The painted springerle

Author Notes

Still hunting for my recipe from Freiburg I just got some lovely lemon springerles from Alice at the Springerle Bakery: http://thatcookie.com/ where you can also get a recipe from Ken at http://cookiemolds.wordpress.com/recipes/springerle/ which uses baker's ammonia or Hartshorn for leavening. Ken likes to paint his springerles with petal dust finished with vodka for some gorgeous vivid results, but I am suggesting that you use all natural colorants such as those from India Tree with some thinning, either with water or German schnapps. I am uploading my results painting the cookies from Springerle, which are delicious and so perfect, they are well worth ordering! I will be making my own cookies with my own molds over the holidays. If you are going to make your own and they are intended for decoration, you can make a small hole in the top of each cookie so a ribbon can be inserted later for hanging. You can also try a wedgewood effect by simply painting the background a solid tanzanite blue or olive green and leave the border and central image white. You can box your painted edible cookies as gifts. I like to make these completely edible. Painting these would be great fun to do with children, too. House on the Hill has a great line of food coloring as markers which would be really easy for children to use. They also have edible gold dust you can paint with spirits for gilding. —Sagegreen