Vanilla Stars (vanillesternchen- German Christmas Cookies)

Total Time: 1 hr 10 mins Preparation Time: 10 mins Cook Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

• 200 g cold butter
• 400 g pastry flour
• 150 g sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 egg
• flour, for rolling
• 100 g butter
• 2 vanilla beans
• 80 g powdered sugar
• 100 -150 g quince jelly

Recipe

• 1 to make dough:.
• 2 cut the cold butter up into small pieces and mix together with the rest of the ingredients in a kitchen mixer with a kneading attachment. later knead with hands into a smooth dough (could also use fork if you don’t have a food processor). wrap the dough in saran wrap and let rest in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
• 3 vanilla topping:.
• 4 preheat the oven to 200°c (375 f.).
• 5 melt butter.
• 6 slit the vanilla beans with a razor lengthwise and scratch out the insides with the tip of a sharp knife.
• 7 stir half of the vanilla essence and one hollowed vanilla hull into the melted butter.
• 8 the rest of the vanilla and the other hull mix with the powdered sugar.
• 9 sprinkle work space with flour and roll the dough until it is even and about 3 millimeters thin. with a small star cookie cutter (4 cm) cut out stars and lay them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
• 10 bake cookies in oven for about 10 minutes(try not to let them get brown).
• 11 immediately after baking brush or dip the surface of every star with the vanilla butter sauce and let them cool.
• 12 warm up the quince jelly in a small sauce pan on the stove and stir until smooth.
• 13 brush half of the stars with quince jelly and thickly sift the vanilla powdered sugar mixture over the other half.
• 14 store in an air-tight container. these cookies take a few days to fully ripen so it is a good make-ahead cookie for the advent season.