Alsace's little Christmas cookies: a simple butter dough, two coats of egg glaze for shine, and a tin that lasts all through Advent.
In Alsace, people don't say "Christmas cookies" but "bredele", and every family bakes several kinds from late November. Butterbredele are the simplest and best loved: butter, sugar, an egg and flour, cut into little stars and hearts, glazed like a shiny new coin.
What makes a good Butterbredele: a creamed dough rested long in the cold (overnight is ideal), barely 3 mm thick, and a double egg yolk glaze that gives it a caramel varnish. They're best after two or three days in the tin, once the butter has settled in.
Beat the soft butter (it should squash easily under a finger) with the sugar, vanilla, salt and zest, with a spatula or mixer, for 2 minutes: the mixture should turn creamy and a little paler, without becoming fluffy.
Add the egg and mix until absorbed. Tip in all the flour at once and mix just enough for it to disappear: the dough is soft and a little sticky, that's normal.
Flatten the dough into a 2 cm disc, wrap it and chill for at least 2 hours, ideally overnight. It firms up, handles without sticking, and the flavors develop.
Preheat the oven to 180 °C (350 °F), conventional heat. Take the dough out 10 minutes ahead so it doesn't crack. Roll it out 3 mm thick on a barely floured surface, giving it a quarter turn now and then. Cut out your shapes as close together as you can and set them on the lined trays.
Mix the egg yolk and milk. Brush a thin coat over each cookie, without letting it drip down the sides (it glues them to the paper). Wait 5 minutes, then brush a second coat: that's what gives the shine.
Bake one tray at a time, in the middle of the oven, for 8 to 10 minutes. They're ready when the tops are deep golden and the edges just blond. Leave them on the tray for 2 minutes, then cool on a rack.
Check off every step to celebrate.
In a tightly closed tin, away from heat, bredele keep for 3 to 4 weeks, and are best from the second day. Don't mix them with soft cookies (gingerbread, cinnamon stars): they'd lose their snap. Raw dough keeps for 3 days in the fridge or 2 months in the freezer.
Two hours is enough for it to roll out well. Overnight is the Alsatian way: the dough is easier to handle and the cookies more fragrant.
Only one coat of glaze, or a glaze thinned too much. Use a yolk on its own with very little milk, and brush two thin coats 5 minutes apart.
Replace the egg in the dough with 3 tbsp milk, and glaze with sweetened milk (1 tbsp milk and 1 tsp sugar). They'll be a little more crumbly and less shiny.
Add this recipe to your meal, then come back for appetizers, a drink, cookies with coffee: Popotam brings them together, with the shopping for your whole table and the timeline up to dessert. Free, no account.
