The Baking Bible – Dattelkonfekt

I have to admit that I approached this recipe with a bit of trepidation.  Of course there was the usual cookie issue but more importantly than that, I have never been much of a fan of meringues.  While I love it as a dacquoise and as a component to a composed desserts, I have always found that meringues on their own were always sickeningly sweet.  Then as I read through the recipe, I thought that how am I ever going to fold this heavy date nut mixture into meringue and get it to come out light and fluffy?  I have always loved dates and have been known to just sit and eat them out of hand as a tv snack so I knew I had to at least try it.  I gathered the ingredients, took a deep breath and dove in.  Well, I was in for a huge surprise.  Not only was the recipe super easy and very quick but the date-nut mixture folded into the meringue beautifully but the finished cookies turned out light with crispy edges and a wonderful chewy center but they were not at all the sticky, overly sweet cookies that I had envisioned.  They were light and wonderfully delicious.  I actually have a hard time describing them as I found it hard to tell exactly what was in them.  The dates and nuts added a wonderful nuttiness and a bit of sweetness but seemed to fade into the background.  All in all these are lovely cookies and perfect for afternoon tea.  I loved them.

The recipe is so easy and quick I couldn’t believe I was actually making cookies.  The dates and nuts are processed separately until fine and then combined and processed just to combine.

Ground Nuts

Ground Dates

Date-Nut Mixture

The egg whites area whipped to the soft peak stage and then the sugar is gradually added.

Whipped Eggs and Sugar

Finished Batter

Piped cookies ready to bake

The meringue is then whipped for a few minutes to achieve maximum volume.  The date-nut mixture is folded in and the cookies are piped and baked.  Viola, total simplicity.