Eisbär Brunsli

Putting aside the distressing images of hungry bears in melty arctic landscapes, polar bears (Eisbär, "ice bear" in German) are majestic creatures that deserve more than just the classic 80s New Wave song by the Swiss band Grauzone (no matter how awesome that song is).

They deserve to be Christmas cookies.

Here are the lyrics:

Ich möchte ein Eisbär sein
im kalten Polar
Dann müßte ich nicht mehr schreien
Alles wäre so klar

Eisbären müssen nie weinen
I would like to be a polar bear,
in the cold Arctic.
Then I would not have to cry,
everything would be fine.
Polar bears never have to cry.

And neither will you, with a face full of cookies.

The idea for the recipe comes from my favourite twins, Rosie and Bronwen, who suggested a white icing on bear-shaped Brunsli to make polar bears. I decided to further frost-ify by adding mint to the mix.

Although almost all Swiss people I know do not seem to like chocolate flavoured with mint, I think it elevates the regular Brunsli. And they're pretty cute too.

For the Brunsli:

200 g ground nuts

200 g sugar

100 g dark chocolate, grated

100 g cocoa powder

pinch salt

3 egg whites

shot crème de menthe

For the glaze:

60 g icing sugar

1½ tbsp crème de menthe

In a large bowl add nuts, sugar, chocolate, cocoa powder, and salt. Mix well.

Beat the whites until they are stiff, then fold in the dry ingredients and shot of crème de menthe.

Divide the dough into 3 discs, and wrap well with plastic. Cool in the fridge for at least an hour and up to a day.

When you are ready to roll:

Preheat oven to 180 C / 350 F / gas mark 4

Roll out the dough (using granulated sugar) to be about a cm (about half an inch) thick, then cut them out into any shape.

Bake the cookies for about 8 minutes.

Make the glaze

Mix together the icing sugar and crème de menthe until you get a spreadable glaze.

Using a pastry brush, spread the glaze onto your bears. Alternatively, you can dip them in the glaze.

Using a small sieve, sprinkle icing sugar over the bears generously until they look white and fluffy.

Instead of crème de menthe, you can add one tsp peppermint extract to the initial Brunsli dough.
I could only find green, not clear, crème de menthe (I'm totally making my own in the new year). Because I didn't want glowing green, nuclear disaster bears, I covered them in icing sugar (it has a nice snowy effect too). However, if you do have a clear spirit, you could skip the final icing sugar stage and just leave them with the glaze.
I make the glaze with crème de menthe, which makes it boozy. If you want to skip this, just use milk instead, and flavour with half a teaspoon peppermint extract.