Food Christmas Cookies

'Tis the season! Here is a place to share your favorite cookie recipes for Christmas. The following are Christmas traditions in my household:

Toffee Bars

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 tsp. salt
2 cups flour
1 giant Hershey bar
1/2 cup chopped up walnuts

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg, vanilla, and salt. Mix together well. Mix in flour. Press dough into a jelly roll pan (in order to fit whole large pan, double recipe). Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and firm. While still hot, break up the Hershey bar and distribute it on top of the cookie. After spreading the chocolate around, sprinkle the cookie with the walnuts. Cut the cookie up into squares.

Cream Wafers

Note: Trust me, you will want to double this recipe.

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups flour
1/3 cup heavy cream

Mix together the butter and flour until well combined. Add the heavy cream and mix. Once the heavy cream is incorporated, put the dough in a bowl and chill in the fridge for at least an hour. This dough will last a few days in the fridge, so it can be made ahead. Preheat oven to 375. Roll out the dough and cut it into 1 inch circles. Cover each circle with granulated sugar (I like to use superfine sugar, available as C&H Baker's Sugar in the store, or you can make it with a food processor) and place on a baking sheet. Prick the circles with a fork 3-4 times. Bake them for 7-9 minutes until slightly puffed--do not bake them until golden brown. They will be very pale. To assemble, take a circle, pipe on your favorite buttercream, and sandwich the buttercream with another circle. My mother fills these with simple buttercream, but this Christmas I am going to fill mine with Swiss meringue buttercream from here: http://sweetapolita.com/2011/07/ins...pcakes-more-about-swiss-meringue-buttercream/

We also make Russian teacakes or Mexican wedding cakes, whatever you want to call them. I need to go make a copy of the recipe I like to use out of the cookbook I found it in (Shirley Corriher's BakeWise has tons of great cookie recipes, btw). It is a pretty typical Russian teacake recipe except for that she has you add a bit of water and work it into the flour to increase the structural integrity of the cookie without compromising the flakiness.

This recipe from Ina Garten for linzer cookies was one I added to my repertoire last year: http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipefinder/linzer-cookies-recipe-ghk1210 I like to fill them with Bonne Maman raspberry preserves, because it's the closest I can get to my godmother's raspberry jam.

 

I would probably modify this recipe a bit in terms of method. The flour looks like it is added a little too soon. I would cream the butter and sugar together, add the egg and vanilla, mix all the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, add them to the creamed ingredients, then add the milk and candied ginger.

 

I've made a lot of cookies in my day. I've gotten to the point with my baking that I'm getting comfortable formulating my own recipes.

I've been wanting to make these cookies, from Gourmet magazine and featured singularly on the cover of the Gourmet Cookie Book. You don't have to put them together as three cookies in one, but it is striking:

 

I found a recipe for "snowballs"--Mexican wedding cookies or Russian teacakes (whatever)--that meets my standards with one exception to method. Instead of trying to mix the water into the wet ingredients furiously, do what food scientist Shirley Corriher recommends: sprinkle it over the flour, then work the water into the flour. You should end up with little globs of doughy material amidst loose flour. It will give your crumbly cookie a little more structural integrity without compromising the crumbliness. I bolded the part in the instructions where I believe the method goes wrong. I would also skip the deco sugar. I think this cookie is fine with just confectioner's sugar, thank you very much. I also roll mine twice: once while the cookie is still warm, then again when they've cooled.

from: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/recipe/revisiting-santas-cookies-holiday-snowballs-162662​

 

The last couple of years I've been motivated to make only one type of cookie. Last year it was all about spritz cookies. This year I went with cinnamon snaps.

*This is a general guideline, not a true recipe. I made this up from scratch and eyeballed all ingredients as I put it together. Only use this if you're willing to be flexible. The strong blend of cinnamon and maple made these a big hit.*
Cinnamon Snaps
1 egg
~1/2 Cup: white sugar
~1/2 Cup: butter
~ 1/8 Cup: brown sugar
1/8 Cup: ground cinnamon
~2 Tablespoons: maple syrup
white flour
rolled oats
1 Tablespoon: baking powder
1 dash: cream of tartar

Whip egg with cream of tartar. Blend in butter, white sugar,brown sugar and cinnamon. Add flour until batter is less sticky. Mix in baking powder. Mix in maple syrup. Add rolled oats until dough is a good consistency for cookie cutters. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Roll out dough and cut with cookie cutters, or roll into little balls. Place on cookie sheet, place on center rack. Heat until it smells deliciously of cinnamon. Cookies will carmelize on the bottom, will have a crispy exterior with a chewy interior. If you roll out the dough thinly before cutting out cookies, they will be crispy all the way through.

 

Thanks for your contribution, genuinegirly! They sound deliciously Christmasy.

Here's a cookie idea for those of you with kids that I thought was super cute: hand-shaped sugar cookies!

from: http://sweetapolita.com/2011/12/little-hands-sugar-cookies-cards-2/


BTW, for those of you with a scale, Sweetapolita is pretty much where I get all of my cake recipes these days. Precise measurements ftw.

 

That's an adorable treat. I should pass it on to my sis, a great holiday craft idea to do with her kids.
I keep getting updates on the cookies my best friend has been making in preparation for the holidays. It's always a blast to visit her - delicious treats everywhere. Not only does she make killer fudge, she takes the time to make traditional springerle (with appropriate wooden molds), gumdrop cookies, peppermint chunk cookies, thumbprint cookies, sugar cookies, and probably more. It's difficult to keep track of all the delicious baked goods pouring out of her kitchen. I definitely don't have the cookie-baking-marathon gene, but I appreciate those who do!

 

It's almost cookie and treat time again. Here's a link for a chocolate truffle how-to from King Arthur that I thought was really helpful: Nobody knows the truffles I’ve seen… Chocolate and cream make magic. | King Arthur Flour – Baking Banter

 

Yum. Just yum. I sense a baking frenzy coming on!