Subscribe To This Site

FOR YOU

EVERYDAY

HOLIDAYS

INTERNATIONAL

HISTORIC

HELP

SITE INFO

Springerle Recipe

A Traditional Pennsylvania German Christmas Cookie Recipe For The Holidays

Sponsored Links

Here's an old fashioned Springerle recipe for making those unique German Christmas cookies that everyone raves about.

These festive anise-flavored biscuits called Springerle have been a Christmas tradition in Austria and Bavaria as far back as the 14th century.

You make Springerle by pressing a mold onto the rolled out cookie dough and letting the impression dry before baking. Mold impressions are easier to make if the dough is chilled beforehand. The drying of the dough overnight preserves the detail of the mold's impression.

Springerle molds are traditionally carved from wood, though modern-day materials are now sometimes used. A carved Springerle rolling pin can also be used to stamp or impress the dough with festive symbols.

wooden Springerle roller or rolling pin

Baked Springerles tends to be hard like biscotti and are best packed away in containers to ripen for a couple of weeks to become tender. Making Springerle can be fun for the whole family.

Get Grandma's Dessert Recipes

Pennsylvania German Springerle Recipe

This old fashioned Pennsylvania German recipe for making Springerle is taken from the book "Mary At The Farm And Book Of Recipes Compiled During Her Visit Among The 'Pennsylvania Germans'" by Edith M. Thomas, printed by John Hartenstine, Norristown, Pennsylvania, in 1915.

4 eggs
1 pound sifted pulverized sugar
2 quarts flour, sifted twice
2 small teaspoonfuls baking powder

Beat whites and yolks of eggs separately, mix with sugar and beat well. Add flour until you have a smooth dough. Roll out pieces of dough, which should be half an inch thick. Press the dough on a floured form or mold, lift the mold, cut out the cakes thus designed and let lie until next day on a floured bread board.

The next day grease pans well, sprinkle anise seed over the pans in which the cakes are to be baked; lay in cakes an inch apart and bake in a moderate oven to a straw color. The form used usually makes six impressions or cakes 1-1/2 inches square, leaving the impression of a small figure or flower on surface when dough is pressed on form.

How To Make Springerle Cookies

The video featured below offers another, more complicated recipe for Springerle while demonstrating how to use Springerle molds to impress the symbols onto the cookies. Springerle molds can be purchased online from Amazon.com, and other stores that carry them.

Enjoy making traditional German Christmas cookies with this old fashioned Springerle recipe from Pennsylvania German (Dutch) country.

TOP of Springerle Recipe
RETURN to Christmas Dessert Recipes
HOME to Dessert Recipes