Brunsli

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Brunsli Cookies are incredibly moreish, naturally gluten free, richly flavoured chocolate and almond cookies from Switzerland. Chewy on the inside with a crispy outer layer, these quick and easy cookies are firmly associated with Christmas but I think they are wonderful all year round.

Make them as big or as small, or in any shape you like. Apparently they last well for up to 2 weeks – this is good to know if you are planning and baking ahead of time but in my house, 2 weeks, never!

Where is the recipe I use from?

This is another recipe from the wonderful Swiss website called Helvetic Kitchen. Set up by Andie, a Swiss-Canadian living in Switzerland, she shares a host of delicious Swiss and alpine recipes. This is her recipe, and just like Andie’s Vanillegipfeli recipe, I have made no changes: it is perfect as it is!  See here for Andie’s Brunsli post. You should take a look at her site, it is a real gem.

Andie explains that these cookies are from Basel and are often known as Basler Brunsli. The first known recipe goes back to 1750 in a cookbook called Das süsse Basel. Apparently they used to be made for weddings and other celebrations as well as Christmas: I rest my case – they are so good, they need to be eaten all year round!

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How to make Brunsli

In many Brunsli recipes you need to leave the dough to dry for a few hours before baking. The beauty of this recipe is that you only need to:

• refrigerate for 1 hour before rolling, and
• after rolling and cutting our the cookies, either freeze for 30 minutes or refrigerate for an hour.

If you are impatient like me, and forget in build in time for hours of drying, this recipe has you covered!

Collect all your ingredients together:

• ground nuts – I use almonds but you can also use ground hazelnuts or ground walnuts
• caster sugar
• cinnamon powder
• unsweetened cocoa powder
• fine salt
• dark chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids, finely grated
• egg white
• Kirsch or Amaretto
• extra sugar, either caster or granulated, to roll out

How to make these delicious Swiss cookies:

1. Weigh the ground nuts, caster sugar, cinnamon, cocoa powder and salt into a mixing bowl.
2. Grate over the chocolate using a fine grater.
3. Thoroughly mix all these ingredients.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg white until it forms stiff peaks.
5. Fold the egg white and the Kirsch or the Amaretto into the dry ingredients until it starts to form a dough.
6. Bring the dough together with your hands and place in the centre of some cling film. Shape into an oval shape, wrap in the cling film and place in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour.
7. When you are ready to roll out the dough, sprinkle sugar – not flour! – over a flat work surface. Place the dough in the centre and sprinkle more sugar onto the top of the dough.
8. Roll out to 1cm thick and use your chosen cutters to cut out your cookies.
9. Bring together remaining dough and re-roll and cut out until you have used up the dough. I made a total of 24 small cookies.
10. Place the cut out cookies directly onto a lightly greased baking tray. They will not spread, so you can put them quite close together.
11. Pop in the freezer for roughly half an hour or in the fridge for an hour, uncovered before cooking.
12. Cook in the centre of a preheated oven for 9 – 10 minutes.
13. Leave on the tray for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
14. Store in an air-tight tin, on their own, not with other cookies or cakes.
15. If you are lucky and no one snaffles them, they will last for up to 2 weeks.

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Made this recipe?

If you make this recipe, do please tag me on instagram @daffodil_kitchen. You could also leave a comment in the box directly below the recipe.