I love hearing Kevin talk about his childhood in Germany, especially the memories he has of Christmas. The traditions his family created during the holidays are so different from my own. The Christmas markets that one could visit for hours, visits from Christkind, children being kept from seeing the Christmas tree until the very last moment, it’s all so different, wonderful and magical.
Now that we have our own home together we get to combine our traditions into something that resonates with both of us. I share my stories, he shares his and we make new memories together.
One thing that we have always agreed on was the necessity to have Christmas goodies in the house. Germany has quite the selection of Christmas desserts I tell ya. From mandelspritzgebck to vanillekipferln, marzepan to dominosteine. They’re all so delicious and amazingly many of them are gluten-free, too!
When Divya from Divya Yadava Magazine invited me to share some of my favorite Christmas recipes in her Winter 2012 issue I thought making two recipes; one from my Canadian Christmas memories and the other from Kevin’s German Christmas traditions, would be a fun approach.
I chose to make butter tarts for the Canadian recipe, one of my all-time favorites as a child, and cinnamon stars for the German recipe – Kevin’s Mom always sends us a batch in the mail every year around this time!
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- ⅓ cup coconut flour
- ¼ cup almond flour
- 1 egg at room temperature
- 3 tablespoons coconut nectar, honey or raw agave
- 3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
- Pinch sea salt
- ¼ cup coconut nectar, honey or raw agave
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons melted coconut oil
- 2 tablespoons full-fat coconut milk
- ¾ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ¼ cup raisins
- Preheat oven to 325F.
- With a hand or stand mixer, combine flours, egg, coconut nectar, coconut oil and sea salt in a medium sized bowl. Continue to mix for 1 minute until mix is crumbly.
- Press dough into a non-stick, four dish, 4-inch tartlett pan.
- Place the pan in the fridge while you make the tart filling.
- Place coconut nectar, egg, coconut oil, coconut milk and vanilla in a small bowl. Whisk until all ingredients are combined.
- Divide raisins amongst the four tarts and pour prepared filling overtop.
- Place the tartlett pan in the 325F oven for a total of 30-35 minutes, until filling has set and edges are golden. After 10 minutes of being in the oven, cover the tarlett pan with loose fitting foil to avoid the edges from burning.
- Once complete, remove from the oven and allow to sit for 30 minutes before serving.
- Serve with a sprinkle of ground cinnamon.
View nutrition information (once on page, scroll down)
You’ll have to head on over to Divya Yadava Magazine (pg. 52) for the cinnamon star recipe!
What Christmas traditions do you and your loved ones share?
Hi Leanne
Those cinnamon stars were a great hit! What an easy, sweet biscuit recipe! They’ll definitely be a regular feature in the school lunch box this year. NB they also passed the freezer test (highly essential for my weekend baking!), although lost a little bit of their crunch (not that they’re overly crunchy to start with, but still delicious!). Thanks!
Hi Toni – so great that you enjoyed the cookies and that they store well in the freezer! Next time, if you want them a bit crunchy, just leave them in a cooled oven for awhile (with the door closed). They’ll crunch up in no time!
I wish someone would stop by and fill my house with treats like this :) Happy holidays!
Wow the pic those cinnamon stars gave me a major flashback moment. I remember when I was a little kid sitting in preschool and someone ran into me and we were both holding cookies in the shape of stars and ours hit the ground. When we got up we were so worried because we didn’t know who’s cookie was whose so we snapped each one in half and gave each other a half so we both had two halves of a different cookie. I have no idea why I remember that but that was definitely interesting how that brought that on. And I was like 3 or 4 when that happened so that is definitely odd that I remember that far back ha ha. Anyways, enough of my rambling, beautiful recipe and photographs as usual. Also do you know how long that crust will hold up for in the fridge once its made? Might make a few ahead of time to fill up later with something fun.
Cool memory, Joshua! What a great way to solve the conundrum. Awesome that this brought it on.
You know, that’s a good question. I don’t see why you couldn’t just make the crust and freeze for later. Should be okay!