Visiting Paris with all it’s Christmas spirit already in full swing due to it’s enormous Christmas market at Champs-Élysées has put me in a »Christmas mode« a bit early this year. You can read about my culinary adventures in Paris here.
When I bought a fresh bag of spelt flour the other day, I saw a recipe for ginger and walnut cookies on the back side of it and immediately thought – “if I add some cinnamon to this recipe, the whole house will smell like Christmas for sure!” So I adapted the recipe a little and before you know it, the smell of ginger and cinnamon filled the entire kitchen. Amazing!
Ingredients:
150g spelt four
50g ground walnuts
50g butter, room temperature
1 egg
3 tbsp agave syrup
1 tbsp dark agave syrup
2 tsp Xylitol
pinch of salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ginger
40g quality dark chocolate (70%)
1 tsp buttter
1 tbsp milk
roughly ground hazelnuts/walnuts
Instructions:
1. In a medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients – flour, walnuts, salt, baking soda and spices – together with a spoon.
2. Add the agave syrup, Xylitol, butter and egg and, using your hands, knead the ingredients into a dough. Add more wet or dry ingredients if needed. If you like your cookies sweeter, feel free to add more agave syrup and/or Xylitol.
3. Cover the dough tightly with a plastic foil and place in a refrigerator for about 1 hour.
4. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
5. Cover your working space with some spelt flour and roll the dough thinly to about 5mm or less. Using a cookie cutter, create cookies of desired shapes and sizes.
6. Cover a baking tray with baking paper, place the cookies on the tray a few centimiters apart (they will grow a little while baking) and bake for about 10 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and let cool completely.
8. Place chocolate, butter and milk in a small sauce pan. Create a water bath using a larger sauce pan and melt the chocolate.
9. Cover half of the cookies with chocolate and sprinkle with ground hazelnuts or walnuts and dust the other half of the cookies with confectioners sugar (or ground xylitol to make them completely healthy). Store in an air-tight container (preferrably with a Christmas motive). Serve with hot Christmas tea.
