These wonderful Christmas cookies have been given a facelift, and all the sweet goodness is wrapped in chocolate. The recipe is a little different from the one I gave you last year, so you can decide which one you like best. The cookies can be eaten without the chocolate covering as well, in case you don’t like chocolate!
Ingredients 1 glass sunflower oil ½ glass sugar ½ glass orange juice (or if you like orange and lemon juice) 3 glasses flour (you may need a little more or a little less) 2 – 3 teaspoons baking powder 3 tablespoonfuls brandy
For the syrup: 1 glass sugar 1 glass honey ½ glass water
Chocolate covering: 450 gr. dark chocolate About 10 tablespoonfuls margarine
Directions
Sift the flour with the baking powder. Place the oil with the sugar in the mixer, and beat it well for about 10 – 15 minutes. Add the brandy and the orange juice. Now add the flour a little at a time kneading well, until you have a rather soft dough.
Lightly oil a baking sheet. Take small handfuls of the dough and roll them in your hands making little oval logs (about 3 in. long). Place them on the sheet, about 1 in. apart from each other.
Bake them for about 20 minutes at 170oC. Check them now and then because they burn easily.
In the meantime prepare the syrup. Place the water, sugar and honey in a pot and bring them to a boil. Remove the foam that forms on the surface. Keep the syrup warm. When the cookies are ready, take them out of the oven and let them cool. You then dip the cookies into the warm syrup – not more than 3-4 at a time. Roll them around with two forks and leave them in the syrup for 15 – 20 seconds. That’s just about enough for them to absorb enough syrup without becoming too soft and crumbly. Let them cool.
In a bain marie melt the chocolate with the margarine. The quantities are approximate, as it depends on the chocolate and how much margarine you will need. The chocolate should run off the spoon, not very thick nor too thin. Dip one cookie in the chocolate and see how well it is covered by the chocolate.
Line a pan with greaseproof paper and line the cookies as you take them out of the chocolate. Then, place the pan in the fridge until the chocolate has hardened.
If you don’t wish to cover the cookies with chocolate, you can just line up the cookies after you take them out of the syrup in a platter and scatter over them crushed walnuts and some sugar with cinnamon.
If you like, you can make half of the cookies with the chocolate and half plain, but whichever way you choose, they are absolutely delicious!