Zimtsterne -- The Recipe That Stays When the Table Grows

Christmas 2024. The restaurant's second Christmas season. Sixty Christmas dinner orders. SIXTY. Up from forty-eight last year. Revenue from Christmas orders: $5,700. December total revenue: $34,000. The biggest month in Sarah's Table history. Again. Because December keeps breaking its own record. Because December is the month where people want home food more than any other month and Sarah's Table IS home food and the wanting is the market and the market is: insatiable. The market for home is: infinite.

Christmas Eve at the restaurant: family dinner. Mama, Kevin, Donna, Kaden, Amber (drove from Chattanooga with Darren and the twins — four-year-old twins in a restaurant is either brave or reckless and Amber is both). Terrence drove from Atlanta. Chloe behind the counter serving (she's the server now at family dinners, a role she chose, a role that puts her where the cook belongs: standing, serving, watching people eat). Jayden on his stool. Elijah in his chair. Fourteen people. Earline on the wall. The skillet gleaming. The cornbread in the display case, last piece, saved for Mama.

Mama's Christmas cake this year: "Year 9 — THE TABLE GROWS." THE TABLE GROWS. The progression: getting started, almost there, look at you, keep going, unstoppable, the table is set, and now: the table GROWS. The table that was a kitchen table in Antioch is now a counter on Gallatin Pike that is about to become a bigger counter in a bigger space. The table grows. Lorraine Mitchell, the frosting oracle, sees the expansion before it happens. She sees everything before it happens. She saw the restaurant ten years ago. She saw the storefront two years ago. She sees the bigger space now. The woman's frosting is prophetic.

Christmas gifts: Chloe got a professional camera (for food photography — she's outgrown the phone, she needs EQUIPMENT, she's thirteen in two months and she needs a DSLR with a macro lens for close-up food shots, and I bought it because the girl's talent deserves tools and the tools are the investment and the investment is the line). Jayden got a new writing journal (leather-bound, serious, the journal of a future published author who is currently published on a restaurant counter). Elijah got a toy fire station from Jayden ("for his collection" — the lending tradition between brothers). And Blaze got a new bed (the cat's contribution to Christmas is: existing, which is enough).

I made the Christmas dinner — at the restaurant, for the family, the meal that is the same every year and will be the same when I'm sixty and the cornbread is still aggressively unsweetened and the table has grown to hold grandchildren I haven't met yet. The table grows. The food stays. The love grows with the table. Amen.

Every year I make the same Christmas dinner — same dishes, same cornbread, same everything — because that consistency is the whole point. The table grows; the food stays. And when I think about a recipe that captures that feeling exactly, it’s Zimtsterne: German cinnamon stars that have been showing up on Christmas tables for generations, unchanged, unbothered, perfect. Mama’s frosting is prophetic and mine is meringue-white, and these little stars felt like the right thing to send you home with after a Christmas like this one — something you can make the same way next year, and the year after that, until the grandchildren I haven’t met yet are asking for them by name.

Zimtsterne (German Cinnamon Star Cookies)

Prep Time: 30 minutes + 1 hour chilling | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes | Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients

• 3 cups finely ground almonds (almond flour works well)
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, divided
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom (optional, but lovely)
• 3 large egg whites, divided
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• Pinch of fine salt
• Powdered sugar for rolling surface

Instructions

1. Make the meringue. In a clean, dry bowl, beat 3 egg whites with cream of tartar and salt on medium speed until foamy. Gradually add 1 cup of the powdered sugar, increase speed to high, and beat until stiff, glossy peaks form. Set aside 1/2 cup of meringue for the glaze topping.
2. Make the dough. In a large bowl, combine the ground almonds, remaining 1/2 cup powdered sugar, cinnamon, and cardamom. Stir in the lemon juice, then fold in the larger portion of meringue until a cohesive dough forms. It will be sticky — that’s right.
3. Chill. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (overnight is fine). Cold dough rolls cleanly.
4. Preheat and prep. Heat oven to 300°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Dust your work surface generously with powdered sugar.
5. Roll and cut. Working in batches, roll the dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness on the powdered sugar–dusted surface. Cut into star shapes using a star cookie cutter (2 to 2 1/2 inches). Re-roll scraps once.
6. Glaze. Place stars on prepared baking sheets. Spoon a small amount of the reserved meringue glaze onto each star and spread it to the edges with the back of a spoon or a small offset spatula. The meringue top is the signature — don’t skip it.
7. Bake. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes, until the meringue topping is set and just barely beginning to color at the very edges. The cookies should remain pale and the meringue should stay white. Do not overbake — they firm up as they cool.
8. Cool. Let cookies cool completely on the baking sheet. They will be soft when warm and chewy-crisp once fully cooled. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks — they actually improve after a day or two.

Nutrition (per serving, 1 cookie)

Calories: 118 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 12g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 12mg