Engelsaugen

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Two baking sheets
• •Parchment paper
• •Wooden spoon handle or thumbprint press
• •Small saucepan for loosening jelly
• •Cookie tin with parchment

Instructions

1. 1

   Make the dough

   Mix the flour, icing sugar, vanilla sugar, and salt in a bowl, then rub in the cold butter until the mixture looks like fine crumbs. Work in the egg yolks and lemon zest just until the dough comes together. Stop there. Mürbeteig, short pastry, turns tough when you knead it like bread, because the flour develops strength where you want tenderness.

   If the dough looks dry, press it with your palm before adding anything. Butter softens under your hand, and most short pastry needs pressure, not more liquid.
2. 2

   Chill it cold

   Flatten the dough into a thick disc, wrap it, and chill it for at least one hour. Cold dough is not decoration in this recipe. The butter must firm up again so the cookies keep their round shoulders and the hollow stays where you pressed it.

3. 3

   Shape the balls

   Heat the oven to 180C, or 160C fan, and line two baking sheets with parchment. Roll the cold dough into 36 balls, about 13g each, and set them a little apart. Keep the second tray in the refrigerator while the first one waits for the oven, because warm dough spreads before it sets.

4. 4

   Press the hollow

   Use the handle of a wooden spoon or your thumb to press a hollow into each ball, stopping before you reach the tray. If the edge cracks, pinch it back together while the dough is still cold. A sealed wall holds the jelly; a crack gives it a path out.

5. 5

   Fill with jelly

   Warm the red currant jelly gently until it loosens, then stir it smooth and spoon a little into each hollow. Fill to just below the rim. Too much jelly bubbles over and burns on the tray before the pastry has finished baking. Weggeworfen wird nichts, any extra jelly goes back into the bowl for the next tray.

6. 6

   Bake pale

   Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the cookies are set and only faintly golden at the bottom edge. Pull them before the tops brown. The pastry should taste of butter and vanilla, not toasted flour. Let them sit on the tray for five minutes so the jelly firms, then move them to a rack.

7. 7

   Tin and rest

   Cool the Engelsaugen completely, then dust only the pastry edges with icing sugar if you like, keeping the jelly clear. Store them in a tin with parchment between layers. They are good the same day and better the next, once the butter has settled and the jelly has tightened. Erst verstehen, dann kochen.

Chef Tips

• •Use red currant jelly if you can. Its tartness is there to cut the butter, and the clear jelly sets clean in the hollow. Jam with seeds works, but strain it first or the fruit catches and scorches.
• •Weigh the balls if you want a tidy tin. Thirteen grams each gives you small Advent cookies that bake evenly and don't turn into clumsy doorstops.
• •If the kitchen is warm, shape half the dough at a time and keep the rest cold. Mürbeteig listens to temperature more than to you.
• •For the southern Husarenkrapfen version, use apricot jam and add 30g finely ground hazelnuts to the dough in place of 30g flour. That changes the bite, and it's a proper regional cousin.

Advance Preparation

• •The dough can be made two days ahead and kept wrapped in the refrigerator. Let it stand five minutes before rolling, just long enough to shape without cracking.
• •The shaped unfilled dough balls can be frozen on a tray, then bagged for up to one month. Press the hollows and fill while still cold, adding one or two minutes to the bake.
• •Finished Engelsaugen keep well for 10 to 14 days in a cool tin. Store them between parchment layers so the jelly stays neat.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 16g)