Holiday "Corner View"

My husband and I had a whirlwind romance from the time we met until the day we got married which spanned exactly one year. We met at a church camp out and when I met him I had no intention of getting married any time soon.  I had just had my heartbroken and I wasn't interested in dating.  My husband had other intentions though.  He knew I was the one and told me right off the bat that he knew I was the one and he would be willing to give me as much time as I needed.  I didn't last long and 4 1/2 months later he flew me to Germany to meet his family and subsequently proposed to me in a field not too far from his house that overlooked his village.  That was Christmas of 1996.  It was like a fairytale. We went to Heidelberg for our engagement dinner!  The streets were covered in snow. We walked around the castle and afterward ate dinner at an Italian restaurant that is sadly no longer there.  One of the things I remember about that trip besides getting engaged to the man of my dreams was being introduced to Zimt Sterne an almond cinnamon star-shaped cookie.  They are my favorite German cookies.  This year I made them for our first advent.  Super Simple to make.

Zimt Sterne Cookies

15 ounces of almond flour about 4 cups (you can make your own by grinding the nuts or you can purchase the flour.  I found mine at Trader Joe's)

3 egg whites

2 1/4 cups of powder sugar and some extra for rolling out the dough

Zest of one lemon

1 1/4 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 250 degrees and line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a mixing bowl whip up the egg whites until they make soft peaks.  Gently fold in powder sugar. Reserve 1 cup of this mixture for later usage and fold in almond flour, cinnamon, and lemon zest. Turn dough out onto lightly dusted with powder sugar parchment sheet or if you are like me I just turned it out onto my granite countertop.  Roll the dough out to be about a 1/4 inch thick. Then with a star-shaped cookie cutter cut out the stars.  Place stars on the cookie sheet and paint the tops of each cookie with the remaining egg white that you set aside earlier.  Bake cookies for approximately 20 minutes or until cookies are done.  Enjoy!  Happy Holidays!