Adey Abeba Cinnamon Spice Apple Cookies: Sweet Treats for Your 2019 Addis Amet Celebration!

The kids sing, “abebayehosh lemlem” dressed in their favorite habesha lebis or kemise,going door to door singing and giving out hand-picked Adey Abeba flowers.

Some kids would also give out hand-drawn pictures of the flowers in exchange for money and/or blessings from families and elders. 

This is Addis Amet/Hadish Amet, Ethiopia and Eritrea’s New Year celebration. A time to gather with family and loved ones to celebrate new beginnings.

For calendar context, the year will be 2019 this Friday because the Ethiopian and Eritrean calendar follows a solar cycle and is organized into twelve 30-day months, followed by a short thirteenth month called Pagume. Our first month of the year begins in Meskerem, said to be believed by Orthodox Christians as the day the world was created. Meskerem 1st, 2019 falls on September 11th, 2026. On Meskerem 1st, Queen Sheba came back from visiting King Solomon, and so the holiday’s namesake is inspired by her story and called Enkutatash (gift of jewels). On the same day, Adey Abeba flowers bloomed, signifying an Addis Amet, a new year!

Adey Abeba, is an indigenous eight petal yellow flower that grows for only two months in the highlands of Ethiopia and some parts of Eritrea. It symbolizes hope, love, peace, renewal and harmony. The flowers glow bright like the sun, warming up our first month of the year, Meskerem. Each bloom reminds us it is time to transition out of the rainy season called kremt, and into spring to celebrate a fresh start for the upcoming new year! 

Growing up as Ethiopian-Americans, we have lots of memories of celebrating Addis Amet in the United States. We would get dressed up with our families in our handwoven sparkly habesha lebis. Our mother and grandmother would come home from church to break their vegan fast by joining us in feasting on a combination of meat and veggie dishes such as Sega Wot, a spicy beef stew; Doro Wot, a spicy chicken stew with boiled eggs; Kitfo, minced raw beef mixed with spices and clarified butter; and Shiro, chickpea and splitpea stew. In Ethiopia, a chebo, or bonfire, is lit at night; family and friends gather around the fire to dance and sing. While we don't light a chebo during our Addis Amet celebration in the states like our cousins in Addis do, we'd still sing and dance in our living room, and end our meal with a traditional coffee ceremony paired with our mother’s delicious Ethiopian bread, and the best desserts.

That’s why when our younger brother recently brought over a box full of local Washington Apples, we decided to bake Adey Abeba Cinnamon Spice Apple Cookies! Meron created a royal icing transfer that she hand-painted to resemble the yellow and orange tinted Adey Abeba flowers that only bloom in Ethiopia during Addis Amet; so we could have a piece of sunshine in Seattle! If you decide to add our sweet treat to your dessert table or if you do your own spin to cultural celebrations this week please share them with us! 

The Recipe

We used this recipe for the cookies and frosting, substituting the All-Purpose Flour for Bob’s Mills Gluten Free Flour. These cookies will warm you up like 13 months of sunshine, the cinnamon twist adds a warm fall feeling, and the Adey Abeba on top will remind you to shine no matter what season you’re in!  

Wishing you all a Melkam Addis Amet 2019 (መልካም አዲስ ዓመት), and Ruhus Hadish Amet 2019 (ሩሑስ ሓዲሽ ዓመት)! 

Ingredients

Cookie Dough 

• 1 cup butter softened
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 cups Bob’s Mills Gluten Free Flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon apple pie spice (or cinnamon)
• 2 cups finely diced or shredded apples (peeled & cored)
• 3/4 cup oats (old fashioned or quick)

Frosting 

• 3 ounces cream cheese softened
• 1 tablespoon butter softened
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Royal Icing 

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 Tbsp and 1/2 tsp water
• 1 Tbsp corn syrup or honey
• Gel food coloring 

Food Paint

• Gel food coloring 
• Lemon extract
• Decorating brushes (for painting)

Steps to pipe the royal icing transfers

To create your guide and canvas for the royal icing transfers, print out images of the Adey Abeba in the sizes you desire. Place the paper in a cleaned sheet protector, make sure the sheet is made of polypropylene since that material is food safe.

Add all the royal icing ingredients into a bowl and mix them together, preferably with a silicone spatula. For outlining the petals and making the flower center, you will use a thicker icing, a 25-second icing consistency. For filing in the petals and adding an orange ring outside the center of the flower, you will use a smoother icing, a 15-second icing consistency. 

To check the icing consistency, cut a line in the middle of the bowl with your spatula and count how many seconds it takes for the line to disappear completely back into the icing, the total seconds it takes determines the consistency. Add more powder sugar if you need a longer consistency and more water if you need a shorter consistency. 

Below are the steps we took for the Adey Abeba royal icing transfers, between each step allow around 10-15 minutes for drying so a crust can form. Since I made twenty-one transfers, by the time I reached the final flower for each step, the earlier ones were already dry enough for me to immediately go to the next step so I didn’t really have to rely on a clock for this project. 

1. Outline the petals with yellow 25-second royal icing consistency 
2.  Fill in the petals with yellow 15-second royal icing consistency
3. Add a ring in the center of each flower with orange 15-second royal icing consistency
4. Pipe a bundle of circles in the center of the flower using yellow 25-second royal icing consistency 
5. Allow them to dry for 24 hours before painting 

Painting the royal icing transfers

Add a dot of food gel of your desired color to your bowl and add a few drops of lemon extract. Mix them together until they become one liquid. Add more lemon extract if you want the color to be lighter, or more gel if you want it to be darker, similar to watercoloring.  

For these transfers, I painted a patch of orange in the center of each petal, and used dark brown for the dots/lines in the center of the flower. To help define the petals, I added a thin light brown stroke between each petal.