Christmas Nut Cookies

At Christmas, the nut cookies are one of the stars of many Czech dinner tables. And not just for their resemblance to real walnuts but also for their delicious taste. They taste of nuts and caramel which makes them the ideal cookies for this winter holiday.

If you'd like to learn how to make another type of Czech Christmas cookies, here is my recipe for the Linzer cookies.

Cookies:

- 300 g/10.6 oz of butter (unsalted, of course)

- 140 g/4.9 oz of powder sugar

- 2 egg yolks

- 400 g/14.1 oz of all-purpose flour

- 60 g/2.1 oz of ground nuts (typically walnuts but you can use also almonds or hazelnuts)

- 1 tbsp of cacao powder

- 1 tbsp of cinnamon

- 1 tbsp of vanilla extract

- baking molds (either the typical ones formed like walnuts or any other round ones)

Filling:

- 400 g/14.1 oz of sweet condensed milk - I will post a link to the recipe in the 2nd step, inserting it here doesnt

- 2 tbsp of rum

- a handful of ground nuts

- 125 g/4.4 oz of butter

1. In one bowl, combine the flour, ground nuts, cacao powder and cinnamon.

2. In another bowl whisk the egg yolks with sugar and vanilla extract.

3. Put the yolk mixture in the bowl with the dry ingredients, add butter and knead everything until everything's incorporated perfectly. Let the dough rest in a colder spot at least for a couple of hours.

4. Take small pieces of the dough and press them into the molds and place the molds on a baking tray. Preheat the oven and bake for 12 minutes on 180°C/356°F. Take the tray out and flip the molds upside down, the nut halves should fall out. Let them cool down.

You can find my recipe for homemade condensed milk here.

1. Place the can with the condensed milk in a pot with water and boil 1 hour. If you're using homemade condensed milk, be sure to put it in a heat-proof container of double of the milk's volume. The milk will caramelize in the process of boiling.

2. Mix the caramelized milk with rum, ground nuts and butter until they make a nice smooth cream.

3. Fill the nut halves and make nuts. Sprinkle them with some powder sugar if you want.

These cookies taste the best if you let them set over night, so the cream can soak into the cookie a little.

I hope you liked this recipe!