It turns out I’m bad at remembering to post, until I go to get myself a snack and think “Oh, right, I’m supposed to blog about these.” I don’t remember what I thought about these cookies the first time around, but I do remember baking them as part of testing recipes for The Baking Bible. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Lekvar (apricot puree, more or less) that I have in the fridge is from when I was testing recipes. This week, the “alpha” bakers were working on The Ischler. Apparently, this is a cookie that is normally dipped in chocolate, but Rose’s take has an equal amount of chocolate in every bite. You can find the recipe on the blog that Rose has linked to, here.
I decided to make mine star-shaped, for more Christmassyness (yes, that’s a word, now).
The dough comes together pretty easily – sliced almonds are ground up with icing sugar. Butter is added, then half an egg, some vanilla, and the flour.
The recipe said that the dough would be somewhat crumbly, but mine was quite wet and buttery.
That’s fine, though. It was a good consistency after a night of resting in the fridge.
It’s funny. Most of the other alpha bakers seemed to get impatient and find things finicky and annoying at this point. I got out of bed a touch earlier than normal to roll & bake my cookies before heading to the gym for a yoga class. I found rolling, cutting, and baking the cookies somewhat… zen’s not quite the right word, but there’s something about the process that appeals to me. It might be the same reason I enjoy weeding, and have recently taken up weaving. Something I can do with my hands where I can choose to shut my brain off or daydream, depending on my mood.
After the gym, I came home to make the ganache, and spread each cookie with a layer of either ganache or apricot lekvar. This is the part I found most tedious, but that was my own fault. Stars aren’t easy to spread tidily with sticky stuff.
After that, you just smoosh the two sides together, and you’ve got yourself a bunch of Ischlers.
Huh. There seems to be a gap in the layout.
PS: Yum!
eatsndrinks.ca 
beautiful stars! the rest of your post was lost to me after i read you are weaving. i have always loved the idea of weaving. i knit, and that is my zen repetitive task of choice. maybe it is all the standing involved with cookie rolling and cutting that makes me cranky? anyways i hope you post some of your weaving projects either here or on the facebook; i’d love to see them.
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Kristina: Great post and I love the stars! I didn’t mind the rolling and cutting, although I’ve done a lot of it this week and have about enough for a while! I hope you have a great week, see you next Monday with the Almond Coffee Crisps! Please visit me at http://www.artfuloven.com, where I am giving away one of Rose’s favorite kitchen gadgets this week! –Michele
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evilcakelady, my cover photo on facebook is from my loom! There are also a couple of pictures in various places, and I think maybe even a “Weaving” album. My mom gave me (one of) her loom(s) last fall, after I took a couple of courses from the local weavers’ and spinners’ guild to see if I’d enjoy it. Turns out that it’s just my kind of monotony combined with emergent patterns!
Michele: I’ve added your blog to feedly. 🙂
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I love the star ideas… I was the boring one and did scallops..I should have thought more Christmassyness (yes totally a word) and done holiday shapes! They came out awesome.
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