Description
These German Cinnamon Stars (Zimtsterne) are really easy to make to serve with coffee or to give as a gift over the holiday period – they’ll keep in an air tight tin for up to 6 weeks!
Ingredients
Scale
For the Cinnamon Stars
- 250g (8 oz) marzipan (this is exactly half a pack!)
- 150g (5 1/2 oz) ground almonds
- 90g (3 oz) icing (powdered) sugar, plus extra for dusting
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 60ml (2 oz) egg white (about 1 large and 1 small egg white, see note)
For the Icing
- 40ml (1 1/2 oz) egg white (about 1 large egg white)
- 110g (4 oz) icing (powdered) sugar
- spritz fresh lemon juice
Instructions
- Line 2-3 large baking sheets with baking parchment, and pre-heat the oven to 130 degrees (265 fahrenheit).
- Grate the marzipan on the largest hole of your box grater (don’t worry if it gets a bit squishy!) and combine with the ground almonds, icing sugar (sifted), cinnamon and egg whites. Using you hands, squish everything together into a uniform dough – don’t worry – it is supposed to get sticky!
- Sprinkle a clean work surface very generously with icing sugar (make sure you sieve it, as any lumps will get stuck in your stars!) and, working in two batches and adding yet more icing sugar when things get too sticky, roll the dough out to about 1/2 cm thick.
- Cut out your stars and transfer them to the lined baking sheets, bringing the dough together and rolling the scraps out again and again. You’ll also need to clean scraps off the cutter occasionally, to keep your shapes nice and even.
- Bake the stars for 15 minutes. They should crack slightly and go a little puffy. Leave to cool on the trays before decorating. This will take a while, so sometimes at this stage I stop and keep them in an airtight tin for a couple of days until I have time to finish them.
- To make the icing, using an electric hand whisk beat the egg white into stiff peaks. Fold in the icing sugar and a generous spritz of lemon juice.
- Using an eating knife, push the icing into the tips of each star and set them aside to set solid. You’ll figure out a technique for this pretty quickly – as I mentioned, this is a very time consuming job, so I usually do it in front of the television! Leave them to dry for a good 12 hours or overnight before transferring to an air tight tin or packaging them up to give as gifts.
Notes
It is easiest to use a carton of egg whites for this recipe, but I’ve included measurements for using whole eggs instead.