3rd of December

How to make nougat hearts for Christmas

Foto Susi Baking with Susi Part I

Everyone knows Christmas cookies (and – to be honest – all people I know love Christmas cookies). Numerous recipes exist in the countries around the world and the ingredients are manifold from walnuts to pistachios, from marzipan to poppy seed. To give you an insight into German cookies I hose a special sort that I make every year in December (especially for you I made them earlier this year so that I can show you some nice pictures ☺). They are called Nougat hearts and are very delicious.

I would recommend the following:
Step 1: Check if you have all ingredients.
Step 2: Put on a candle scented with Christmas fragrances like vanilla.
Step 3: Activate You Tube and insert “Best of Christmas Songs” or similar and choose the ones you like.
Now you are ready for the ultimate Christmas baking feeling!

First prepare the dough. You will need:

  • 400g flour
  • 2 tsp. baking powder
  • 150g butter
  • 150g sugar
  • 2 small sachets vanilla sugar (a small sachet weighs around 8 grams)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1-2 additional egg yolks
In addition, you need nougat cream of course. Choose the one you like most. I would recommend one without crunch but I think crunch would work as well. Just try it out.
Mix the flour and baking powder. Strain them through a sieve into a bowl. Add the butter in small pieces and sugar, vanilla sugar and eggs as well. Knead the dough thoroughly and put it in the fridge for minimum 30 minutes.
Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it to a thin dough. Cut out cookies with a heart cookie cutter. Of course you can also use other cutters, then you have nougat trees, nougat stars or similar ☺. Just don´t forget to always have a pair, otherwise it might be difficult to fill them later.
Every second cookie should be basted with a thin layer of egg yolk (this will be the top side of the finished cookies).
The cookies need a stove temperature of 180°C (baking function) and around 10 minutes to be ready. Check carefully if you can move them easily on the baking paper, then they should be ready. Let them cool down a little bit. Then baste a layer of nougat cream on one cookie and put on top one with the egg yolk. Et voilá – now you can enjoy them.

✦ You can download the recipe as pdf here: Nougat Hearts