Printen

It's quite some time since my last post. I've been a little tied up with my job. A few weeks back, we bought some things in a Bio (Organic Food) Shop and while shopping I found a tiny booklet with a few Christmas recipes and was excited. I have gained confidence with baking, ever since I tried my hands on it and almost 80% of my baking experiences were a success. With that confidence, this time I wanted to try a cookies recipe.

Printen - They are a kind of cookies, famously called the Aachener Printen. Those authentic ones hail from a place called Aachen. I've never tasted them and neither do I know how those are prepared. I just followed the recipe given in that booklet. It was very easy to make and tasted absolutely wonderful. Here, you go...

Preparation Time: 15 Min
Baking Time: 12 Min

You need:

Plain flour – 250g
Soft Butter – 100g
Sugar – 50g
Honey – 150g
Zest of orange – 1 tsp
Baking powder – 2 tsp
Salt – a pinch
Cardamom – ½ tsp
Almonds – 100g
Fruit spread from Apricot

Method:

Blend sugar, butter and honey well to a fluffy mixture. To this, add the flour, orange zest, cardamom and salt and knead to dough. Cover this dough with a thin fresh foil and refrigerate for about half an hour.

Take the dough out and roll to about 5mm thickness. Now, cut into rectangular pieces. Place a baking sheet on a slightly buttered baking tray. Arrange the pieces on the baking sheet, with some distance between each other.

Now, slightly paint the pieces with the fruit spread on the top, using a baking brush. Press an almond into the centre of each piece.

Preheat the oven to 175C and bake the pieces for about 12 mins.

Note:

• The actual recipe called for 75g sugar. We found it a bit too sweet for cookies. So, I have reduced the amount of sugar to 50g in the recipe above.
• The actual recipe called for gingerbread spice. I have replaced it with cardamom.
  

My Printen were done exactly on the 12th minute, when they were beautifully brown gold in colour. The fruit spread coating and the orange zest gave a fabulous taste to the cookies. I was overwhelmed with the success.

I stored them in an air-tight container and for the next few days, after coming home from office and before cooking, they helped me keep my hunger away for sometime :-)