Christmas is approaching and the countdown until December 24th this time we are not opening the boxes, but bite after bite!
The Christmas it's nice waiting for him: make the tree and the crib all together, go out downtown to go and buy gifts, open the box of advent Calendar, which marks that less and less is missing for the most loved party by young and old.
Handmade Advent Calendar
You will all have heard of the advent Calendar: a special timepiece composed of 24 numbered boxes which must be opened once a day (from 1 to 24 December) to see how much is missing at Christmas. There are all kinds of Advent calendars, but have you ever thought, instead of buying it already made, of pack it at home, maybe putting your hands in the dough?
This year we do it by … cookies! Let them be of shortcrust pastry or in gingerbread, you can prepare 24 biscuits with your hands and decorate them, then eat one a day or give them as a gift to those you love.
Below, we give you some ideas on method to follow to cook them at home, perhaps with your own children, while in the gallery, find some curiosity is suggestion on the Advent calendar. To give Christmas a completely different flavor.
Shortbread cookies for the Advent calendar
The ingredients to make the shortcrust pastry for about 35 cookies are: 200 grams of flour 0, 100 grams of brown sugar, 90 grams of butter, 80 grams of finely chopped hazelnuts, 60 grams of bitter cocoa (if you like cocoa, otherwise avoid this ingredient), 2 eggs, 1 pinch of salt.
Get yourself a bowl in which to pour the flour, sifted cocoa, hazelnuts, salt and sugar. Add the butter into small pieces and knead the dough with your hands, then add the two eggs, until it becomes homogeneous. Chill the mixture in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Now roll out the dough to a height of about half a centimeter and, with the molds you have available, shape the biscuits. Cover a baking tray with baking paper, on which you will then place the biscuits, spaced from each other. Bake at 180 degrees for about a quarter of an hour. Remove from the oven and let them cool.
How to decorate Advent cookies
Now your cookies are ready, but they must be decorated. You can use a glaze for this purpose. To prepare it you need: 200 gr of icing sugar, 1 egg white and a teaspoon of lemon juice.
Whisk the egg white with the lemon juice, gradually adding the icing sugar, always continuing to whisk. Once the aglassa is ready, place it in a sac-à-poche, take the biscuits and decorate them, composing the numbers or garnishing them with Greek frets to your liking. Let the icing completely harden. Now your Advent cookies are ready!
Gingerbread cookies
If you want to make your own biscuits instead gingerbread, the real mixture with a Christmas flavor, here is what you need: 250 grams of flour, 200 grams of honey, 70 grams of sugar, 25 grams of butter, 1 egg, a pinch of salt and yeast, spice at will (ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg).
To get your sugar loaf cookies, melt the honey with the sugar. To this mixture, add the egg, flour, salt, baking powder, sugar and spices. Knead until a homogeneous mixture is obtained, which you will leave to rest for half an hour in the fridge. Then the procedure is the same as for the shortcrust pastry: cut the biscuits with the molds and bake them at 180 ° for a quarter of an hour. For decoration, you can also use the icing.
Browse the gallery to discover many curiosities about the Advent Calendar and other tips to make it handmade!
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