"Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!"

Jeez, I don't feel Christmas-y at all!

The only thing that's a fact is that work is getting faster, because, you all know that Christmas always happens soooo suddenly, and you can't let any work be left over to the new year because there won't be any. Or so it seems.

I have already been preparing some things for my Christmas cards, but still I haven't finished. The baking had been reduced to two kinds of cookies, Vanillekipferl (C-shaped cookies with LOTS of vanilla and ground hazelnuts) and Christmas cake muffins (well, actually this used to be a recipe for a Christmas cake but we just filled it in muffin pans and it works well (and we don't have to eat everything at once, which is a big plus)).

Well. We already ate that much Vanillekipferl that I had to bake another two baking trays...

But they are so yummy, and it's so quick and easy.

Do you wanna try?

For Vanillekipferl (yes, it reads vanilla-kip-ferl), you'll need:

• 250 g butter (it should have had time to adjust to room temperature to get soft)


• 120 g white sugar


• a pinch of salt


• half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon


• ground lemon peel, approx. 1/2 teaspoon


• 2 vanilla beans (don't use any substitution, you need the real stuff, it's Christmas after all!)


• 330 g wheat flour


• 120 g ground hazelnuts


• fine sugar/powdered sugar

Stir the butter and add sugar, salt, ground cinamon, ground lemon peel and the vanilla seeds (slit the vanilla pods (or beans) open with a knife and take out the tiny teeny grains (don't throw away the pods!)).

In another bowl, mix the flour with the ground hazelnuts, then add, spoon by spoon, to the thoroughly stirred butter mixture and mix until it's well blended.

Wrap the dough in a plastic wrap and put it in your fridge for approx. 2 - 3 hours.

Now, you can cut the dough with a knife. You'll have to knead it a bit to take off pieces of approx. 10 g (almost the size of a walnut), roll it between your palms and give it a C-shape when you lay it on the baking tray.

Bake at approx. 175 degrees Centigrade in an convection oven (a normal oven will need a higher temperature, but you'll have to try it out with one or two pieces anyway) for approx. 7 - 10 minutes.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, comes a very important part which will add even more flavour to your Vanillekipferl: Sprinkle a mixture of white sugar and powdered sugar mixed with ground cinnamon over the cookies as if you wanted to give it a little layer of snow...

Et voilà!

Why shouldn't you throw away the pods?

Well, at least the pods can give flavour to fine white sugar! Put the vanilla pods into a screw cap glass and pour enough sugar over it to cover the pods. Thus, you'll get a 100 % vanilla sugar without any artificial flavouring. You can mix this with the powdered sugar to cover the Vanillekipferl!

Or (and this is what I did this year), you might want to flavour a winterly liqueur (I know it as "Hudson Bay"). Fast and easy, and - oh, so delicious!

You'll need:

• 0,7 litres of brown rum (approx. 40 %)


• 250 ml of maple sirup


• a vanilla pod (yes, you can use the leftover pods, there is enough flavour left)


• a cinnamon stick approx. 4 cm long

Pour the maple sirup into a bottle of approx 1 litre volume. Add the rum. Drop vanilla and cinnamon and let infuse for at least 4 weeks. (Sorry this may be too late for a Christmas present, but it needs the time and it's delicious on a cold February day, too.)

And that's just it! Easy, hun?