We love the Zimtsterne (Cinnamon Stars) with the baked meringue topping. I will not be baking them any other way. I wanted to post a link to the recipe, but the exact one I used is not coming up on Google. I found one with the same proportions, so if you are interested, and have a surplus of egg whites, here it is:

https://www.food.com/recipe/zimtsterne-cinnamon-star-cookies-262925

I did not find that I needed to thin the meringue with milk.

I used fine almond flour, by weight, rather than grinding almonds.

I'm in favor of making the larger stars, unless you have patience for spreading the meringue. I used a small spatula to spread it out to the star tips.

I would NOT use the second method for spreading meringue specified in the recipe, as it would waste a lot of dough that could not be re-rolled.

We also love those three meringue cookies I made with the leftover meringue topping. I could see baking these using a recipe of the topping.

Thanks, Mike. I will look at that article again.

As we were having a simple Christmas dinner, and I had three egg yolks left over from baking the Cinnamon Stars, I decided to bake Cass's recipe for Challah on Christmas afternoon. I have used 25% white whole wheat flour in the past. This time I used 14 oz. bread flour and 6 oz. white whole wheat flour. The recipe calls for seven egg yolks, so I used the three I had plus two whole eggs. For the water, I used it to rinse out a honey jar before proofing the yeast. I used the bread machine to make the dough but let it rise in a dough bucket. My braiding could use some practice. Both loaves had breaks in the center. I should probably braid a bit more loosely. I baked for 25 minutes at 360F, slightly lower than the 375F of Cass's recipe, then covered the loaves with foil for another 15 minutes but removed it with three minutes to go. The loaves tested done at 40 minutes.

I did a double recipe of "Nutty Brownies". This is the recipe that I had been telling everyone was the perfect cakey brownie with nuts. This time I used KAF all purpose flour instead of whole wheat, and a new oven, and mixed it in a stand mixer. I've noticed some changes. It was domed in the center and lower at the edges. Probably was cooked too quickly and should have been in a higher rack. Its lighter and fluffier and seems to have less depth of flavor than when the recipe uses whole wheat flour. Of course this could be my imagination.
My father had ben given a package of sugared pecans with just a hint of salt and I added this to the brownies. It was quite tasty but the salt tinge is very subtle.

BakerAunt, thanks: (1) For posting your Pumpkin Puree (accent missing) recipe. I'll never make it; I don't like pumpkin pie or pumpkin bread. In the recipe, you mentioned using a Kuhn-Rikon knife. At the time, I had an acorn squash that I didn't feel like tackling with my chef's knife. I searched Amazon for your knife. The first thing that popped up was a watermelon knife. There was no mention in the blurb or the reviews about using it for squash. I bought it anyhow. Summer will come again, and we like watermelon.

I continued to search for a squash knife. Still none with that label. I found the orange knife with a review mentioning acorn squash. I bought it, too. I'm going to use it on the acorn squash tomorrow.

(2) Thanks for letting us know you buy freezer containers from Lehman's. I buy several items from them but didn't know they sell freezer containers. To my pleasant surprise, they're USA-made. Immediately, I texted a niece about them. I no longer make the multi-course Italian Christmas dinner, but she does. She kept me in the loop about all her many, many preparations, including her Christmas Eve tamales -- all the WORK. After the holiday was over, I texted to her that she really needs to do most of the prep in October and freeze everything. Thanks to you, BakerAunt, she now knows where to buy the freezer containers.

For breakfast on Friday, and the next couple of days, I baked an adaptation of the King Arthur recipe "Easy Holiday Eggnog Muffins." I cut the sugar from ¾ C to ½ C., which I started doing years ago when I baked the recipe. I replaced 1 ½ C. of the 2 ½ C. flour with white whole wheat. I replaced ¼ C. butter with 3 Tbs. avocado oil. I only used ½ tsp. nutmeg in the muffins, but next time, I will use the recipe's 1 tsp., as it needed more. For the topping, I reduced the sugar and flour from ½ C to 1/3 C., as I recalled it being too much for the muffins. I used 2 Tbs. avocado oil in place of 3 Tbs. butter. I used Organic Valley low-fat eggnog, which is the only lower in fat one I could find that does not include junky ingredients like high fructose corn syrup. I still use the Eggnog flavoring that I got from King Arthur, although I noticed recently that KA no longer carries it. I sampled two muffins for breakfast while they were warm. The recipe's additional nutmeg is needed, as they seemed a tad plain, especially with replacing the butter. However, as oil cakes and muffins usually improve over the days, I will see how the taste is tomorrow after the spice has time to rest. It may be that I need to bake these the night before serving, or it may be that for the topping, I will need to include a smidge of butter for flavoring.