Was ist Zimtstern?

December 18, 2005 11:43 AM

Was ist zimtstern?

A friend of ours in Austria who lives in the town where Milka chocolate is made (wonderful, wonderful town, wonderful chocolate....) recently sent us a whole bunch of different bars from the Milka factory. My hands-down favorite was one with the cryptic description "Zimtstern" and not much else. Not being able to read or speak much German beyond what naughty phrases my grandfather taught me, I'm not sure what the magic ingredient is. Attempting to translate "Zimtstern" with Babelfish is no help. What, exactly, is Zimtstern?

As an aside note, if any of our European friends wants to send me many, many boxes of that particular Milka bar, I would name my second-born child after you. ;)

posted by 40 Watt to food & drink (11 comments total)

It's a kind of cookie that is star("Stern")-shaped and contains cinnamon ("Zimt").
posted by snownoid at 11:47 AM on December 18, 2005

Zimt means cinnamon. And a Zimtstern means, literally, a "cinnamon star". It's a cinnamon cookie shaped liked a star.

See here and here.
posted by Gnatcho at 11:48 AM on December 18, 2005

Ach, snownoid beat me. No references in the future :-p
posted by Gnatcho at 11:49 AM on December 18, 2005

Hot damn! That explains the delicious little cinnamon crunchy bits.

And no worries, Gnatcho...the links are helpful, actually.
posted by 40 Watt at 11:54 AM on December 18, 2005

Mmmm, Zimtsterne...

Nuts (one of almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, ...) are a key ingredient too.

Recipes: 1 2 3 (pic) (English) 4 (German, with pic).
posted by Turtle at 12:44 PM on December 18, 2005

The best holiday cookies in the universe. I warn you, however, they are notoriously difficult to handle, as the dough is incredibly soft and liable to fall apart. So worth it, when you get it right, though.
posted by jann at 1:57 PM on December 18, 2005

Cool....recipes. Even better. I'll heed the warning on the dough, jann.

Many, many thanks!
posted by 40 Watt at 2:24 PM on December 18, 2005

From my experience of eating (but alas not baking) real German Zimtsterne, I'd recommend recipes that don't use flour, only ground nuts, and that use egg whites.

More recipes: Cinnamon Stars. And this one has good comments on the difficulty of baking them, and this interesting description:

These nut meringues are also called erstesternen ("first stars"), a reference to the heavenly signs indicating the end of a fast day. They are traditionally served by German Jews at the meal following Yom Kippur.
posted by Turtle at 2:49 PM on December 18, 2005

I'd recommend recipes that don't use flour, only ground nuts, and that use egg whites.

Yeah, after I started looking through the recipes I noticed that most of them went that direction, so I figured that was the best way to go...
posted by 40 Watt at 3:00 PM on December 18, 2005

Definitely no flour. One recommendation, if you bake them:
- Keep dusting the cutting board or other surface area with sugar, as this helps prevent them from sticking and getting destroyed before you can bake them.

Over the course of a whole batch of cookies, the consistency and flavor will change a bit if you use this step, but it might keep you from going insane as well.
posted by jann at 9:42 PM on December 18, 2005

Sad to say that evil kraft has bought milka
posted by lalochezia at 1:01 AM on December 19, 2005