springerle are white- or ivory-colored cookies made from flour, sugar, and eggs, leavened with hartshorn salt (ammonium carbonate) or baking powder, and flavored with anise seeds and sometimes grated lemon zest. The dough is rolled out flat and firmly pressed with a special springerle rolling pin or cookie mold to imprint one or more designs on top. See cookie molds and stamps. After the mold is removed, the dough is cut into shapes—squares, rectangles, circles, hearts, stars, human or animal figures—that frame the embossed designs. The dough cutouts are transferred to a baking sheet sprinkled with anise seeds and left to dry overnight before baking. After they have cooled, the hard, dry cookies are kept in a tightly closed container for three to four weeks to soften a bit and allow their flavor to develop.
