Bucks Feet Cookies

Bucks Feet cookies are named because of their looks. They are sandwiched almond cookies dipped in chocolate. In the old days these were stuck together with apricot jelly, but nowadays buttercream is used instead. That’s the recipe I’ll be sharing with you today!

Bucks Feet cookies originate from Jan Pieter Schellema bakery in Tuitjenhorn i the Netherlands. Legend has it that there was an annual event of guarding the dead near the cemetery and the church by eating pastries. Jan Pieter created the recipe commissioned by the local vicar, because it symbolizes the Devil’s feet. Eating Bucks Feet would protect the dead from evil.

Biscuit

200 gr egg white
225 gr sugar
pinch of salt
175 gr almondpowder
75 gr powdered sugar
1 vanilla pod
40 gr flour
3 tbsp shaved almonds

Preheat the oven to 180 ºC. Whisk the egg whites with sugar and salt into stiff peaks. Mix the almond powder with the powdered sugar and set aside. Halve the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds, into the flour. Fold the almond mixture into the egg whites and sift the flour vanilla mixture. Carefully fold in the flour and scoop the batter into a piping bag. Pipe even lines on a baking sheet with grease proof paper and garnish with almonds. Bake the cookies about 15 minutes and let them cool completely.

Custard

1 vanilla pod
250 ml milk
50 g sugar
2 yolks
1 tbsp flour

Halve the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds. Add the seeds and pod to the milk with half of the sugar and bring it to a boil. Whisk the yolks with the remaining sugar and add the flour. Mix a splash of hot milk through the yolks, then add the yolks to the milk. Remove the pod and simmer the custard until it thickens. Pour the custard onto a plate and cover it with cling film. Let it cool.

Buttercream

250 gr soft butter
60 gr powdered sugar
250 gr custard

Whisk the butter until fluffy, then add the powdered sugar and custard. Put the cream into a piping bag and pipe a line on a cookie. Take another cookie of roughly the same size and press it onto the other, creating a sandwich.