Traditional Swiss Biberli: A Delicious Honey-Almond Pastry

A homemade delicacy from Switzerland and I am sharing the recipe with you!!! I had to look up what they translate “Biberli” into, they call it: Gingerbread cookies with marzipan and I can tell you, it’s just as delicious as it sounds! My mom made a ton of them, a small bag for each volunteer worker at the nursery home she works at. Judging from how good my mom’s food always is, it has to be really worth it volunteering there!

Recipe for 10 pieces:

Ingredients:

Dough

• 1 Tbsp rose water

• 120 g honey

• 80 g sugar

• 2 Tbsp oil

• 40 g milk

• 250 g dark flour, and some more for flattening the dough

• ½ tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• ½ tsp ground clovers

• 1 pinch ground nutmeg

• 1 pinch ground cardamom

• 1 yolk

Filling

• 200 g blanched almonds

• 40 g sugar

• 1 tbsp rose water

• 1 egg white

• 40 g honey

• 1/2 lemon, peel and juice

• 5 drops of bitter almond extract

And 3 tbsp cream for coating

Instructions:

1. Pour rose water, honey, sugar and oil into a pot and heat for two minutes. Add the milk and heat up again and mix well. Let the mixture cool for about 10 minutes.

2. Add flour, backing powder, cinnamon, clovers, nutmeg, cardamom and yolk to the mixture and combine everything into a dough. (it’s very sticky) Form into a ball and wrap it in plastic wrap. Let it cool in the fridge for at leas one hour or over night.

3. In the meantime grind the almonds to a fine powder in the mixer. Add sugar, rose water, egg white, honey, lemon juice and peel and bitter almond extract and combine everything to a mass. (add the lemon juice slowly so the mass doesn’t get too liquid) Let the filling cool for an hour.

4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F).

5. Take part of the dough and roll it out on flour until it is 4mm thick and brush it lightly with water. (Picture 1 + "2) Roll part of the almond filing into a sausage shape and lay it onto the dough. (Picture 3 + 4) Wrap the filling with the dough and roll it a little more to seal the ends. (Picture 5) Let the rolls cool for at least 2 hours so they are easier to slice afterwards. Cut 1 inch (1.5cm) long pieces of the rolls and lay them onto the parchment paper. Brush all the Gingerbread cookies with cream and bake for 15min.

6. Take the hot cookies out of the oven and brush with cream again. Let them cool on a cooling rack. (Picture 6)

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