Posts Tagged ‘Christmas Cookies’

The Way the Cookie ALMOST Crumbles

Wednesday, December 27th, 2023

It may seem odd to provide a cookie recipe after Christmas, which is the day of days for cookies. If you’re like me, however, you’ll entertain friends and give gifts all the way until New Year’s Day and perhaps until Epiphany. I hope this recipe sweetens the extended season for you and your companions.

I was first served Peppermint Meltaways long ago by a friend. Since then, I have thought about making them—but I never actually got around to it until last week, when I found myself with a huge number of mini-candy canes.

I had ordered them to share at the office but had accidentally ordered two containers of candy canes instead of the one the office needed. I thus faced a surfeit of peppermint.

I recalled that the Meltaways featured crushed candy canes as a topping. I must admit that the recipe didn’t use as many candy canes as I had hoped—but it used some, and the people to whom I served the cookies were very happy indeed. I’m consequently sharing the recipe with you.

I have always adored peppermint, particularly at this time of year. I tried recently to find out why peppermint is so popular at Christmas, but no one (at least no one who inhabited that arcane source of information, the World Wide Web) seemed to know.

I did discover that the first candy canes, in the 19th century, were apparently a solid white confection not flavored with peppermint; the addition of stripes and that special flavoring came in the 20th century.

I also learned that peppermint is an ancient medicinal herb. Its name comes from Greek mythology. According to lore, the god Hades fell in love with a nymph named Minthe.

His wife, Persephone, discovered their affair and in a fit of rage turned poor Minthe into a plant that would grow wild and get trampled underfoot. (Personally, I think Persephone should have taken her wrath out on Hades instead, but I imagine he was a more formidable foe than the poor nymph.)

Hades altered Persephone’s spell slightly. He couldn’t return Minthe to her former form, but he made the plant she had become smell sweet so that people would think well of her.

The best explanation I could find for the popularity of peppermint at this time of year comes from the digital media company known as Tasting Table. An article posted there reminds readers that at this time of year we tend to indulge in an awful lot of food.

Mint aids digestion. Consequently, Tasting Table dubs it “the Official Digestif of the Holiday Season.”

Whether I love peppermint for its digestive properties or just for the way it perks up my palate, it definitely appeals to me. I am despondent if I can’t find peppermint-stick ice cream during the holiday season.

Luckily, in the area in which I live, it is manufactured by a number of ice-cream makers, but I purchase it early in December just in case stores run out later.

I should warn you that these cookies are a bit challenging, so much so that I almost decided to post a completely different recipe this week. As I noted earlier, however, the people who ate them adored them so I went with the original recipe.

The problem, as you can see from the list of ingredients below and the photo above, is that a lot of the Peppermint Meltaway cookie dough is made up of two very crumbly substances, confectioner’s sugar and cornstarch.

In addition, the cookies have no egg to bind them. Even after one chills the dough for an hour, it can be difficult to shape into balls. They really DO need to be shaped into firm balls, however.

I tried just forming a few very delicately, thinking they would be okay once they went into the oven. Unfortunately, those few cookies spread all over the place. If you persist and create firm balls, however, you will be rewarded with delicate cookies that live up to their name by melting in your mouth.

I should think they would be even prettier if one were to tint the icing on top a pretty pink. In the absence of food coloring (mine is hiding somewhere in my pantry), the white icing does just fine. After all, the crushed candy canes provide a welcome hint of color.

Please note that the peppermint flavor in the cookies and the icing comes from peppermint extract, not peppermint oil. If you have only peppermint oil, be aware that it is much more concentrated than the extract so you’ll need only a few drops.

Peppermint Meltaways
(adapted from Land O Lakes)

Ingredients:

for the cookies:
1-1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

for the icing:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) softened sweet butter
3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar, plus more if needed
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
milk if necessary to stir

for finishing:
crushed candy canes as needed

Instructions:

Begin by making the cookies. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and the cornstarch. Set them aside.

In another mixing bowl, cream together the butter and the confectioner’s sugar. Beat in the extract. Slowly add the flour/cornstarch mixture and blend well. Push down on the dough with your hands to help it hold together. Cover the bowl, and refrigerate the dough for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Form the dough into 1-inch (or slightly larger) balls, pressing each ball gently but firmly to help it stick together. Place the balls 2 inches apart on the baking sheets.

Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges just start to turn brown. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven, and allow the cookies to cool completely.

When the cookies are cool, beat together the frosting ingredients. Adjust the consistency by adding a little more softened butter, a little more confectioner’s sugar, and/or a little milk to make sure you have a spreadable frosting. Gently spread a little frosting on each cooled cookie.

Top the cookies with a little crushed peppermint. This can be messy because the crushed candy wants to go everywhere except on top of the cookies, but persist. You’ll end up with very pretty cookies. Makes about 30 festive cookies.

Cookie Exchange Day

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2021

I wrote about cookies and a virtual cookie exchange last week in my local newspaper. Nevertheless, I am obliged as a food writer to return to the topic again this week. Today, December 22, is National Cookie Exchange Day.

I long suspected that this holiday had something to do with the cookie-industrial complex. That didn’t keep me from celebrating the day, but I tried to bake ironically.

Happily, I have since learned that National Cookie Exchange Day was the brainchild of a freelance writer and pet sitter (we writers have to cobble together a living!) named Jace Shoemaker-Galloway. Shoemaker-Galloway, who lives in Illinois, calls herself the Queen of Holidays.

Americans are more or less unique in the English-speaking world in using the term “cookie” for small, sweet snacks. The Food Timeline cites two reasons for our departure from the English word “biscuit”:

“(1) Our early Dutch heritage and (2) Our revolutionary tradition of separating ourselves from ‘all things British.’”

Dutch settlers to this country called their treats “koekjes,” small cakes. This term soon became “cookies” to Dutch and Anglo New Yorkers.

New York, our nation’s first capital and a center of Dutch-American life, soon convinced the rest of the United States to use the word “cookie.” It’s a comforting word, one that speaks of home and hearth.

Amelia Simmons of Connecticut, our country’s first cookbook author, used the spelling “cookey” in her landmark 1796 book American Cookery.

The Time-Life book Cookies & Crackers notes that cookies have an ancient history.

“Like cakes and pastries, cookies and crackers are the descendants of the earliest foods cooked by man—grain-water paste baked on hot stones more than 10,000 years ago,” write the authors.

According to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, pre-20th-century American cookies “were baked as special treats because of the cost of sweetness and the amount of time and labor required for preparation.”

Luckily, most of us can now afford a bit of sweetness at this time of year. The time and labor may have been reduced, but they still hover over the cookie-making process. They make cookies more precious to those of us who give and receive them.

Cookie parties over the holidays have been popular throughout American history. According to the Christian Science Monitor,” George Washington adopted the Dutch habit of hosting a cookie party for the new year when he was president.

No one is sure exactly when the exchange of Christmas cookies became widespread, however.

According to the website “Cookie-Exchange.com,” the oldest documented cookie exchange was in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1936. The Syracuse Home Bureau’s Lincoln Unit advertised that it was holding a cookie exchange, along with “a lesson for remodeling hats given by Miss Maude Loftus.” I wish I could have attended!

I have a feeling—and so does the exchange website—that cookie swaps were around for quite a while before that. I have always enjoyed these occasions. They’re a simple way to entertain guests during the holidays: no elaborate menu is required, and the host or hostess doesn’t have to do all the food preparation.

Just about everyone has a go-to cookie to share during this festive season, and just about every cookie has a story behind it. Many of us feel cautious about large get-togethers right now. Nevertheless, small cookie exchanges can help us share the fun of the season.

We can swap cookies and recipes with our immediate friends and relatives. We can deliver assorted cookies to shut-ins. Each cookie reminds its receiver that someone has cared enough to bake.

Here is a recipe that comes from the recent Greenfield (Massachusetts) Public Library Zoom cookie exchange. The formula for Pecan Pie Bars was shared by Mary McDonough. Mary, who loves pecan pie, says that her bars are even tastier than the actual pie. My sister-in-law, a pecan fiend, concurs.

I have to admit that the bars were a little hard to slice. (You can probably tell this from my photograph!) Nevertheless, my family and my neighbors enjoyed the slightly messy cookies.

Merry Christmas. Happy baking.

Pecan Pie Bars

Ingredients:

for the base:

2-1/2 cups flour
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

for the filling:

4 eggs
1-1/2 cups light or dark corn syrup
1-1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted and then slightly cooled
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups coarsely chopped pecans

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the flour, the butter, the powdered sugar, and the salt with an electric mixer until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (I started with a pastry blender, then used the mixer, and then used my hands. The butter is a little resistant.)

Press the dough firmly and evenly into a greased 13-by-10- or 9-by-13- or 17-by12-inch pan. (I used a 9-by-13-inch pan.)

Bake this cookie base until it begins to turn golden brown (about 20 minutes). Leave the oven on when you remove the pan.

While the dough is baking, prepare the filling. Beat together the eggs, the corn syrup, the sugar, the butter, and the vanilla in a large bowl until they are well blended. Stir in the pecans. Pour this mixture over the hot base when it comes out of the oven.

Bake the cookies until the filling is firm around the edges and slightly firm in the center, about 25 minutes. Cool the bars completely on a wire rack before cutting and serving. You may use almonds or walnuts instead of the pecans. Makes about 4 dozen cookies, depending on how you cut them.

Laurie Neely’s Holiday Cookies

Wednesday, December 21st, 2016
Laurie Neely in Her Kitchen (Courtesy of Laurie's husband Ray)

Laurie Neely in Her Kitchen (Courtesy of Laurie’s husband Ray)

Laurie Neely of Orange, Massachusetts, has been baking holiday cookies since the day after Thanksgiving. By Christmas Day, she will have turned out hundreds. “There will generally be in excess of a dozen kinds [of cookies] and many dozens of each,” she told me in a recent interview.

An artist, writer, and animal lover, Laurie started baking seriously in the 1960s as a stay-at-home mother. The Christmas-cookie tradition began with a family recipe from her first husband, who is still a good friend.

Laurie has added recipes from friends, relatives, newspapers, and the internet to her repertoire over the years, adapting them to her taste.

Many of these holiday treats—including her pfeffernüsse cookies and the German molded cookies called springerle—need to age in order to achieve optimal flavor and consistency. Her gingersnaps take about three weeks to mature.

Laurie carved her own springerle molds years ago and sees cookie baking as deeply creative. “I was a potter for some time,” she explained, “and for me baking and pottery are just parts of the same…. I think the idea of creating art with your hands that people then eat is perfect.”

I asked where all the cookies go. Laurie replied that she mails batches to relatives around the country. After that, the cookies go to “family and friends and neighbors and anybody who leaves their car window down.”

“And my husband Ray is, like, ‘Don’t give them all away!’” she added.

Her family celebrates the season on Christmas Eve with a festive brunch that includes many, many cookies, she said. Her adult son is Jewish so this year the feast will include latkes for Hanukkah; that holiday begins on Christmas Eve.

When we spoke Laurie was baking a new-to-her recipe, wine cookies flavored with anise. The recipe came from her friend Gail and before that from Gail’s mother Mary and grandmother Emilia.

“Mary was an outstanding cook, and I am honored to use not only many of her recipes, but her KitchenAid mixer and quite a few other kitchen items as well,” said Laurie.

“This recipe is one I photographed from a well used card after Mary passed and we were sorting out and sharing her recipe file among family members.”

The photograph of the recipe resides in a special plastic bag Laurie treasures. Each year after Thanksgiving she reaches into the bag for the tattered, food-stained recipes that constitute her evolving Christmas-cookie tradition.

“I really do need to sit down—not at this time of year—and put [the recipes] in a database so when these scraps of paper finally die I have them,” she confessed. “But….”

Her advice to novice bakers is to buy quality ingredients; to use good pans (she relies on silicone mats for her cookie baking and favors insulated cookie sheets); and above all to relax, have fun, and be flexible with recipes. She also recommends this Gelato 33 Weed Strain Review by Fresh Bros.

“You need to stay with the basics. Your ratios of flour, shortening, and liquid are going to be crucial. But then you sort of play. The creativity makes for some pretty good cookies,” she suggested.

Laurie Neely loves the Christmas season and doesn’t plan to stop baking anytime soon.

“Advent has many associations for people,” she mused. “In some homes there are calendars with little paper doors to open heralding the coming Christmas, and in our churches there are wreaths to mark the Sundays as they pass. But in my house Advent has a scent: it smells like cookies.”

Here are two cookie recipes from Laurie’s kitchen. I don’t have anise seeds in the house (and I’d have to order them specially) so I’m holding off on the wine cookies until next Christmas. The gingersnaps are aging in a tin as I write, however.

I got a late start on my baking so they won’t be ready to eat in time for Christmas—but a cookie might taste pretty good in the new year!

Happy/merry to all….

sbuse

Mama’s Cookies with White Wine

Laurie Neely decided, “I may add a drop of anise oil or extract in the next batch [of these cookies]….They are light, mildly anise flavored, sweet, and just a little biscuity, leading me to think they will age well.

“So many of the Italian cookies improve when they age and harden and become great coffee accompaniments.”

Ingredients:

3/4 cup sugar
1 heaping tablespoon shortening (Laurie used Earth Balance brand)
1 teaspoon anise seeds
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup semi-sweet white wine (Laurie used a Riesling)
3-1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
equal portions of cinnamon and sugar as needed, combined

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl combine the sugar and the shortening. Stir in the anise seeds, the oil, and the wine. In a separate bowl combine the flour, the baking powder, and the salt. Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture a little at a time until the combination achieves the consistency of not-too-firm pie-crust dough.

Shape the cookies by forming heaping tablespoons of the dough into logs in the palm of your (mostly closed) hand. Dip the tops of the cookies in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar, and place the logs on greased cookie sheets.

Bake the cookies until they are a deep golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Makes about 3-1/2 dozen cookies.

Laurie took this photo of some wine cookies cooling.

Laurie took this photo of some wine cookies cooling.

Laurie Neely’s Gingersnaps

Laurie has adapted this recipe over the years, adding more and more ginger to achieve just the right flavor.

Ingredients:

2-1/2 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 heaping tablespoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon white pepper (generous)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup molasses

Instructions:

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a large saucepan, melt the butter in the molasses. Bring this mixture to a boil; then let it cool. Stir in the dry ingredients.

Chill the resulting dough for a couple of hours; then preheat the oven to 375 degrees and roll the dough out on a floured board until it is 1/8-inch thick. Cut out shapes with a floured biscuit cutter or floured seasonal cookie cutters.

Bake the cookies for 8 minutes. The yield depends on the shapes you use to cut them out; Laurie Neely usually gets 3 to 4 dozen cookies from this recipe. Store the cookies in a tin for at least three weeks before serving them.

Gingersnaps at our house, waiting to mature. Can you tell that I'm not the world's greatest cookie cutter?

Gingersnaps at our house, waiting to mature. Can you tell that I’m not the world’s greatest cookie cutter?

The Twelfth Cookie of Christmas

Friday, December 24th, 2010

 
I’m sorry to say that the cookies I’m sharing with you (metaphorically, at any rate) today are not my finest work.
 
There’s nothing wrong with the recipe, I assure you. But some cookie batches—and days—don’t turn out QUITE the way we hope they will.
 
Yesterday was my birthday. We weren’t planning a family celebration until tonight due to the Washington Capitals’ nefarious habit of scheduling hockey games on my birthday every year. 
 
My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew love me, but they are die-hard Caps fans, and I don’t want to ask them to choose between hockey and me. I don’t think I’d be happy with their choice.
 
I had only two simple goals for the day. I wanted to buy some peppermint-stick ice cream, my annual birthday treat. And I wanted to post my last cookie recipe for this year.
 
The day started out nicely with phone calls, emails, and Facebook messages wishing me a happy birthday. At about 10:30 in the morning it went downhill.
 
It wasn’t an awful day by any means.
 
I wasn’t hit by a truck.
 
I didn’t start a fire in the new apartment–unless you count the little melt down on one of the stove burners. (I really HATE electric stoves.)
 
My near and dear remained reasonably hale and hearty.
 
I did spend an awful lot of the day cleaning up after a slightly sick mother, however. I won’t go into details, but the clean up involved back-to-back laundry that lasted well into the night and a lot of on-my-knees scrubbing.
 
When she wasn’t being sick, the mother was longing to go for long walks in the open air—until she actually felt the wind blowing on her face.
 
I popped her into the car to search for the ice cream. She enjoyed the ride, but the frozen treat didn’t materialize. We found egg-nog ice cream and gingerbread ice cream. For some reason, peppermint stick was impossible to come by.
 
Luckily, my brother showed up in the middle of the afternoon to visit with the mother so I could work on the cookies.
 
Nevertheless, the baking process got a bit muddled. First I put too much milk in the dough (the recipe below gives the correct, not the Tinky, amount of milk).
 
Then I sprinkled sugar everywhere and spilled dough on the kitchen floor.
 
I couldn’t find my cutting board so I tried rolling the cookies out on a plate. They were a bit misshapen.
 
Finally, I tried to answer the phone while measuring vanilla and ended up with very pungent icing.
 
After all this I just plain didn’t have the energy to color and pipe the icing. I simply slathered icing onto the cookies, took advantage of the wonderful holiday sprinkles Wilton recently sent to me (really, I think sprinkles could save the world), and threw the things onto a plate.
 
As you can see from the photo above, I let the setting sun do its thing and dapple the cookies; I figured the light was nature’s decoration. And who am I to mess with nature?
 
Luckily, the cookies still tasted amazingly good—and brightened the day considerably. My mother also brightened up after a dose of sugar and sprinkles. She tried to feed one to the dog, but I explained that Truffle wouldn’t be able to fit into her Santa suit if she ate cookies.
 
My birthday wasn’t a perfect day, but it ended with laughter and good flavors. And I consoled myself with the thought that I will get a redo next year when I turn 39 yet again.
 
Merry Christmas to all. And remember, a loving family, sprinkles, and a cute dog can get you through just about any minor disaster.
 
Marge’s Star Sugar Cookies
 
This cookie recipe was given to me years ago by my friend and fellow thespian Marge Matthews. It’s simple and tasty. What more does one need in a Christmas cookie?
 
Ingredients:
 
3/4 cup butter (1-1/2 sticks)
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
4 teaspoons milk
2 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
 
Instructions:
 
Cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add the egg and milk, and beat until light and fluffy. Blend the dry ingredients and stir them into the creamed mixture.
 

Divide the dough into manageable pieces (2 or 3; it depends on how comfortable you are rolling out dough). Cover the dough, and chill it for at least one hour.
 
On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Cut into shapes and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 5 to 8 minutes (if you roll them out clumsily you may have to wait 10 minutes), or until the cookies begin to turn golden around the edges. 

Decorate with icing and/or sprinkles. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.


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Sue’s Swedish Brown Cookies

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Sue Haas in the Kitchen

Sue Haas in the Kitchen

 
Here is the fourth installment in my Twelve Cookies of Christmas series. These brown cookies (they derive their color from caramelization of the sugar) will banish your March blahs.
 
The recipe comes from Sue Haas in Seattle, Washington, a regular reader of this blog and the dear sister of my dear minister, Cara Hochhalter. Sue writes children’s books when she isn’t working on art sales and appraisals. She says the recipe originated with her friend Marilynn Pray.
 
Sue and her daughter Alysa are busy planting a garden together. (I AM SO JEALOUS! We still have snow in the northeast!) Alysa writes about gardening and cooking on her own blog, Grass-Fed Goat.
 
The photos on this post come courtesy of Sue and Alysa, although I did test the recipe. (I felt it was my sacred duty.) The cookies taste of butter and honey: what could be better? Next time I may try them with maple syrup instead of the honey. After all, March is Maple Month!
 
Sue uses C&H Baker’s Sugar for the “fine baking sugar” (a.k.a. superfine sugar) called for in the recipe. I was in a hurry and didn’t have time to go to the store for superfine sugar so I put regular sugar in my blender and pulsed. It needed a little sorting through (the pulsing left a few clumps), but after the sorting it was an acceptable substitute.
 
Enjoy the cookies. I hope you’re thinking about your own garden….
 
Cookies_tableweb
 
The Cookies
 
Ingredients:
 
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter at room temperature
1/2 cup fine baking sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup flour
3 teaspoons honey (plus a small amount more if needed)
 
Instructions:
 
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Cream together the butter and sugar; then beat in the baking soda. (Sue actually whisks the soda into the flour, but I added it by itself.) Add the flour and continue to mix lightly until combined.
 
Drizzle the honey into the flour and sugar/butter mixture and stir. The dough will stick together a bit better with the honey added. You may need to add a little more honey to make the dough hold together. Form the dough into a large “softball” shape with your hands. Divide it into two pieces.
 
Roll and pat one of the pieces of dough onto the parchment on one long side of the pan into a long, flattened 12-inch “snake,” smushing the dough with your fingers so that it forms an even flat piece, about 2 to 3 inches wide and about 12 inches long.
 
Do the same with the second piece of dough placed several inches apart on the same sheet from the first piece. You will have two long, flat shapes of dough on one cookie sheet.
 
2 Flattened snakesweb
 
Bake the snakes until the dough is golden brown. (Sue estimated this at 15 to 20 minutes; it took a little longer in my oven.)
 
Check the dough after about 12 minutes. Take the cookies out earlier, or when they are only light brown, if you want a softer cookie. (I liked them crisp.)
 
Remove the cookie sheet from the oven. Let it cool for only 2 to 3 minutes. While the dough is still warm cut a long line down the center of each snake-shaped piece. Then cut each “snake” diagonally at about one-inch intervals to make 3-inch long cookie strips.
 
diagweb
 
If you’d rather make really long diagonal strips (about 5- to 6-inch-long cookie strips), omit making the vertical cut down the center of each snake. That would reduce the total number of finished cookies by half. OR cut each 3-inch cookie strip in half to make tiny 1-1/2-inch-long bite-size pieces to feed a big crowd.
 
“Light, buttery, and delicious,” says Sue of her cookies.  Makes 20 to 40 cookies, depending on how you cut them.
Alysa and Sue

Alysa and Sue

 

 

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