Stollen: have a new recipe, this time it was easily as good as the certified Dresden ones. Stored it for a month and its not at all dry. Basically the secret is a completely insane 2:1 flour to butter ratio. But you eat it over a month with friends and in very thin slices. Recipe here if anyone is interested.
My cookie game is finally where I want it. This year:
1. The traditional to A's family Danish "Braune Kuchen". These are very small, thin, made with beet syrup, almond meal, citron, a bunch of spices and weird old fashioned leaveners like potash and hartshorn.
2. Spicy gingerbread cookies, recipe from Smitten Kitchen.
3. butter cookies for the kids to decorate (random internet recipe, probably Leite's Culinaria)
4. Intense cocoa drops, dipped in melted dark chocolate and topped with black pepper. These were from a German magazine, definitely a keeper
5. almond cantuccini, found a very good and easy recipe here
6. Alice Medrich Linzer cookies. (Called Spitzbuben in German.) I used some organic ground hazelnut from a vacuum sealed package, turned out to be super intense and roasted. The hazelnut was so good I did all hazelnut instead of part almond meal. Crazy good, with an Italian raspberry jam.