Chai cookies
For a magical Advent season
Advent season, who are you? Are you glaring lights, Black Friday and shopping trip? Or are you ice-cold mornings, steaming tea, a burning fireplace, time to rest and a chai cookie in the afternoon? You are the darkest time of the year, quiet, beautiful and wistful. You invite us to pause, to think about the year and to close it in style. You’re a magical time in which cold facts don’t matter. Your world is that of fairy tales, sagas and saints. In no other time is the veil between the worlds as thin as it is now. You’ll even have the most incredulous among us looking up at the night sky in search of fallen stars, angels and mythical creatures.
You smell so good of cinnamon, cardamom, tangerines and cloves. You taste of gingerbread, roasted nuts and a hint of red wine. You are a time of balance between withdrawal and connection; reflection and exchange; giving and receiving. You ask us not only to open gifts, but also to open our hearts. To trace what we are grateful for and what we would like to keep in our lives – and what we are ready to let go.
Advent season, you have taught me a lot, but above all this:
Life is magic
True luxury is enjoying the moment
Connection is more important than a mountain full of gifts
Angels are everywhere
Gingerbread is a cure-all
You can drink, eat, and probably even smoke chai tea (or maybe not)
My recipe of the week
In the Airbnb we’re currently staying in, there’s a fire burning in the fireplace, and after I’ve made friends with the oven, it smells like freshly baked cookies too. Since I like chai tea just as much as cookies, I baked a combination of both this week. As you may know, I like to use tea as a spice, and chai tea (preferably from the tea bag, as it is finer than loose tea) is a very tasty Christmas spice.
And now my question to you: What do you like about the Advent season? Leave a comment under this post! I’m looking forward to it!
Chai cookies
Ingredients
- 2 teabags chai tea I used the Yogi Tea Classic
- 200 g spelt flour, type 1050 alternative: my gluten-free flour mixture
- 100 g ground almonds
- 1/3 tsp salt
- 150 g virgin coconut oil room temperature
- 80 ml maple syrup grade A or C
- 1 tsp gingerbread spice
- 1/2 grated orange zest
- 3 tbs erythritol ground into a powder (alternatively: organic powdered sugar)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 ° C.
- Cut the tea bags open and mix the cha tea with all the other ingredients except the ground erythritol (do not substitute the tea bags with loose cha tea as it is much coarser-grained).
- Line a baking tray with baking paper and take 1/2 tablespoon of dough for each croissant, roll into a sausage with your hands, place on the baking tray and shape into a crescent.
- Bake the cookies for 12 minutes until lightly browned around the edges.
- Roll the cookies in the ground erythritol.
