Czech Christmas Cookies

Let me introduce you to traditional Czech Christmas cookies.

*Vanilkové rohlíčky (Vanilla-nut cookies covered in powdered sugar)

*Perníčky (Gingerbread cookies with traditional Czech spices)

*Linecké cukroví (Linzer Cookies)

There are tons of different cookies that we make, but these three are the most common cookies that most Czech families bake around Christmas.

I used a recipe from Czech Vegan Society for the vanilla-nut cookies that are shaped like the letter C. I used walnuts instead of hazelnuts, but you can use whatever nuts you want, even almonds work very well in this recipe.

For the gingerbread cookies I found an inspiration on Mattie's Vegan Baking website. I used his Gingerbread Cookie Buddies recipe that I modified. I substituted half brown sugar and half cane sugar for the turbinado sugar. I used extra molasses instead of the barley malt, and I had to add some almond milk because the dough was too dry and did not stick together. I used mini gingerbread man cookie cutter and wild forrest animals cookies cutters. For the icing I used powdered sugar and lemon juice.

I also used my own spices. The traditional Czech gingerbread spices are cinnamon, coriander, star anise, allspice, cloves, anise, nutmeg, fennel and sometimes ginger. I added ginger to the mixture, too.

The recipe for Linzer Cookies was my own and I am going to put it in my upcoming cookbook. I used seedless raspberry jam and red currant jam for the filling.

All of these cookies taste the best after a few days, not fresh out of the oven. They get softer and more flavorful.

I spent the whole afternoon baking and decorating these cookies, and cleaning up the huge mess. I realized something today, I am a terrible gingerbread cookie decorator! After several very ugly cookies I decided to leave the rest of the cookies "naked".