adapted the method. Then I made and rolled the dough, cut out the shapes without the icing, and then I could happily gather the scraps and keep re-rolling until I was done.

Hi everyone! Hi guys! I recently visited The Wolseley for their afternoon tea and just as I imagined, it was an absolutely stunning place. It was booming with people even at 3 pm but luckily I managed to get a seat without a booking.

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