Cookie Craze

Jennifer Zinz

The holiday cookie spread at foreign exchange student Jennifer Zinz’s host home this year. Jenny brought a little piece of her home to Texas making her family’s traditional Vanillekipferl cookies.

Christian Reyes, Staff Writer
January 14, 2022

German cookies are a must try this holiday season. A nice warm pastry can take away all the leftover stress of the past semester, and foreign exchange student junior Jennifer Zinz has the perfect sweet treat to get the job done. Vanillekipferl are German vanilla cookies rolled in sugar and twisted into the shape of a U.

Jenny’s family makes the cookies every year around Christmas time. Usually her mom or grandmother are in the kitchen, but Jenny tried her hand at baking.

“I was helping them since I was 6, but last year I did it on my own,” Jenny said. “My grandma helped a little bit, but it’s not hard.”

To make Jenny’s traditional cookies follow this recipe:

Ingredients:
300g flour,
100gram ground almonds,
120gram powder sugar
1 vanilla bean
1 pinch of salt
225 gram cold butter
3  egg yolks
120 gram powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
Step 1
Mix almonds and 120gram powdered sugar in a bowl. Cut vanilla bean and scrape vanilla pulp out, add it together with the salt, butter (in cubes) and the yolks. Knead everything quickly with hands to make a dough. Cover with foil and let stand in the fridge for about 20 min.
Step 2
Heat oven to 355°. Line tray with baking paper. Take a piece of the dough and roll it up into a roll. then cut it into pieces, in a size of a pecan. Form them with your hands to little moons. Repeat until you used all dough.
Step 3
Bake cookies for about 10 min. Meanwhile, in a small bowl mix the other 120gram powdered sugar and vanilla sugar. When cookies are done, carefully roll them in powdered sugar mix until covered. Cool completely.