Challenge you may ask? Let's face it, although there are baker's genes on my paternal grandmother's side, I'm not the one who has inherited them. I stopped baking years ago, not because what I made was terrible or inedible, but because it was a challenge every time.
I hope you'll appreciate what I'm going through here for you!
This recipe is from the 1970 Gas Cooking and Baking Recipe Calendar. You met this calendar before, in the 1952 and the 1958 edition.
Here's what you need for the cinnamon slices (in metric units!)
150 grams of margarine (or butter)
120 grams of sugar (I would recommend less, though)
1 or 2 eggs (the recipe calls for one, but my dough called unmistakably for two)
2 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of cardamom
a pinch of salt
175 grams of flour
Cream margarine or butter until fluffy.
Add sugar, egg and spices and beat until sugar dissolved.
Add sifted flour.
Hit head (preferably your own) on the counter if you get crumbles like I did, then bravely add a second egg ... and beat the dough until smooth.
Make sure to remember the spots on the wall and counter where little bits of the dough fly, so you can clean them off right away before you get dough on your shirt because you don't own an apron.
Spread the dough very thinly on a buttered baking tray and bake for 20 minutes at 180° C (=356° F) in the middle of the oven.
Take out of the oven and cut into diamond shapes or whatever is aesthetically pleasing to you.
I like the crunchy edges best and could have probably tried to spread the dough even thinner into the corners, and the cookies are a little too sweet for me, but overall I think I did quite okay.
Is there a special victory dance for baking challenged people like me?
P.S. Romantic that I am I prefer baking in the half dark (possibly aided by the fact that the bulb in my ceiling lamp has been dead for a long time, but I like the small lights under the cupboards better anyway) which gives my dough a slightly romantic (as in dark) look as well. I hope you'll forgive me for that.
P.P.S. Some of the steps are not exactly the same in the recipe as you probably already suspected.
