Life With Lisa: Cinnamon Stars

Welcome to Life with Lisa!

With the holiday’s coming up, I love spending time online looking for new and interesting recipes, I could create and share with my friends and family! I love heading to the grocery store, picking up ingredients I’ve never even heard of, and going home to mix them all up and make something absolutely delicious out of them! But with the holidays nearing so soon, things can get a bit busy around here, so I usually plan out what I want to make around the beginning of November (for Thanksgiving) and December (for Christmas and New Years!)

My favourite thing to make this time of year would be cookies! There are so many out there it can be hard and stressful to pick the perfect type, but don’t worry! I have you covered with one of my favourite German recipes, Zimtsterne (Cinnamon Stars!).

Here’s what you’re going to need:

2 1/4 cups powdered sugar

4 1/2 cups sliced almonds

1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3 egg whites, room temperature

2 teaspoons lemon zest

Here’s what you need to do: (this recipe makes about 24 cookies)

(Don’t preheat the oven yet, it will take a while to get the dough made, and all the cookies cut out!)

1. Make sure the powdered sugar is sifted.

2. In a food processor put 3 cups of almonds and 1/2 cup of sifted powdered sugar and process until the nuts are finely ground.

3. In a large electric mixing bowl whip the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. While whipping the egg whites, slowly add the rest of the powdered sugar, until the mixture is creamy and thick. If you want to decorate you’re cookies then make sure to set a little more than 1/2 of this mixture to the side.

4. Now fold the almond and powdered sugar mixture and the lemon zest into the electric mixing bowl to create a stiff dough.

5. Turn the oven on to 250 degrees.

6. Dust the counter you plan on using to roll the dough out lightly with some powdered sugar, so the cookies won’t stick, and will be easily removable after they’re cut out. Roll the dough out so it’s about 1/4 inch, you don’t have to be super accurate, but you don’t want your cookies too thick.

7. Cut the cookies and lay them about an inch apart from each other on the cooking sheet. Roll out the remaining dough again and continue you cutting out stars until there’s no more dough left.

8. Use a brush to spread the egg white and powdered sugar mixture on each cookie and then decorate as you wish with the remaining almonds!

9. Bake them until they’re light brown; which usually takes about thirty minutes or so.

(This recipe is a mixture between my mom’s recipe and a few I’ve found online! Since It’s just the beginning of December, I haven’t had the chance to make Cinnamon Stars this year yet. So I took a picture from online, so you guys know what the finished product looks like!)

Thank you so much for stopping by and I really hope you give this recipe a shot!