Chocolate Springerle Cookies can be made with traditional wooden molds, cookie stamps or embossed rolling pins.
Texas has lots of German towns. Most of the ones in my area have kitchy antique shops and a German restaurant or two.
Fredericksburg is one of my favorite Texan German towns. It’s on the Hill Country Wine Trail so it’s a nice drive and it’s large enough to have some interesting shops.
I discovered Springerle molds in at Der Kuchen Laden in Fredericksburg. They’re expensive so I began my collection with just two. That sufficed for some time.
Later I discovered the amazing carvings of Gene Wilson at Hobi Cookie Molds. Hobi cookie molds are hand carved hardwoods so they are incredibly durable and will become family heirlooms. I have two Saint Nicholas molds – a small and a large one.
Gene is now retired but he passed his business along to his nephew so you can still buy lovely molds at very reasonable prices.
I recently tried to buy some molds on Amazon. Beware, the ones made in China are made from balsa wood which is very soft. Mine were also untreated and the edges hadn’t been sanded so they went back to Amazon.
This dough also works very well with embossed rolling pins. The great thing about an engraved rolling pin is you can quickly make beautiful designs on your cookies, pie crust, or fondant without much effort. Even young children can roll out pretty designs on the dough.
My embossed rolling pins came from PastryMade and Embossed. The designs here are Pastrymade’s Happy Christmas Rolling Pin (Affiliate link) and Embossed’s snowflake pattern.
Be careful when ordering from Pastrymade. I recently ordered some new pins from them and they were quite small. If you want a normal-sized rolling pin, order the large one.
Rolling pins from Embossed only come in one size which is the normal rolling pin size.
PastryMade also makes custom engraved pins (Affiliate link). I had them make the peace pin featured below. I used a pizza cutter, a pastry cutter and a biscuit cutter to cut out my chocolate springerle cookies.
The trick to using an engraved rolling pin is to make sure the dough is chilled and you flour the top. These rolling pins also work amazingly well with fondant or pie dough.
Traditionally Springerle cookies are anise flavored. I’ll post a more traditional recipe later. For this post, I wanted to experiment with different types of cocoa so I made chocolate Springerle cookies.
I used Santa Barbara Chocolate black cocoa for the almost black cookies. It gives an “oreo” flavor to chocolate baked goods. I used brown cocoa for the brown cookies. Of course, you can just roll this dough out to make traditional “sugar” cookies if you like, but they’re much prettier with an engraved rolling pin!
This dough is also great as a substitute for gingerbread in gingerbread houses and as sugar cookies.
Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Mix together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Mix in flour mixture one fourth at a time. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate 1-2 hours. If using springerle mold, break off small pieces of dough and roll them out to the size of the mold and about ¼ inch thick. Dust mold with flour, place rolled piece of dough over mold and roll out on top (or press by hand). Remove cookie from mold and place on prepared cookie sheet. If using engraved rolling pins, roll out dough with plain rolling pin to about ¼ inch thick. Make sure the top is floured and use engraved rolling pin to imprint the design on the dough. The final thickness should be about 1/8 inch thick. Use cookie cutters or pastry cutter to cut out cookies. Bake at 375°F for 10-15 minutes. Cool on wire racks. Nutrition information is provided as a guide only. Please consult a dietician for specific dietary needs.Chocolate Springerle Cookies
Ingredients
Instructions
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
48
Serving Size:
2 cookies
Amount Per Serving:
Calories: 93Total Fat: 4gSaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 1gCholesterol: 18mgSodium: 66mgCarbohydrates: 13gFiber: 0gSugar: 6gProtein: 1g Looking for more embossed cookies?
