Understanding Christmas baking
From shortcrust to gingerbread: why biscuits turn tender, glossy, soft or crisp, and how they stay that way.
For anyone baking in Advent, children included
- Short and tender (pastry)
Almost all biscuits are shortcrust: fat between the flour makes them tender.
- Gluten development
Why biscuit dough is barely kneaded but bread dough for a long time.
- Chilling biscuit dough
Cold dough holds its shape: the most important step when cutting out.
- Mailänderli (Swiss butter biscuits)
All of it together in the classic, with an egg-yolk sheen.
- Spitzbuben (jam-filled biscuits)
Bake pale and glue with pectin.
- Foams and whipping in air
Whisked egg white as a building material: for glazes and flourless biscuits.
- Cinnamon stars (Zimtsterne)
Why the glaze stays white only in a cool oven.
- Basler Brunsli (chocolate almond biscuits)
Short and hot: firm outside, soft inside.
- Chräbeli (Swiss aniseed biscuits)
A dry skin plus steam makes the feet.
- Raising agent
What else besides yeast lightens doughs.
- Gingerbread (Lebkuchen)
Honey, baker's ammonia and a long rest.
- Storing Christmas biscuits
So the work lasts until Christmas.
- Grittibänz (Swiss bread man)
To finish: yeast dough for St Nicholas Day.
Test yourself
Why is biscuit dough kneaded only briefly?