Friday 23 December 2011

Old Fashioned Christmas Cakes - Sand Nuts

185 grams of lightly salted gourmet butter
160 grams of sugar
2 tea spoons of vanilla sugar or vanilla seeds from a pod
0.5 tea spoon of hearts horn salt (ammonium carbonate)
250-290 grams of organic, fine wheat flour

Run the butter, vanilla and sugar in a food processor until it is almost white in colour. add hearts horn salt and flour. Mix. Make small balls (should make around 70) and flatten them slightly with a fingertip. Low heat - 150-175C until a very light golden. This is an old family favourite. Enjoy!

A little about hearts horn from Wiki:

Hartshorn salt (ammonium carbonate), also known simply as hartshorn, and baker's ammonia, was used as a leavening agent, in the baking of cookies and other edible treats. It was used mainly in the 17th and 18th centuries as a forerunner of baking powder.[7] ½ teaspoon of hartshorn can substitute for 1 teaspoon of baking powder. It is called for in old German and Scandinavian recipes and, though rarely used in modern times, may still be purchased as a baking ingredient.[8] Hartshorn helps molded cookies such as Springerle to retain their intricate designs during baking. Cookies make with hartshorn can be kept for a long time without hardening. Use of hartshorn may turn some ingredients, such as sunflower seeds, green.


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