So! Only one week until Christmas and still much to be done before you can relax on the couch, completely stuffed with good Christmas food, so much that the trousers and zipper must be opened to the hug. One can only take a couple of walks around the Christmas tree, then go to the mountains of Christmas presents. And when it comes to Danish Christmas cozyness, vaniljekranse is at the top of the list along with brunkager (mostly the last one if you ask my father).
It is a Christmas tradition for my best friend and myself to have big Christmas baking day(s) and when our schedules fit together, my sister and nieces also come along.
Put some Christmas music on, then put the family to work and they will be busy for the next few hours, while you relax with a cup of hot cocoa and watch, hopefully, the snow falling outside.
VANILJEKRANSE
300 G SUGAR
1 VANILLA POD
50 G WHOLE ALMONDS WITH SKIN ON
300 G COLD BUTTER
400 G FLOUR
1 EGG
Start scrapping as many seeds as possible out of the vanilla pod and grind the seeds together with a little sugar, to break them apart.
Add a little more sugar until the vanilla and sugar are mixed evenly.
Blend the almonds in a food processor or blender to a fine almond flour.
Add the cold butter in small cubes along with flour and blitz until it has consistency of breadcrumbs.
Now mix all the ingredients together and knead it lightly to a uniform dough, but without kneading too much. As it will make the dough tough and more soft when baked, and like short crust pastry, the dough’s ability to get crisp is ruined.
Preheat the oven to 190 degrees celsius.
Line the baking sheets with baking paper.
Are you lucky enough to have a meat grinder, then use the star cookie attachment!
The dough can easily be run through the star shape and formed into small wreaths on the baking paper.
If you do not have a meat grinder, you have to have patience and a set of good arm muscles.
Add the dough a little at a time in a piping bag with star tip and the dough is sprayed and shaped into a wreath. But the dough must be very soft and hardly as fast as with the meat grinder.
Bake the vaniljekranse for about 10 min until they are golden brown at the edges and become crispy when they come out of the oven.
Store the vaniljekranse in a cookie jar lined with baking paper and try to save someone for Christmas Eve.