Zimtsterne (cinnamon stars)

• By Christa Follmann

This will make around 70 biscuits.

You will need:

500g of almonds, the whites of five eggs, 450g of icing-sugar, a spoonful of kirsch, two teaspoonfuls of ground cinnamon.

Douse the almonds with boiling water and leave them to soak for some minutes. Then remove the brown peel. Allow the almonds to dry and then grind them finely. A coffee grinder will do the job, but remember to clean it out thoroughly afterwards. Whisk the egg-whites until stiff. Stir in the sieved icing-sugar and beat them well. Keep one large cupful of this egg mixture aside for decoration. Mix the rest with the almonds, cinnamon and kirsch and knead well. Wrap the pastry in foil and allow it to rest for at least an hour in the refrigerator.

Spread sugar on your work-top and roll out the pastry until it is about a centimetre thick. Using a star-shaped cutter, cut biscuits out of the pastry and place them on baking-paper on baking-trays. Glaze them with the beaten egg-white mixture and leave them to stand overnight in a warm place. The following morning, preheat the oven to gas mark 3/160C and bake the biscuits for about eight minutes. The white surface should stay white. Remove them from the oven and leave them to cool before storing them in a tin.