hey dudes I'm Hilah and today on Hilah
cooking is Christmas around the world
series we are headed to Germany or
Deutschland as I think they call it
there I don't know we're gonna make
cinnamon stars or simp stone which are
perhaps one of the most unusual cookie
recipes that I have ever made so I am
really excited to share them with you
it's like a meringue with almonds and
cinnamon and lemon and it's really quite
interesting and I think you're going to
love it this done all right for the
cookie dough I use that word loosely
we've got two egg whites here and we're
gonna beat these up until they're fairly
stiff when you're doing egg whites you
like the enemy of fluffy egg whites is
oil or grease so make sure that your
bowl and your beater is super clean and
you can even like wipe it out with a
little bit of vinegar if you're worried
there might be some oily residue so
we're gonna start this on kind of a
medium-low just so we don't splat our
egg all over the place and then when it
starts to get a little foamy I'm gonna
add in some lemon juice okay so once it
starts to look like this a little bubbly
I've got some lemon juice and some lemon
zest and I'm gonna add those in and the
acid if the lemon juice is also going to
help the egg whites make nice firm peaks
and we're gonna let this go until it's
at a medium stiff peak and that'll take
a few minutes on high and I'll show you
what that looks like when we get there
okay so I'm gonna check it I think it
looks media me okay yeah so you can see
when you lift up your beaters if the the
meringue in the bottom of the bowl makes
a little bit of a peak kind of follows
the beaters and then flops over but see
it went like up and then I'm tired so
that's good that's a medium stiff and
now I've got some powdered sugar and
cinnamon and I've sifted these all night
in this it's a cinnamon but I have
sifted the cottage sugar so we want to
have this kind of on a low speed just
you don't like spray cocaine powder
everywhere kidding its powdered sugar
and we're gonna add this gradually a
little bit of time
and if you were doing this with a hand
mixer as opposed to a stand mixer you
would have to add a little bit and then
mix it up and then add a little bit more
on and mix it up what a stand mixer it's
a little more streamlines because you
can just do it like this so once you've
got it in there I just want to kind of
scrape down the sides to make sure all
the sugars in there I can see this
meringue has kind of fallen a little bit
from the sugar but it's still very thick
so now get all that in there we're just
going to beat this on high again until
we get a really beautiful shiny thick
meringue and I'll show you what that
looks like when we get there it'll take
a few more minutes on high
okay so just check it periodically I
could see that the beaters were starting
to leave a streak through the meringue
so there we go okay we're getting really
close now I'm gonna let it go a little
bit longer beautiful okay so it's not
gonna make like a stiff peak because of
the sugar and everything but can you see
how it's sort of almost making ribbons
when you lift the the beaters up and
then you get left with this little
streaky peek a little streaky peak you
try to show it to you a little bitter
see that in the center there see how the
beater is just sort of hanging like a
little stalactite okay now we're gonna
take some of this meringue and set it
aside that's gonna be like the topping
for our cookies so I'm just actually
gonna you wanna maybe a third of a cup
or half a cup
alright so that's about enough we'll set
this aside and this is gonna be like a
little meringue icing so I've got some
almond meal or almond flour this is
already like pre ground-up almonds if
you want to grind your own I put
directions for doing that on my website
I prefer to use the almond meal just
because it's more consistent consistency
so we're gonna add about a half a pound
of this and you don't really need to be
delicate with it because we're trying to
get it stiff enough to roll out so it's
okay if you pop your air bubbles okay so
once you've got a dough that is like
this it's still fairly soft and it's
just chock full of healthy nuts looks a
little grainy and sandy I'm gonna put
this in the fridge now for an hour up to
a couple of hours um that's really
important or else you're just gonna like
go crazy trying to flatten it out so um
cover it with some plastic or something
and just stick it in the fridge and then
I'll show you how to roll em out okay so
my dough has been in the fridge for a
while it's still quite soft
that is okay and if you want to just
work with half of it at a time - that's
totally fine and probably recommended
all right so I've got a sheet of
parchment here and a piece of wax paper
on top of that and you just want to you
can use a rolling pin sometimes it's
easier just to use your hands but you
want to flatten it out to maybe a third
of an inch or what is that like a little
less than a centimeter thick looks good
peel that off and if you find that it's
sticking to your paper you can sprinkle
a little bit of almond meal or a
powdered sugar down to maybe help with
that a little bit and I've got a little
star cutter I'm sure you could use
another shape but I'm gonna do this try
to be proper I know if it does that you
can kind of lift it out and poke it over
here but really the reason I'm doing it
on parchment paper is because the dough
is so delicate sometimes the the shapes
get distorted when you try to move them
so it's actually working really well
right now but if it's not popping out in
your cutter like this then at the end
you can just pull away the excess and
your cookies are already on a parchment
and you can just transfer that right to
your baking sheet
and then we can transfer this right to
our little baking sheet and they're all
in crazy positions but that's okay it's
like a constellation okay so then we're
gonna spread these with a little bit of
our meringue a small new paintbrush
would probably work better but all my
paintbrushes have tempera paints all in
them so you just want to coat the top as
much as you can try to get all the
little edges and the cool thing about
this dough is that it's naturally gluten
free so if you're cooking for anyone
with you know sensitivity or celiac or
anything these are something that you
could make for them and because of that
you can reroll the scraps indefinitely
so the stuff that I just pulled away
from these cookies I'll put back in the
fridge and let it chill again for
another 30 minutes or so and you can
roll out and cut some more cookies no
bigs and the first few times I made
these it really took me a few tries to
get this recipe right so don't be
discouraged if the first time you make
them your dough's too soft to roll and
cut you can totally just make little
round blobs and decorate them the same
way and they won't look as cute but
they'll still be tasty okay so once they
are all coated with your meringue you
can bake them now but I like to make
them a little bit fancier
and I've got some just sliced almonds
here you can kind of decorate them
however you want for this particular
star shape cutter I like to do a little
kind of a cross in the middle
so once they're all decorated then I put
these in a very slow oven 275 for about
25 minutes until the tops of the
meringues are set but not actually
turned brown and then take them out and
let them cool completely on the cookie
sheet okay so 25 minutes later these are
our beautiful zips turn so the meringue
is still white but you can see around
the edges of the cookies the bottom
edges are a little bit Brown so they're
they're good and they smell cinnamony
and delicious I'm gonna let them cool
completely on the tray then we'll be
ready to eat them just like that
okay the cookies have cooled off you can
see how beautiful they look they're like
little snow-capped mountains for this
recipe in printable format as well as
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give these a little taste
cinnamony lemonade
julienne crispy at the same time kinda
hits all your bases there folks
alright now as you go there's how to
make cinema stars or dips done hope
everyone has a wonderful holiday season
and I'll see you all next time thanks
for watching bye