One of my favorite things to do is visit second-hand bookstores looking for old recipe books. I found this book in sunny California. Finding a Dutch cookbook in America is rare, so I just had to buy it.
I recall my mom having this cookbook at home when I was young, but I never had Kringelen cookies, so this recipe intrigued me. The combination of cinnamon and lemon sounded delicious. I added some vanilla and salt to the recipe to add more flavor.
The trickiest part was figuring out the oven temperature to bake them. The recipe said to bake them “in a somewhat warm oven”…. So after making the dough I had to do a couple of trial bakes to determine an exact temperature. I played with different shapes of the cookies, making both donut and pretzel shapes. Forming the dough in a log and cutting round cookies gave the best end result.
I hope you will enjoy this easy and delicious recipe as cub as we did.
Kringelen cookies
Ingredients
- 3 Cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 Cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 Cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 egg at room temperature
- 2 Tsp cinnamon
- 1 Zest lemon
- 1/2 Tsp salt
- 1 Tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Measure flour, salt, cinnamon and the zest of the lemon. Add into a mixing bowl and whisk together.
- Add the softened butter and sugar to a bowl of a stand mixer. Cream together on medium high speed for about 5 minutes, until it is fluffy, airy and lighter in color. Make sure to incorporate all the sugar.
- Add the vanilla extract, egg. Cream together until well blended.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet until incorporated. Be careful not to over-mix.
- Turn out the dough onto a clean, lightly floured surface. Gently form the dough into a disk. Cut the dough into 4 quarters.
- Form each quarter shape into a round log shape about 1-11/2“ diameter cylinder.
- Wrap your dough in plastic food wrap and twist the ends so it is airtight.
- Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours. This allows the dough to set and hold its shape nicely when baking.
- Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit.
- Remove dough logs from the fridge and unroll on a cutting board. Using a dough scraper or sharp knife to slice the log into ¼” – ½” thick cookies. Arrange them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet with about 1” of space on all sides.
- Bake for 15-17 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the bake. They should come out with a golden ring around the edge and be firm to the touch, with just a bit of give in the center.
- Use the dough scraper to transfer them to the cooling rack. Let sit until completely cooled