Nussecken (German nut cookies)

By Lucia Lukas

This is another popular German Christmas cookie :)

Dough
150g / 5.3oz flour
1/2T baking powder
65g / 2.3oz sugar
vanilla sugar
65g / 2.3oz Earth Balance salt-free butter

• put on baking tray, spread apricot jam on top, then add Topping...

Topping
100g / 3.5oz Earth Balance salt-free butter
vanilla sugar
2T water

• melt together and add:

100g / 3.5oz ground hazelnuts
100g / 3.5oz cut hazelnuts

• bake for 20-30 mins at 180C
• cut in triangles
• add melted chocolate to the corners

Vanillekipferl (German vanilla moon cookies)

By Lucia Lukas

When we lived in the UK, Luci used to make these and send them to us for Christmas. Now that we live in the US, we don't think they would get past customs so we learned how to make them ourselves!

150g Earth Balance salt-free vegan butter
50g Sugar
210g Flour
75g Ground almonds or hazelnuts
Powdered sugar
Vanilla

• mix butter, sugar, flour, and nuts
• put dough in fridge for 10 minutes
• make a roll, cut pieces, form them into crescent moons
• bake at 180 celsius for 8 minutes (check colour)
• coat in mixture of powdered sugar and vanilla (vanilla flavored sugar is better because the vanilla is already mixed in, but you can also pour vanilla into powdered sugar and mix it together)