Insight for this post was provided by GE Café™ Series. Their restaurant inspired appliance series is perfect to cook up a storm for the holidays or to bake delicious treats like these Honey Hazelnut Macaroons.
Over the last few years I’ve spent several holiday seasons away from home and family, simply because our travels took us too far away to visit. It’s especially during these festive seasons that I miss them the most though.
With lots of great memories from previous years to reminisce on, not being with family during the holidays makes it extra nostalgic for me.
Being a foodie, my most cherished memories of course involve food. In fact, my fondest holiday food-memory includes a ton of German Christmas cookies we made (and ate) growing up.
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Cookies were our treats, snacks, and dessert during the holiday season. After coming home from school, I would make a hot chocolate to warm up and grab a few cookies – there always were some – to sweeten up my homework time.
In those days the weekends leading up to Christmas were always filled with lots of baking. My mom, sisters and I would bake countless dozens of cookies – always at least 2-3 different kinds at a time. We basically lived in the kitchen during those times.
We had a creative system of rotating baking sheets and stacking cooling racks to accomplish this in our one trusty oven. Things would have been so much simpler with one of these stylish Double Ovens from the GE Café™ Series. We could have baked more cookies in less time using the convection mode.
Oh my, this makes me swoon! Other women might add jewelry to their Christmas wish list, I’d much prefer sparkly stainless-steel appliances.
Ahh…where were we again? Right! Cookies!
Classic coconut macaroons are one of the cookie types we would always make for Christmas. Today I made a variation of the classic with ground hazelnuts.
These soft hazelnut macaroons melt in your mouth. Instead of refined sugar, they are made with with honey. There is also no flour in this recipe. Which means those macaroons are gluten free and paleo friendly!
For a chocolate version, I added cocoa powder to half of the batch. The macaroons are baked on low heat for a longer time which keeps (at least the non-chocolate ones) from browning too much.
A delicious clean-eating treat for the holidays or any time of year.
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- 3 cups (250 g) ground hazelnuts
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa (optional)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 eggs, separated
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup (80 g) honey
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 16 whole hazelnuts
- Preheat your oven to 250 F (120 C). Line a baking sheet with wax paper or parchment brushed with a thin coat of oil.
- Whisk together ground hazelnuts and cinnamon (and optional cocoa) to combine and set aside.
- Separate the eggs. Beat the egg whites with salt until they start to stiffen. Add the honey and vanilla and keep beating to a soft peak meringue stage (the mixture will stay in the bowl if turned upside down, but the peaks at the end of the beaters softly turn downwards).
- Carefully fold in first the egg yolks, then the hazelnut mixture. Using a cookie scoop, place 16 mounds of the batter onto the prepared baking sheet. Top each cookie with a whole hazelnut.
- Bake the cookies for 25-30 minutes. Let the finished cookies cool on the sheet. Store airtight for a few days at room temperature.
Disclosure: Insight for this post was provided by GE Café™ Series – innovative appliances that bring the expertise of the restaurant, home, during the holiday season. Thank you so much for supporting the brands that make Leelalicious possible.
I look forward to the day I stop renting and have my own home. This is now on the wish list.
These look amazing! I love macaroons!
Thanks so much Debra
I so want a double oven! These cookies look amazing!
Christmas cookie baking would be such a breeze with a double oven!
These hazelnut macaroons look so tasty! I should look into investing in a double oven soon.
There will definitely be a double oven if I get to design a kitchen 🙂
Ahh….a double oven! Sounds wonderful- and these macaroons look delicious!
These macaroons look so delicious and creative.
I’m a huge fan of stainless steel and those cookies look amazing!
Oh, my! These look like a wonderful addition to the holiday dessert table! And that oven – yes ma’am looks so sharp!
These sound delicious! And a double oven has been on my wish list forever!
Oh the freedom a double oven would bring 🙂
I’m drooling over the cookies AND the oven!
Right there with you 🙂
YUMMY!!! those cookies look so tasty! I love Hazelnut! That oven looks amazing too!
Nutty macaroons are so perfect for the holidays!
These cookies would be GONE in minutes at our home. They look so nutty and delicious.
Soo nutty indeed! Olivia loves them too, so she is now helping us gobble up treats too 😉
Oh what I would do with a double oven! And these cookies look amazing, I’d never guess they had no refined sugar or flour!
Isn’t that double oven just gorgeous?
These look amazing, Regina! I just made a batch of hazelnut flour, so these may very well make it onto my weekend bake list. 🙂
Yay to nut flours. I recall ground nuts (hazelnut and almonds) being readily available for a low prize in every Germany grocery store. Maybe thats why so many traditional German Christmas cookies use nut flours and are thereby naturally gluten-free.
These look delicious! I love how they are made with hazelnuts. Sounds like a perfect holiday dessert 🙂
Thanks so much! Yes, somehow that nutty hazelnut flavor brings up so many Christmas memories for me 🙂