This is our second Christmas doing the Food Exchange and is probably one of my favourite months for it! Last year Greta challenged me to make Vanillakipferl, which are crescent-shaped vanilla biscuits and in December Bratapfel in Nussmantel, which is a baked apple covered in nuts and spiced with cinnamon!
This year Greta suggested Zimtsterne. When I was working in the bakery last Christmas one of my jobs was cutting these out en mass! But I had never made them from start to finish before so was looking forward to the challenge.
I actually ended up using a recipe by Edd Kimber which you can find here.
Zimtsterne (cinnamon stars) are a nutty cinnamon biscuit topped with a meringue icing and then baked. They tend to be slightly on the dry side and are chewy and very delicious! I was actually surprised at how quickly these little biscuits were in the oven and how easy they were to make!
When it gets to December a lot of Germans, even those who very rarely enter the kitchen, start baking German Christmas biscuits known as Plätzchen. They come in a lot of different shapes and flavours and so far my favourites are probably the vanilla crescents.
Make sure you head over to madebygreta.com to see my Christmas challenge for Greta! It is something I have never actually made but definitely enjoy eating! I may even attempt to make one this year too!
To find out more about the Food Exchange click the tab at the top of the page.
Lucya xx
Lucya Bakes 
I loooove zimtsterne 😍 in my eyes, some of the best Christmas cookies there are, and yours look really delicious!
I remember baking these with a colleague back when I was out in Alsace! They were absolutely delicious, we ended up making so many that I had some to take home for my family. I still have a photo of the recipe saved on my phone for the day that I get round to baking them again!