Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Favorite New Cookies

A couple of years ago, when I came back home from visiting my family in Germany in December, Daniel had made a batch of these cookies and they have quickly become some of our favorites! They are called Czechoslovakian Moon Cookies and you can find the recipe here.

I was going to copy it onto my blog, but wasn't sure about the copyright issues. Plus, the site it's on is interesting, about all things related to St. Nicholas and St. Nicholas Day.

St. Nicholas Day, December 6, was always a big deal for us children in Germany. The night before, you put your shoes (or boots if you were hoping for a big treat) in front of your room's door and hoped that St. Nicholas came during the night to leave you some goodies, usually chocolate or candy. I was always hoping that I had been good enough (I sometimes had problems in that department), because if you hadn't been good, St. Nicholas would leave a bunch of switches or lumps of coal. I was lucky though in that even if I got a bundle of switches, it always came with little chocolates attached to it!

Even now, Daniel and I find little treats in our Christmas stockings on St. Nicholas Day.

Reading your comments on my last post (thank you!!), I thought about how different some of our customs were growing up in Germany than they for me now, living in the States. I'll have to tell you about some of them in another post.

In the meantime, I hope you'll try making these cookies - they are delicious. We did make some changes to the recipe, which you might try as well. We usually use hazelnuts instead of the walnuts and then add a little hazelnut liqueur to the frosting. I also find that I don't use all of the frosting - makes it a little less sweet! Plus, we just cut them into diamond shapes instead of making them into half moons. Enjoy!!

10 comments:

  1. They look delicious! I'm looking forward to hearing more about German holiday traditions.

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  2. oh yummy!! I love home baked goodness...I just picked up all of my ingredients and will start our holiday baking this week!!! you are always an inspiration Silke!!!

    Hugsssssssss
    Diana

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  3. how delish! it's great to hear about others' traditions, which all seem to involve something very yummy.

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  4. The cookies look delicious! I love finding new recipes to try. And I really like hearing about all your different holiday traditions. :) Theresa

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  5. Hallo Silke,

    I had a post on St Nicholas too. I remember Nikolausabend well, I was really quite scared sometimes.
    Are you enjoying Advent?

    Frohe Weihnachten aus England!

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  6. Yum!! Those look so good to me!! My dad is German so we do some of the German traditions also.

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  7. Your cookies look very delicious. I enjoy reading about peoples traditions, it's always interesting. Happy Thursday.

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  8. Oh yum! Those cookies look so delicious! I prefer hazelnuts to walnuts as well. And I grew up with Saint Nicholas too, except we had to place our cleaned shoes in the window.

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  9. Those cookies are making me drool!!! They look amazing!!

    I'm laughing - about putting out shoes or boots if you hoped to get bigger treats!!! Just like children who put out a larger stocking hoping for more!! So funny!!!

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  10. happy holidays...i love the customs of other countries during the holidays and always...i will think of you when i dust my lips with a pfeffeurnuse!
    lorri-marie

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