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There were lots of sugar and spice and everything nice going on in my kitchen in the last few days and now the 2008 edition of my holiday cookies are here! This year's selection includes old favourites as well as new additions that I've tested (and love!) throughout the year. Thank you to all of you who support this fundraiser. With your contribution, our inline skating team will compete in the 24hr Relay at Montreal in 2009.
Now, on with the cookies! Don't forget to check out the vegan cookies assortment too!
Walnut Chocolate Chips Cookies
This is definitely my favourite version of the classic chocolate chips cookies because it is cakey, tender, and just the perfect size for a treat. Can you tell that I am not a fan of gigantic chocolate chips cookie that's about the size of my head? The walnut is a key ingredient because its buttery taste complements this cookie so well. Pecan can be a good substitute though I personally prefer the milder taste of walnuts. Funny story...although I bake this cookie on a regular basis at my house, I mistakenly used a different baking sheet this year. Sooooo, the cookies all came out way too flat and spread out. I remade a different batch using my usual baking sheets and all is well now. As for that failed batch, it is in need of a good home. Do I have any takers?
Recipe available here. Picture available here. I omitted the ground espresso from the recipe because the espresso biscuit in the assortment already provided the mocha flavour.
Ingredients: flour, sugar, butter, eggs, bittersweet chocolate chips, walnuts, baking soda, salt, vanilla, ground espresso
White Chocolate Chips Fudge Cookies
This is another returning favourite that I've included in my holiday cookie assortment in the last few years. It is soooo good! My brother had one and immediately declared that I should make this more often ("What do you mean you only try this for the first time in the three years that I've been making this cookie?! I didn't share? Oops."). I love the soft fudgy texture of this cookies yet it is not at all cloying. The deep chocolatey taste is undeniable but made more complex by the use of unsweetend chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, and cocoa powder. The addition of white chocolate chips is just gilding the lily.
Recipe available from Tish Boyle's The Good Cookie. With the melted chocolate, it is slightly more labour intensive than your typical drop cookie recipe. However, the effort is well-worth it!
Ingredients: flour, butter, sugar, unsweetened chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, cocoa powder, white chocolate, molasses, baking soda, eggs, vanilla
Pecan Brownies
So simple yet so good. You know you're special if I've ever visited your house with baking toolbox in tow and make you a fresh batch of brownies right in your kitchen! That is the beauty of this brownies because the hardest part is scaling out the ingredients...I love how there's so much pecans and the chocolate taste comes on so strong. After all, if you look at the recipe closely, over half of the weight of this brownies is made up of chocolate and pecans! I am proud to announce that in 2008, I've successfully coached a friend (back then a complete baking n00b) to make this for his girlfriend. What a sweet guy!
Recipe available here. Picture available here.
Ingredients: butter, bittersweet chocolate, sugar, eggs, flour, pecans, salt, vanilla
Butterscotch Cashew Blondies
Many people asked me what "blondies" are and the best way that I can put it is brownies without chocolate. They are both rich bar cookies with a similar fudgy cakey texture and most often the add-ons are the star of the show. This version contains lots of toffee bits, butterscotch chips, and cashews for a buttery flavour. This treat smells divine coming out of the oven! Interestingly enough, a friend of mine told me that while girls prefer chocolate, guys favour butterscotch.
Recipe is available here. I doubled the recipe for a 9x13 pan to yield 48 pieces.
Ingredients: flour, butter, sugar, eggs, butterscotch chips, cashews, toffee bits, salt, baking powder, vanilla
Fig Pinwheel
I love the visual interest a pinwheel cookies adds to the assortment but I was a bit tired of the vanilla/chocolate flavour of most pinwheel cookies. I've been eating lots of figs recently so it's not hard to understand why I want to include a fig cookie in this year's assortment. I would have attempt a homemade Fig Newton except it is a bit homey for the holiday season. I hope you enjoy this fig pinwheel as much as I do.
Recipe is available here. I added grated orange zest to the dough to enhance the orange flavour which pairs so well with figs. This dough is very soft though easy to roll out. Since the fig filling does not freeze solid, slicing the cookies from the dough log proved to be tricky. Instead of using a knife and smooshing up everything, I used non-flavoured dental floss. This is a trick often used to divide soft dough such as the brioche dough for cinnamon buns. Works great!
Ingredients: flour, butter, sugar, eggs, salt, baking soda, figs, orange, citric acid
Espresso Biscuits
I have yet to figure out how to make this cookie photogenic. After all, it is dark-as-midnight. Don't be fool by its plain appearance though because it packs a lot of flavour. This shortbread is very tender and delicate yet the deep chocolate and espresso flavour made it so mellow.
Recipe available here. PIcture available here. I made these cookies this year without the white chocolate drizzle for a purer cleaner flavour.
Ingredients: flour, cocoa powder, ground espresso beans, butter, sugar, vanilla
Pistachio Cranberries Icebox Cookies
You really can't get more festive than the red and green motive of this cookie. I've been making this cookie since the recipe's first publication in Gourmet Magazine back in 2006. I think the orange zest and cinnamon are really what made this cookie special (well, it doesn't hurt that pistachio and cranberries taste awesome too).
Recipe available here. I have found the perfect way to shape the dough into square logs. If you portion the dough perfectly, each log should measure about 7" in length. After you wrap the dough in plastic wrap, simply fit the log inside a 7x7 square baking pan (the ones with a straight side) and push it against the side of the pan using a bench scraper. Cox and push each of the four sides and you will have a nicely squared up log in no time! Chill the dough in the pan to keep the perfect shape.
Ingredients: flour, butter, sugar, pistachios, dried cranberries, cinnamon, orange zest, egg white
Hazelnut Chocolate Sable
I have to admit, I've been putting off making this cookie until the very last minute because it is the most labour intensive recipe this year. However, as soon as the cookies came out of the oven, I was so glad that I did not skip out on this cookie due to laziness. If I have to choose a cookie to win the title of "Most Attractive and Delicious", the hazelnut chocolate sable wins hands down. The golden layer is a classic pate sucre with ground almonds for better flavour and a more sandy texture. The brown layer is a sable cookie studded with quartered hazelnuts. When you combine these two different dough into one cookie, it is bliss in bite-size portion.
Recipe available from Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Herme.
Ingredients: butter, sugar, flour, cocoa powder, eggs, hazelnuts, ground almond, vanilla
Gingerbread
One very exciting purchase I made this year to add to my baking toolbox is a cookie stamp made by a German company. Gingerbread is of course synonymous with holiday baking with its warm spicy flavour made robust with molasses. My version strikes a balance between crunchy and chewy though it's not overly spicy.
Recipe comes from Rose Levy Beranbaum's book Rose's Christmas Cookies. This dough is extremely easy to work with and the recipe yields a large batch of cookies. I chilled the rolled out dough in the freezer between stamping because the dough would get stuck in the grooves of the stamp otherwise. I'm so glad that I finally found a good way to brand/personalize my holiday baking!
Ingredients: flour, brown sugar, butter, molasses, egg, vanilla, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, baking soda
Coconut Macaroon
I know that those two-bites macaroons are available EVERYWHERE so a homemade version probably doesn't seem too impressive. However, I personally find the commercial ones way too sweet. These macaroons are made with unsweetened shredded coconut and the sweetness is adjusted by the use of sugar in the recipe. Besides, they look like cute little miniature snowballs and I can't say no to cuteness.
Recipe available here. This recipe is super easy considering that you don't even need a mixer and everything is done in one bowl. The hardest part is shaping these macaroons. The recipe calls for shaping them into balls by hand but that is just silly and messy. I use a 1 tbsp ice-cream scoop and really pack the batter into the scoop before gentle unmolding. I wouldn't say it's quicker but you get very uniform results that are perfect for presentation.
Ingredients: coconut, sugar, egg whites, vanilla, salt
Maple Pecan Shortbread
The pairing of maple syrup and pecan is probably as North American as you can get (well, in the north anyway). The buttery taste of shortbread is definitely enhanced by this classic combination. Whenever I open the box containing all the maple pecan shortbread, the maple aroma would escape from the box and all I want to do is capture this fragrance somehow. To me, this is the defining aroma of the sweet kitchen.
Recipe comes from Martha Stewart's Cookies. Be sure to use medium grade maple syrup and some maple extract to punch up the maple flavour of this cookie. The pecan half and a sprinkling of demerara sugar on top of the cookie is quite attractive.
Ingredients: flour, butter, sugar, maple syrup, pecan, salt, vanilla, maple extract, egg white
Walnut Cream Cheese Cookies
I was intrigued by this recipe because the use of cream cheese in cookies is a slight departure from the usual cookie dough. However, it results in such an awesome tender cookie with a rich taste that it's hard to pinpoint. The walnuts in cookies are toasted to boost the flavour. Although this cookie looks unassuming, it is one of my favourites in this year's selection.
Recipe available here. This is a very sticky dough to shape into a log but luckily there are some tricks to the rescue. I placed the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap and squeeze it roughly into a log. The squeezing is important to ensure there's not air pockets inside the dough. Wrap the whole thing with the plastic wrap and roll to even out the thickness. Place the log on a halved paper tower cylinder and freeze. Before the cookie hardens entirely, take it out from time to time to shape it into a better looking log. I halved the original recipe because my mixer is not large enough to handle it in one batch.
Ingredients: flour, butter, cream cheese, sugar, walnut, sugar, salt, egg white
For more pictures of my holiday baking, check out my album on Flickr.
wow... what a lovely present!
the packaging is so nice!!
Posted by: dapan | December 16, 2008 at 02:48 PM
I'm a much faster n00b now :)
Posted by: Danny | December 21, 2008 at 10:10 PM
I made those pistachio cranberry cookies too. Yummy.
Posted by: Randi | December 23, 2008 at 10:04 PM
Impressive assortment! They all look so well done, and the packaging as well. I had sad little Ziplock bags for my cookies... lol :(
Posted by: Emily | December 24, 2008 at 01:34 AM
The Hazelnut Chocolate Sable is my favourite! Can I borrow your book to photocopy that recipe? :)
Posted by: Vincci | December 28, 2008 at 06:23 PM
Thanks everyone for your encouraging words!
@Randi: That's an awesome recipe, no? When I saw it in the Gourmet favourite cookies for 2006, I couldn't agree more!
@Emily: Packaging cookies for gifts is the fun part!
@Vincci: Let me know when you want the book so I can bring it with me next time I see you.
Posted by: DessertByCandy | December 29, 2008 at 09:11 PM