Go Back
Print Pin

Ischler Törtchen (Ischler tarts)

These Ischler Törtchen (english "Ischler tarts") are an original recipe by my grandmother who made the best christmas cookies in our family! I slightly adapted the recipe, so it can be enjoyed by people with various preferrences- dairy, egg- plus it can be made glutenfree as well!
Course cookies, Dessert, sweets
Servings 40 cookies (approx.)

Ingredients

cookies

  • 270 g flour
  • 250 g (vegan) butter *
  • 150 g powdered sweetener/ sugar
  • 200 g ground almonds
  • 2 Tsp cinnamon
  • 1-2 Tbsp plantmilk (in case the dough should be too crumbly/ dry)

the chocolate-buttercream filling

  • 100 g (vegan)butter
  • 100 g powdered sweetener/ sugar
  • 100 g dark chocolate

Jam

  • 250 g slightly sour jam, such as red currant or sour cherry

ganache

  • 150 g dark chocolate
  • 3 Tbsp (45g) almondbutter

Instructions

  • Start by mixing together the ingredients for the dough with an electric hand mixer, with the hands or in a food processor. Leave the plant milk out at first to see if you need it. If the dough feels too dry and crumbly, start with adding 1 Tbsp. Add more if you need to in order to achieve the right consistency. The dough will be on the "softer" side but should not look and feel "spreadable".
  • Roll dough into two equal sized balls. Cover bowl with a kitchen towel and let sit in the fridge for 30 min.
  • When the dough is ready, take it out of the fridge.
  • Preheat the oven to 200C. Roll out the the dough about 0.5 cm (0.2 inches) thick. Using a small round glass or cookie cutter, cut out circles. Place on a lined baking tray and bake the cookies for 7 minutes. They will stay light in color, little browned edges are fine but they should not be burned! If that's the case, leave them in the oven for a shorter period of time or reduce the temperature to 180C.
  • Repeat the process until there is no more dough left. When all cookies are baked, let them cool completely.
  • Melt chocolate for the filling in a water bath. Let cool a bit.
  • In a mixing bowl, whip up butter and powdered sweetener/ sugar with an electric hand mixer. Add slightly cooled melted chocolate and mix again until everything is well combined and a chocolate-cream formed.
  • Spread a small teaspoon of the filling on top a cookie. If using the jam, spread a teaspoon of that as well on the bottom side of another cookie and put it on top. Again repeat this process until you have no more single cookies left.
  • To make the ganache, simply melt the chocolate in a water bath. When it is smooth, add almond butter and combine. Spread a teaspoon of the ganache on each little cookie tower, place a walnut in the middle of the cookies and let cool completely again. Store in an airtight (cookie)box in a dark and colder place. Enjoy!

Notes

*I tried these cookies with almond butter, but they don't taste just like the original and tend to harden up too much once baked. Therefore I wouldn't recommend to substitute the butter with any nut/ seed butter.