Bethmännchen is German pastry originated in Frankfurt. Bethmännchen are baked for Christmas, and you can buy them on Frankfurts Christmas Market. The legend says that this cookie was developed for Simon Moritz Bethmann (a wealthy banker from Frankfurt) in 1838 who had four children; therefore the pastry was decorated with four almond halves. After the death of his son Heinrich until now the cookies are decorated only with three almond halves. The recipe hasn’t been changed since that time.
Therefore today we will show you how to bake Bethmännchen! It’s easy – you need marzipan, almonds, powdered sugar, flour, and egg.
This recipe, similar to the Vanillekipferl recipe I have tried for the first time with Katharina – my husband’s sister. She knew how to do them entirely, so I decided to help her and see how is she doing it. The Bethmännchen turn out delicious, and this encouraged me to bake them myself again. Now I have even German Christmas cookies covered!
I hope you will enjoy this recipe, exactly like the German people did for more than one century!
Traditional Frankfurts Bethmännchen
Ingredients
- 250 g marzipan
- 80 g sugar powdered
- 40 g flour
- 1 egg white
- 1 egg yolk
- 65 g ground almonds
- 50 g almond halfs
- 1 tbsp water
Instructions
- Take a large bowl and mix together: marzipan, powdered sugar, flour, ground almonds and egg white.
- Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius.
- Prepare a medium size bowl with a cold water and make sure you keep your hands wet while dealing with marzipan. Form small cones (higher then an almond halve) from the dough and decorate each one with 3 almond halves. Remember to keep you hand wet!
- Bake for 10 minutes.
- Mix water with egg yolk and after 10 minutes has passed, brush your cookies using just a little bit of egg mixture. We just want the top of the cookie to be nice and brown!
- Bake your cookies for another 5 minutes.
Going to Frankfurt, Germany? Check out those 9 Frankfurt specialities that you have to eat here!
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2 thoughts on “Traditional Frankfurt’s Bethmännchen”
love this recipe so much ! ive tried a bunch of different variation found online but this is definitely the one, always impressed my family and friend and delicious in coffee, thanks !! 😀
Thanks, Karl for taking the time to write this wonderful comment for making my day 😉