A very nice small cake with Christmas taste and looks. Who loves Spekulatius spice, taste and smell of Christmas at their home, they will love this mini cake, as well.

INGREDIENTS FOR BISCUIT :

120 g of flour

70 g of sugar

2 eggs ( room temperature)

100 ml of milk ( room temperature )

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 ½ teaspoon of Spekulatius spice

A pinch of salt

80 g of margarine for cakes or butter ( room temperature)

FRUIT PART : 

300 g of sour cherries ( from the jar)

200 ml sour cherry juice ( from the jar)

1 vanilla pudding

1 package of vanilla sugar

2 teaspoons of sugar

2 g of cinnamon

50 g margarine for cakes (or butter)

WHITE CREAM :

250 g of Quark or Topfen ( 20 % )

300 g of cream cheese for cakes (or Philadelphia)

5 leaves of gelatine

70 g of sugar

1 package of vanilla sugar

200 ml of sweet cream

GANACHE :

100 g of white chocolate

30 ml of sweet cream

ADDITIONAL :

10 cornets

green food colouring

coconut flour

thermostable powder sugar

different, small, sugar

decorations

PROCEDURE FOR THE BISCUIT :

1 . put sugar, salt, and margarine in a bowl and mix well to get a white mixture.

Then add eggs – one by one and mix everything well…

2 . add baking powder and Spekulatius spice into the flour and mix well…

3 . add flour and milk in the whipped eggs in turns and mix well…

4 . cover the bottom of the baking tin with parchment paper and coat the edges with margarine…

5 . pour the mixture into a tin with a diameter of 18 cm and put it in the oven, preheated to 180 degrees and bake ca. 20 – 25 minutes…

6 . leave the baked biscuit in the tin for 5 minutes and then take it away from the form…

7 . put the biscuit on a grid and let it cool down completely…

IN THE MEANTIME PREPARE THE FRUIT PART !!!

PROCEDURE FOR THE FRUIT PART :

1 . dissolve the pudding in a little sour cherry juice…

2 . put the cherries, the rest of the juice, sugar, vanilla sugar and cinnamon in a pot and let the mixture boil.

When it boils, add the dissolved pudding and cook shortly till it thickens well…

3 . add the margarine immediately and mix well…

4 . let the filling cool down…

WHEN THE BISCUIT AND THE FRUIT FILLING HAVE COOLED DOWN, YOU CAN START PREPARING THE WHITE CREAM !!!

PROCEDURE FOR THE WHITE CREAM :

1 . soak the gelatine in the cold water…

2 . put Quark, cream cheese for cakes, sugar and vanilla sugar in a bowl and mix well…

3 . dissolve the gelatine in the microwave or in a pot on the cooker…

4 . add a spoon or two of cream into the dissolved gelatine and mix well…

5 . now add the gelatine into the cream and mix well…

6 . while mixing, add sweet cream in a thin stream and mix well ( be careful not to mix the cream too much)…

CAKE PREPARATION :

1 . lay the biscuit on a plate for serving cakes…

2 . put a ring with a diameter of 20 cm around the biscuit…

3 . put half of the white cream on the biscuit…

4 . put the red sour cherry filling on the white cream, but leave a space of ca. 1 cm from the edge free ( SEE THE VIDEO )…

5 . put the rest of the white cream softly on the red filling and then spread and even the cream carefully…

6 . put the cake into the fridge overnight…

DECORATION :

1 . boil the sweet cream and pour it over the finely chopped chocolate. Cover the Ganache with a saucer for ca. 5 minutes. Mix Ganache well, so that there are no lumps…

2 . shorten the cornets to different sizes with a kitchen scalpel…

3 . add green colouring to the ganache and mix…

4 . coat the cornets with ganache, sprinkle some of them with coconut flour and some with pearls or stars…

5 . put the decorated cornets into the fridge to let the ganache thicken…

6 . before serving the cake line the pine tree cornets on the cake and sprinkle the thermostable sugar between the pine trees to make it look like snow…

NOTES AND ADVICE :

1 . Instead of Ganache, you can just melt white chocolate on the steam.

2 . If you do not have thermostable powder sugar, do not, in any case, use ordinary powder sugar, because it will soon start melting on the cake and it will look like you have sprinkled the cake with water.

3 . Instead of thermostable sugar, you can use coconut flour to look like snow on the cake.

4 . If you want to, you can even the cooled biscuit with a knife and then coat it with the creams.

5 . Decorate the cake before serving.

6 . Cool Ganache or melted chocolate to ca. 29 degrees, so that the decorations do not pour down the cornets from the chocolate.

7 . Instead of cream cheese for cakes, you can use a milk spread.

8 . If Ganache has not melted enough, put it into the microwave shortly.

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Christmas bread, Christmas stollen, Christmas cake – wherever I look, I see another name and I do not know how to translate this name exactly. For me it is Weihnachtsstollen and though it is hard to translate, but you know what I mean. Christmas stollen is normally bread-shaped, fragrant, sweet and very aromatic. This time I have prepared Christmas stollen for you in a slightly different form, like cookies that disappear in two bites.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE DOUGH :

450 g of flour

125 ml of milk

2 packages of vanilla sugar

200 g of margarine for cakes or butter ( room temperature )

2 g of salt

1 package of fresh yeast ( 40 g )

50 g of sugar

1 teaspoon of Amaretto ( you can use alcohol-free Amaretto, too )

150 g of almonds ( finely chopped )

75 g cranberry ( soaked in milk for a few hours )

75 g of raisins ( soaked in milk for a few hours )

200 g of candied fruit ( finely chopped )

Peel of one lemon

Peel of one orange

A squeeze of half lemon

ADDITIONAL INGREDIENTS :

200 g of margarine for cakes or butter ( melted )

Powder sugar ( for sprinkling cookies )

PROCEDURE :

1 . dissolve 1-2 spoons of sugar with yeast in warm milk, leave aside to let the yeast activate…

2 . drain the raisins and cranberries in a sieve and then drain them well with your hands…

3 . when the yeast has activated, add all the dough ingredients into the flour…

4 . make the dough which is slightly sticky ( do not add any more flour )…

5 . oil the worktop and form the dough into a ball…

6 . oil the bowl with a little oil, just enough to avoid sticking of the dough to the bowl and leave the dough at a warm place to double its size…

7 . cover a big baking tray with parchment paper…

8 . put the dough on the parchment paper with two spoons or with a mini ice-cream spoon …

9 . leave a little space between the cookies so that they do not get together during baking…

10 . the cookies go into an oven pre-heated at 175 degrees for ca . 13 – 16 minutes, depending on the oven…

11 . cookies are ready when they get lightly golden colour …

12 . soak each cookie in the melted margarine and put them all on a grid to drain the rest of the fat and then sprinkle them with powder sugar abundantly…

13 . leave the cookies to cool down completely…

NOTE AND ADVICE :

1 . Instead of powder sugar, you can use thermostable sugar that does not melt on the cookies and it is less sweet than ordinary powder sugar.

2 . Make sure that the cookies are approximately equal in size, so they can be equally baked.

3 . It is obligatory to soak raisins and cranberries in milk for a few hours, so that they do not burn during baking.

4 . Put the cookies in a cookie box and leave them for a couple of days so that all the ingredients get together.

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We are all familiar with Russian Hats, once I had a lot of filling left and it was pretty late for me to make a new biscuit. This whole procedure was too long for me at that moment. Mix, bake, wait for the biscuit to cool down and then fill the Russian Hats.

I came to an idea how to prepare Russian Jaffa Hats that are quick to make and I do not even have to melt the chocolate.

INGREDIENTS :

6 – 7 packages of Jaffa cookies

500 ml of milk

2 packages of vanilla pudding

150 g of flour

150 g of sugar

1 spoon of vanilla paste ( or vanilla sugar )

130 g of margarine for cakes ( room temperature)

50 g of white chocolate

200 g of coconut flour ( for rolling the cakes )

PREPARATION :

1 .dissolve pudding and flour in ca 200 ml of milk with hand blender…

2 . put the milk, sugar, vanilla paste and chocolate into a pot and let it boil….

3 . when the milk boils in the pot, add the first part of the milk where the pudding and flour have been dissolved and with constant stirring continue cooking for a few seconds till the pudding thickens …

4 . put the transparent foil directly on the hot filling…

5 . leave the filling to cool down…

6 . mix the margarine for cakes till it gets creamy and add the filling slowly, spoon by spoon …

7 . mix everything well …

8 . put the filling into a decorating bag or use a teaspoon to put the filling on the chocolate side of Jaffa cookie, put another Jaffa cookie on the filling so that the chocolate side is up …

9 . spread the filling around the cake carefully and roll it in the coconut flour …

10 . leave the Russian Jaffa Hats in the fridge overnight …

NOTES AND ADVICE :

1 . If you want to, you can put the ready filling in the fridge for a while to let it cool down, it is easier to work with it then.

2 . A perfect option is if you add 50 g of coconut flour in the filling.

3 . You can use your favourite raspberry, orange, apricot, strawberry flavoured Jaffa cookies, etc.…

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When I make these cookies they just disappear in a single day. The taste of chocolate and orange is a fantastic combination. Soft, tasty and easy to prepare.

INGREDIENTS :

270 g of margarine for cakes (or room temperature butter)

180 g of sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla paste (or 3 packages of vanilla sugar)

3 eggs

450 g of flour

1 package of baking powder

225 g thermo-stable chocolate drops (or fine chopped baking chocolate)

Peel of one orange (or one and a half for more intensive taste)

PREPARATION :

1 . put the sugar, vanilla paste and margarine into a bowl and mix everything well for ca 5-7 minutes…

2 . while mixing, take the margarine away from the edge of the bowl with a spatula several times …

3 . add egg by egg while mixing and mix everything well …

4 . add the flour, baking powder, and orange peel and mix everything well…

5 . add chocolate drops and stir well with the spatula …

6 . put the prepared mixture into the fridge for min 2 hours…

7 . form balls sized as Raffaello balls with wet hands, or take the mixture with a mini spoon for ice-cream directly on the parchment paper ( SEE THE VIDEO ) …

8 . line the balls on the tray leaving sufficient space between them …

9 . put the cookies in the pre-heated oven on 180 degrees ca. 12 – 15 minutes, depending on your oven. Cookies are baked when they get a golden colour and when you can pick them up from the parchment paper.

NOTE AND ADVICE :

If you do not have thermo-stable chocolate drops, you can use baking chocolate.

I am not sure whether you can use milk chocolate, as it melts quickly and burns fast (but if somebody tries it, write to me about your results in the inbox of my FB page ) …

Be careful about the space during baking!!!

Be careful that your cookies do not burn and follow the time of the first baking.

Keep the cooled cookies in a closed box for cookies.

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