German Nussecken Bars

When I was selecting cookies to make this season, I kept coming across European cookie recipes and they just sounded so good. Germany is known for their baking, and to this day I am sad that a local German bakery/café closed without them releasing a cookbook. Some of those recipes aren’t easy to replicate, but if I know what I am looking for it helps.

This recipe is for German Nut Corners (Nussecken) and it uses hazelnuts, a favorite of mine. You can use either almond or hazelnut flour, and while I used whole hazelnuts, I used almond flour as I had that on hand. The other ingredients are somewhat flexible. The original recipe called for apricot jam, and I ended up using apricot/pineapple preserves, and it was great. The jam just adds a little bit of flavor, and I think many different jams would work.

My biggest struggle with this recipe, if you can call it that, was what pan to use. The recipe called for a jelly roll pan, which the recipe said was 13” x 18”. That is a contradiction (unless sizes are different elsewhere) as a jelly roll pan is 10” x 15”. The other size is a half sheet pan. I knew it would be hard to spread the dough, so I used the jelly roll pan. That worked fine, and thankfully the cookies didn’t boil over while baking. It takes a little time to cut these and dip in chocolate, but it’s worth it. They aren’t as sweet as many American cookies, which is refreshing this time of year.

German Nussecken Bars
½ cup butter, room temperature
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 ½ cups flour
⅓ cup apricot jam

1 cup butter
5 tablespoon rum
1 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whole hazelnuts, roasted and roughly chopped
2 cups almond/hazelnut flour

1 cup dark chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vegetable shortening

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a jelly roll pan (10” x 15”) with aluminum foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter and sugar and mix until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and stir to combine. Stir in the baking powder and salt, and then gradually add the flour, until the dough comes together. Press the dough evenly into the prepared pan. Dock the surface of the dough with the tines of a fork and then spread the base layer evenly with the apricot jam. If needed, you can heat up the jam slightly to ease in spreading.

Make the topping: in a medium saucepan, combine 1 cup butter, the rum, brown sugar, and vanilla. Heat over medium until the sugar is dissolved, but do not bring to a boil. Add the roasted and chopped hazelnuts and the almond/hazelnut flour to the melted butter mixture and stir to combine.

Spread the topping mixture evenly over the base crust.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the bars are golden. Allow the bars to cool completely, ideally overnight.

Using a sharp knife, cut the bars into squares and then triangles.

If desired, melt the chocolate a vegetable shortening to make a glaze and dip the corners of the cookies in the glaze or drizzle over part of the cookies. Allow the glaze to set before serving.  

Recipe from Bake It With Love