CHRISTMAS STARS AND GINGERBREAD

The introduction of this recipe shouldn't even be translated. However, in order for you to understand the next part regarding Nazis, let me tell you a short story. 

You know that country called Sweden? Yes, it is next to Finland and Finns are not from there. Anyway, the story is that the mighty people of Sweden have claimed that Finnish Christmas star shaped pies look like Nazi symbols. This is not true. End of story.

Therefore, since we all know how wrong the Swedes can be, the Academic Karelian pie Association wish to emphasize that our Christmas stars doesn't have anything to do with Nazis and don’t ever believe anything Swedes say about Finland. We have made our stars with pure love and with honor to Christmas traditions.

Furthermore, when it comes to gingerbread, we wish to highlight that these delicious cookies have been made with cultural sensitivity. That is, we made dude cookies which represent all local ethnicities. However, we weren't able to reach gender sensitivity since we couldn't find female figure cutters in Kosovo. This is something that wouldn't naturally happen in Finland. In Kosovo, on the other hand, besides dude cutters, there were only traditional gingerbread shape cutters, hearts, some boring squares and stars. We find this a clear indication of the status of women in the whole society.

First things first; before you get yourself busy with baking,
take some red wine and enjoy it with chocolate!

CHRISTMAS STARS (12 piece)

• 2 dl wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 125 g butter
• 125 g sour cream

Filling: plum marmalade

Measure flours, baking powder and butter to a bowl. Mix them with hand. Add sour cream and mix. Let the dough rest in fridge for 30 min.

Roll the dough with a rolling pin to a plate that is ½ cm thick. Use a pie cutter to make square shape pieces. The cutter will form the points of the stars as well. In case you don’t have this kind of pie cutter you can make squares also with knife.

Turn the points of the stars to the center of the square. Spread egg on top of the pies. Add plum marmalade to the center of the star at the end.

Bake in 225 Celsius for 10 min.

No Nazi pies in this corner of the world!

GINGERBREADS (50 pieces)

• ¾ dl syrup
• 1 dl sugar
• 125 g butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger powder
• 1 tsp clove
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp soda
• 4 dl wheat flour

First, go to Finland and buy yourself spices like ginger powder and clove.

Come back to Kosovo and measure the butter, syrup, sugar and spices to a saucepan. Let the mixture boil. Stir all the time.

Whisk the mixture until it cools down. Add egg.

Lastly, add soda and flours and pour the mixture to a plastic wrap. Put the wrap to a fridge and wait a day.

On the next day, roll the dough to a thin plate and use the gingerbread cutters to make different shapes. In case you have a wild imagination, do whatever shapes you can think of!

Bake in 200 Celsius for 5 min.

Santa's little helpers at work!

Ready!