Known as Alsatian Schwowebredele, these Almond Cinnamon Shortbread Cookies belong to the long list of typical “bredele” cookies made over the holidays in Alsace, Eastern France. Made with ground almonds, a pinch of cinnamon and a generous amount of butter, these cut-outs are easy to make, deliciously sandy and taste just subtly spiced and nutty. A must-do recipe for your holiday cookie box!
The Tradition of Christmas Cookies in Alsace
Christmas cookies, also known as “bredele”, are a huge part of Christmas celebrations in the Eastern French region of Alsace. As early as mid-November, bakers start to prepare batches of these various cookies and sell them on display. If you are visiting Alsace around Christmas time, you will see these little Christmas cookies in virtually every bakery and on every market stand.
There exists hundreds of bredele recipes out there, from the most traditional to modern takes. They come in various tastes, textures and shapes – cut out, sliced, piped, etc. Some of the most traditional and well-known recipes include the butterbredele, Linzele cookies, Spritz cookies, Leckerli cookies and these Schwowebredele.
Alsatian people also love to make bredele cookies at home and offer them to their friends and family during the Holidays.
Notes and Substitutions:
- The cookie dough needs to chill for at least 2 hours before being rolled out, so plan accordingly. You can chill the dough overnight or up to 2 days prior.
- Make sure you use unsalted butter, at room temperature.
- Do not overmix the dough. Stop when the ingredients are just combined. To do so, I prefer to mix this dough by hand (instead of in a stand mixer) to get a better feel of the dough texture. The less you mix the dough, the more delicate the texture of the shortbread cookies will be. On the opposite hand, the more you mix, the tougher they will be.
- You can use any cookie cutter shapes of your liking !
How to store these Almond Cinnamon Shortbread Cookies
- On your counter – These cookies can keep for up to 3 months stored in a metal tin box on your counter.
- In your freezer – Well stored in an airtight container, these cookies can keep for up to 6 months. To thaw, leave them on your counter overnight.
This recipe yields about 75 cookies. This is ideal for making a lot of cookies for hosting or Holiday cookie swaps. If you wish to make fewer cookies, you can easily halve the recipe.
I hope you’ll love this Almond Cinnamon Shortbread Cookies as much as I do! If you have any questions, please leave a comment.
More cookie recipes you may like:
- Thin Spiced Almond Cookies (Pains d’Amandes)
- Cocoa and Almond Thumbprint Cookies (Linzele)
- Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt
- Breton Salted Butter Sables
- Chocolate chip cookies with fleur de sel
- Butter Sables from Alsace (Butterbredele)
20 comments
How finely should the almonds be ground? Or do you use almond flour where the almonds are ground to a powder like wheat flour? I have a recipe from my mother which uses ground walnuts with cinnamon and I remember her using a mouli grater to grind the walnuts about 1- 1.5 mm in size.
Hello Julia and thanks for reaching out. The ground almonds I use are fine ground, but defintely not “flour like”. They have a bit of a sandy texture to them. The best way I could describe them, is somewhat like breadcrumbs. Hope this helps!
These hold their shape beautifully. Have you ever tried to decorate them? I understand it may not be traditional. I think they’d hold up well.
I have not personally decorated them, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t hold up to certain decorations/icing (even if not traditional). While the cookies are tender, they aren’t brittle or easily “snapped”, so I think you’d be fine to do some nice holiday decoration on them if you wanted!
My mother would put egg wash, some roughly ground nut and a little chunky decorative sugar on them before baking.
Oh, that’s a nice touch, Linda. They definitely wouldn’t be doing any hard at all to those cookies, just make them a little more irresistable 🙂
I’m starting a batch of these tonight, and the dough really isn’t sticking together much. Seems dry and non- adhesive. All ingredients are fresh. Will they get stickier overnight, or can I add something – milk, water- to get the ball of dough to firm up? Thanks!!
Hello, Ellen. Sorry for the late reply (time difference here in France). The dough is drier than you might be used to, but it should still come together in a ball. Not sure why it isn’t, but my best advice would be to add a bit more room temperature butter to the recipe. Adding water or milk would “harden” the cookies once baked. Hope this helps!
Thanks! I will give that a try. I tried to roll it out and it just crumbled 🥴. I appreciate your quick response!
It should do the trick. Im not sure what could have happened, but sometimes depending on the area or humidity, flour can be much drier or moister… Just a thought.
Hi Audrey, this reminds me of a recipe that my Mom made every Christmas. She called them Schwaben Bredele. A few difference in measurements and like using unpeeled almonds, cloves and after cutting leaving them, she let them sit out all night uncovered before baking. She decorated them with coarse, crushed sugar cubes and grated lemon rind on the egg wash. They were always the best part of Christmas. I am eager to try your recipe.
That sounds lovely, Linda. I love when recipes evoke memories like this for people. It’s like you can taste your memories somehow. I hope you’ll enjoy the cookies!
Can these be made without the nuts? For those who are allergic? Does that alter the consistency if left out?
Hello, Faith. I’ve unfortunately never made these cookies without the almond flour, but depending on what and where you read online, you can usually swap for all-purpose flour at a 1:1 ratio.
It should work fine. The texture and taste will be slightly different, that’s for certain, but should still be good!
Excellent recipe. We doubled the cinnamon and it was outstanding
I’m all for loading in the cinnamon if you really love the warmth it brings. Enjoy! 🙂
Audrey,
Not sure if this is still active. My dough also turned out extremely crumbly and dry. they are much darker also compared to your photos. I used whole almonds, so that may add darkness. But there is no way that two sticks of butter are enough for six and a half cups of dry ingredients. Not sure if the english translation does not work out. I did weigh the almonds but not the sugar or flour. Just wanted you to know. Merci.
Good morning, Will! So, I remade these cookies just the other day, and had my laptop screen open to my page and followed the recipe. They turned out as they typically do for me. I really have to stress the importance of weighing ingredients, especially flour. Unknowingly, we can add upwards of 20g of extra flour to each cup when we don’t measure… Which over 4 cups means there is potentially an extra 80gr of flour added to the recipe. That can really dry things out.
This could also be the culrpit for the over-browning, the fact that there may have been extra sugar added as well.
I know not everyone has access to a kitchen scale, but for baking it truly is indispensable.
Audrey, thanks for the reply. I do have a scale, but alas only weighed the almonds. Will have to try again by weighing everything. Noticed recently on another recipe that an american stick of butter weighs only about 112 grams so that means I also did not have enough butter. Have a happy holiday!
Thank you, you as well! Baking can be very tricky at times, no matter how much we try to simplify it. The science is the science 🙂