December 5: Luxardo Cookies

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Sometimes, it’s 11:30 at night and you’ve accidentally had a bottle of red wine. And sometimes, you decide to create your own recipe at that time (and condition). And sometimes, it actually turns out.

That’s how these cookies were born.

(Sometimes, you want to call them Midnight Cookie and dye the batter black, and wake up and decide that perhaps that was one red wine-fueled decision too far. Hey, you can’t win them all.)

Luxardo Cookies

  • 1 c. butter
  • 1 1/2 c. sugar
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 1 t. cherry extract
  • 1/2 t. almond extract
  • 1 t. baking soda
  • 1 t. cream of tartar
  • 2 1/2 c. all purpose flour
  • 1 T. Luxardo cherry syrup (what the cherries are in)
  • 20 or so Luxardo cherries.
  • Gold sprinkles
  1. Cream butter and sugar together; add egg yolks.
  2. Add cherry and almond extracts, as well as baking soda and cream of tartar
  3. Mix together.
  4. Add flour a little at a time and mix after each addition.
  5. Add the tablespoon of Luxardo cherry syrup.
  6. Mix one last time.
  7. Refrigerate for at least an hour.
  8. Roll out and cut 1-2″ circles. (I used a cocktail jigger as my cookie cutter!)
  9. Cut Luxardo cherries in half.
  10. Top each cookie disk with half of a Luxardo cherry; top with gold sprinkles.
  11. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes until cookies are a golden color.

Because of the time of night and…other…situations, I don’t have many pictures of the dough. (I did put it on TikTok, which I’m amazed I did.) I needed a dough to use the six egg yolks that were left over from my meringue fails earlier. I looked online and didn’t see any recipes that looked good, but I saw one that had a similar base, so I gave it a shot.

After I baked them, I knew the flavors were all there, but the presentation needed work.

I tried many different ideas. Whole cherries inside the cookie. Half cherries inside the cookie. Chopped cherries inside the cookie. A frosting made of Luxardo cherry syrup and powdered sugar on top of a cherry-stuffed cookie. And finally, I settled on half a cherry on the cookie, no second dough disk on top, with gold sprinkles.

Honestly, this was the wow factor I was looking for with these Christmas cookies. Or cocktail Christmas cookies, as the only time I use Luxardo cherries are with cocktails.

Luxardo cherries are a pricey indulgence, for sure. But I wanted this to be a bougie cookie. I also tried it with regular maraschino cherries, and it worked just fine, but I use maraschino cherries in many of my Christmas cookies. I wanted to try something different.

I love the way these turned out! I feel like I need to have a glass of champagne with this as it eat it! The dark purple with the gold sprinkles really makes this pop; it’s a shimmery and fun addition to my Christmas cookie platter.

December 4: Peppermint Meringues

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I will start off by saying, no one’s perfect.

I made the Peppermint Meringues from the current Food Network magazine, and had a lot of trouble with them. Actually, nine times out of ten when I’ve made cookies from Food Network magazine, I’ve had trouble.

I’m not a baking novice by any stretch of the imagination, and if I were, this recipe would discourage me and make me think I just wasn’t cut out for baking cookies.

Again, no one is perfect. I certainly screw up. Even with cookies. At least once a year while I do my 24 days of cookies, one batch doesn’t work.

This is that batch.

I make meringue cookies every year band have been doing so since Britney rocked a belly chain and low-rise jeans. I know the concept. So when my meringue didn’t set up (using the directions exactly as written), I was perplexed.

And then I started over. This time, I used powdered sugar instead of granular. While it wasn’t as bad as the first batch, it definitely wasn’t up to my meringue standards. That was the first problem.

My second problem came when trying to paint the red stripes in the pastry bag. It’s tough to do, and I ended up using an unused paint brush from my arts and crafts collection. I tried a pastry brush before this, and it looked like a crime scene. It was too big, and the plastic pastry bag isn’t exactly the easiest surface to paint on.

Novice bakers aren’t going to necessarily know to try something else. Heck, I really didn’t know what to do. I totally winged it.

I piped the shapes on the parchment, and because it was a limp and runny meringue, the consistency was off. But I figured I’d try and see what happened. The red stripes did come through, but as I piped more, the color wasn’t as strong. This makes sense to me, but the photo editors at Food Network magazine didn’t get the memo that their picture was to actually look like the cookies their readers would be creating.

After the hour in the oven, I turned off the oven and had them sit in the oven for another 2 hours. As the directions state.

When I took them out, I was again not pleased.

Brown. My white runny meringues spent too long in the tanning bed before prom, and didn’t look like what they were supposed to look like. That was the final problem with this recipe.

Did anyone else make this recipe and have it turn out well? Because at this point, I’m not actually convinced anyone at the magazine tested this recipe.

December 3: Italian Sand Cookies

Italian Sand Cookies
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As I was saying yesterday, I felt the need to get to the bottom of the difference between Italian Sand Cookies and Italian Butter Cookies.

But first–the ever popular Italian Sand Cookies recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 c flour
  • 1/2 c cornstarch
  • 1/2 c shortening
  • 1/2 c butter
  • 3/4 c. confectioners sugar
  • 1/4 c. granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 t. vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • melted chocolate
  • jimmies or other sprinkles

Directions:

  1. Cream together butter, shortening, sugars, vanilla, and eggs.
  2. Add cornstarch and mix again
  3. Add flour and mix again. The consistency should be like cake batter
  4. Put batter through a pastry bag with a large start tip
  5. Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes. Edges should just start to be golden brown when you take them out.
  6. Melt chocolate and dip or spoon the melted chocolate on half of the cooled cookie. Decorate with sprinkles or jimmies.

Yeah. None of that happened. (But can you imagine an International Journal of Cookie Pathology?! My scholar’s heart fills with happiness imagining such a scholarly source!)

So, I poured over research. I went to the International Journal of Cookie Pathology to find out what the difference between sand and butter cookies were. I contacted the head of culinary baking studies at the University of Rome. I put in my Freedom of Information request to Congress to open the sealed Italian Butter Cookies – Sand Cookies inquiry from the 70s.

There’s not a lot of research out there on this.

So I did my own. It was a taste test between the Butter Cookies and the Sand Cookies, and here are my scientific results:

  • The Italian Butter Cookies have more butter in them, and no cornstarch like the Italian Sand Cookies. And with that, the Butter Cookies are thicker and the Sand Cookies are lighter and spread out more.

As to why they are Italian? My best guess is based also on personal research: most of the best bakeries I’ve ever been to are Italian.

(I once helped plan, and then participate in, a cannoli tour in the North End of Boston. I think we went to 6 bakeries to determine which had the best cannoli. It was some of my best work.)

Thus concludes my research into this important matter.

Oh, and I also replaced my supply of my jimmies for my Christmas cookies. The line at Joann’s was astronomical, especially for a weekday! Be nice to those retail workers–they showed up!

sprinkles

December 1: Brown Eyed Susans

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I have no idea why these are called Brown Eyed Susans. Maybe they look like eyeballs? But I don’t want to think about that for too long, nor do I want to think about why they are Susan’s eyeballs.

Brown Eyed Susans

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter
  • 3 T sugar
  • 1 t almond extract
  • 1/4 t salt
  • 2 c all purpose flour

Cream the butter with a mixer and add sugar, almond extract, and salt. Add flour. Place on to parchment papered cookie sheet in rounded tablespoons, then flatten either with a glass or your fingers. Bake at 400 for 10-12 minutes. Cool on rack. Frost and top with sliced or chopped almonds.

Frosting:

  • 1 c powdered sugar
  • 2 T cocoa
  • hot water
  • 1/2 t vanilla
  • sliced or chopped almonds

Blend sugar and cocoa, add just enough hot water to make frosting spreading consistency. Stir with whisk. Add vanilla.

I will admit, I was skeptical with these. Only 3T of sugar? Weird frosting that asks for hot water, and not even a measurement with that? What sort of Christmas cookie sorcery is this?

But it all worked out.

Oh, and hey, it turns out I haven’t gotten any better at not making a giant mess with the mixer.

24 Days, 2021 Style

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I’m back.

We all know that 2020 was a dumpster fire, and if anyone noticed I was gone from my yearly tradition, maybe they assumed it was because I just couldn’t any more with 2020.

Well, I’ll tell you, yes, that was a reason. But a bigger reason than generally 2020-ness that I didn’t do cookies last year was because I had my heart broken by a promotion I didn’t get, at a job where I was giving it my all. It sent me into a super scary depression, and cookies were about the last thing on my mind. It was bad.

But that was then. And here I am now, with a great new job (!) , a new house (!!), a fiancé (!!!), and some perspective on life, love, and of course, cookies.

I’ll be overhauling this site this year, bit by bit, so don’t be alarmed if things start to look different around here. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last year, it’s that change isn’t always a bad thing.

Now, on with the Christmas cookies!

December 8: J-Dub’s Toffee Grahams

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J-Dub’s Toffee Grahams

(from Gooseberry Patch’s Old Fashioned Country Cookies)

  • 24 square graham crackers
  • 2 sticks butter
  • 1 c. brown sugar
  • 1 c. chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 325. Arrange cracker squares on a lightly greased cookie sheet with edges around it. In a saucepan, bring the butter and sugar to a boil and boil for 2 minutes. Pour over crackers, covering them well. Sprinkle with nuts and bake for about 10 minutes. Cool slightly and cut into 24 squares or 48 “fingers.”

If there’s an easier cookie out there, I don’t know what it is. Aside from buying a pre-made roll of cookie dough or the individual raw sugar cookies with pictures on them, there probably isn’t one. If there is, let me know! I want to see!

If you’re one of my regulars, you know I make this every year. Seriously, every year. Why? Because it’s easy and I can be unbelievably lazy for someone that runs a crazy cookie endeavor each year. But also because these are always popular with my cookie-eaters. Young and old alike love these. I make enough cookies that are weird and specialized as it is; it’s good to have an old standard that I know will please most people.

Today, I’m at Man Friend’s while he watches sportsball on TV. We ran to Trader Joe’s (I love you TJ’s) and I asked if he minded if I made cookies here. He did not, and I came back with the ingredients for today’s cookie.

Now, Man Friend is a man living by himself. While he’s a neat freak (more on this later) and a great cook, my kitchen has more general stuff in it than his. I attribute that to me living with three growing kids, and also, you know, running this cookie blog. He doesn’t have a cookie sheet, so we made do.

He’s Italian and he calls this a lasagna dish. Because I’m a little bit of everything and nothing all at once, I call this a 9×13 pan. I like his name for it better.

Him being a neat freak is something that scares me, mostly because I’m…not. Scroll back through the pictures of my kitchen during cookie season for evidence of this. I knew I couldn’t make his kitchen look like this. At all. Not even a little.

I asked for a sauce pan and he hands me a small saucepan. I flip it over to see how big it is.

Okay, 1 quart. With two cups of butter and 1 cup of brown sugar, that’s three cups. This should work.

Or not.

Right after I took this last picture, I said, “Honey, how many cups are in a quart?” He answered “Four,” which is right, so now I have a beef with Circulon and will be writing them next, asking how long it’s been since their cookware has been regulated by the Department of Weights and Measures. But I digress.

The last thing I wanted in my neat freak’s kitchen was a mess. And unfortunately, thanks to Circulon’s version of a quart, I had one.

This is once we poured it into a different–and bigger–sauce pan.

That’s a small spillover mess there. But in the terms of my baking messes, we all know this is minor.

I tetrissed the graham crackers in the lasagna pan, as well as in another smaller square pan and poured the toffee mixture on top of it.

Added the nuts and put it in the oven for 10 minutes. Actually, because I wasn’t using cookie sheets, I left them in the oven for 15 minutes.

December 7: Sour Cream Cookies

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Yeah, I took the lazy way out this time in putting this recipe up. But, I think there’s a lot of character here too. As I was with Man Friend at his parents’ home for his birthday and his mom and I talked about cookies, she pulled out this recipe and let me take a picture of it. She said (if I’m remembering correctly…again, there was some wine involved) that this was an old one she remembers her mother making. “I mean, this was typed,” she said to me.

For those of you that don’t know this, before computers, there were typewriters. You might see some with bearded men wearing skinny jeans at Starbucks. But before they were retro-cool like that, they were just…necessary.

Anyway, I made these and remembered the importance of reading ahead. More on that later.

First of all, this recipe starts with a pastry blender. If you don’t have one, you can use a couple of forks. You cut the butter into the flour, making tiny little crumbs of butter covered with flour, if you’ve done it right. You do the same thing for biscuits, some pie crusts, basically anything with high amounts of butter in it.

Butter and flours successfully combined.

I cube my butter first, which essentially means I make a cut down the length of the stick of butter, then flip it on its next edge and do the same thing. Then I cut the stick like I would to get a pat of putter. Ouila. Butter cubes.

This recipe is called sour cream cookies for a reason. As you’d imagine, there’s sour cream in it. I love sour cream. It’s probably my favorite food. A half cup of sour cream and an egg yolk mixed together goes into the flour and butter crumbs. Butter’s also a favorite food; so far, this recipe has allllll the right moves.

Once it’s all combined, it goes into the fridge. I didn’t do overnight, nor did I split it into 4 different sections. When I was mixing together the fillings, it took me longer than I’d like to admit to understand that this recipe lists three different types of fillings. Not all together. Reading: it’s not for everyone!

I pulled it out of the fridge and rolled it to a 10 inch circle. Then I tried to put all of the brown sugar mixture in it on one go. Note: don’t do this.

When in the oven, some of the cookies expanded and unrolled and, while super tasty, aren’t quite what you are supposed to get.

Man Friend’s mother said these are almost like Rugalach cookies, and that was important when I was rolling them up. I used a pizza cutter instead of a fluted pastry cutter, mostly because it’s 2019 and even I don’t have a fluted pastry cutter.

I rolled them up like crescent rolls and put them on the tray.

And then I tried it with the other fillings. The one with apricot and nuts was exceptionally good, especially since I wasn’t planning on liking it. It’s definitely an old school filling.

INTENSE Apricot!

There’s no sugar in this dough, so the filling makes up for it. In the brown sugar, it’s evident. But in the apricot preserves it’s not as apparent. But there’s a good amount in there, which I was worried about.

However, I will also warn you, dear readers, to not try to use regular old strawberry preserves, straight from the generic aisle at the grocery store. I did. And those cookies looked like a homicide. I ate the evidence. There’s just not enough fruit in there to make the cookies hold together and not bleed. Bleed strawberry jelly, of course.

A sprinkle of sugar on the tops and they go in the oven. I would make these again, happily, and would do so knowing my kids won’t touch these with a 10 foot pole. Those are my favorite kinds. They just don’t know what they’re missing!

December 5: Salted Dulce de Leche Thumbprint Cookies

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Ingredients:

  • 1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/4 c. packed light brown sugar
  • 1 t. vanilla extract
  • 1 egg yolk at room temperature
  • 1 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
  • 1/8 t. salt
  • 1/4 c. dulce de leche
  • 2 T sea salt

Instructions:

  • In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed for 3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla and egg yolk.
  • In a separate bowl, combine the flour and salt. Stir with a whisk. Gradually stir the flour into the butter and mix just into blended.
  • Shape the dough into a ball, cover, and chill for at least 1 hour.
  • Preheat oven to 350 F.
  • Shape the dough into 1 T size balls and place them 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Using your thumb or the back of a teaspoon, press a slight indentation in the center of each ball. Take care not to press too hard down. If the edges crack while make the indention, simply pinch them back together to smooth them out. Otherwise cracks are okay.
  • Fill the indents with 1/4 teaspoon dulce de leche. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the bottom edges are slightly browned.
  • Cool the cookies on the pan for 5 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. Sprinkle the tops lightly with sea salt.

My man-friend had a birthday (shocking!) and a mom (even more shocking, considering he had a birthday) that shared with me some cookie recipes she’s made over the years. This was taken from a print out I took a picture of while we were at his mom and dad’s place for a birthday celebration. I can’t quite remember if she said she made this cookie often or not, because she and I split a bottle of chardonnay before (and a little during) dinner.

But I took the fact that I had pictures of recipes in my phone the next morning as a good sign that we had a lovely conversation about Christmas cookies.

The dough came together pretty well. I put it in the fridge for an hour, and when I got it out, I realized my fridge may be set a little too cool.

When I went to ball the dough, I had to sort of chip away at it. But it worked and eventually all the dough thawed out.

I like thumbprint cookies, and I definitely like dulce de leche, so this is one I was looking forward to.

And I really can’t believe I’ve never baked with dulce de leche. Or bought it before. Or bought two before, opened both and ate the first one while I baked with the other.

Just add spoon.

At the end of the recipe, you’re supposed to put sea salt on these. I don’t have sea salt. And it was 1 a.m., and I was in my pajamas and not about to leave the house for sea salt.

But they are pretty good, even without sea salt.

December 2: Swedish Butter Cookies

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Today I made this wonderful recipe from my friend Michele, that she shared with me a few years ago. I have a lot of work to catch up on today, so I needed something that wouldn’t take a lot of time. Swedish butter cookies are pretty quick while also being impressive. When I put the cherry on each one, my daughter saw them and said, “Oh yeah! I love these kind!”

The dough is a standard butter, sugar, vanilla base, with an egg yolk instead of the whole egg. The egg white is kept for later, when it needs to be whipped. Once the flour and half-and-half is incorporated, it should make a ball in the mixer. For me, that generally means it all congregates on my paddle attachment and brings the top of the mixer down with a big thud. 

I whipped the egg white in a tiny little bowl with one whisk attachment of my hand mixer. I also chopped a 1/2 cup of pecans with my old Pampered Chef chopper. I ended up needing more, because I wasn’t being stingy with the pecans. 

I like to dry the maraschino cherries a bit, so the juice from it doesn’t stain the cookie. I also like to swat the little girl that keeps stealing maraschino cherry halves from my bowl when I’m not looking. You dip a dough ball in the egg white, and then the pecans, and put it on a cookie sheet. When the tray is full, put half of a maraschino cherry in the middle of each cookie, pressing down slightly.

Into a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes they go. Keep an eye on these. A few years ago, I burnt a batch of these because I got distracted by a cool looking spider that I wanted to take a picture of. I got the picture of the spider, but at the expense of a tray of cookies. It was a sad day. 

I love these cookies, and they look so pretty with the cherry in the middle. Truth be told, I love maraschino cherries, and I always think about the episode of How I Met Your Mother where Marshall has a coworker that does all this crazy stuff, including eating a jar of maraschino cherries for money. I never understood that, because I’d totally do it for free. And maybe actually have. 

Swedish Butter Cookies(

(courtesy of the fabulous Miss Michele!)

  • ½ lb. butter or margarine (2 sticks)
  • 1 t. vanilla
  • 2 c. flour
  • ½ c. sugar
  • 1 egg yolk (save whites to whip)
  • 1 T. half & half (I always use milk)
  • ½ t. baking powder
  • ½ c. chopped pecans
  • 1 bottle maraschino cherries

Cream butter, add sugar; add egg yolk then vanilla and mix well.  Next, add the flour with the baking powder mixed in.  Alternate adding the flour with the half & half.  Form dough into little balls the size of a walnut.  Whip egg whites stiff.  Dip dough balls into whipped egg white and roll in pecans.  Place a half of a cherry in the center and push it down lightly.  Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 15-20 min. in a 350 degree oven.  Watch them so they don’t over brown.  Yum, yum, yum!

December 4, 2017 — Soft and Chewy Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies

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I’m in the throws of finishing a beast of a paper, so instead of telling you how I made something, I’m just going to post a few pictures and the recipe. It’s that sort of week around here.

The Best Soft & Chewy Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies (from thedomesticrebel.com)

Ingredients
  • ¾ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • ½ cup white sugar
  • 1 Tbsp vanilla extract (I like to use Madagascar Bourbon)
  • 1 egg
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp cornstarch
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • Pinch salt
  • 1 cup dried cranberries
  • 1 cup white chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter, brown sugar & white sugar with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and egg to combine. Lastly, beat in the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and pinch of salt until a soft dough has formed. Stir in the cranberries and white chips by hand.
  2. Refrigerate the cookie dough for AT LEAST 1 HOUR. You can chill it overnight if you’d like, but one hour chill time is mandatory to prevent cookies from spreading and to create that light, soft and chewy texture.
  3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with silicone liners or mist lightly with cooking spray. Remove chilled dough from fridge and roll into Tablespoon-sized balls. Place onto the cookie sheets about 1-2″ apart from one another.
  4. Bake for approx. 8-10 minutes, rotating pans halfway through baking time to ensure an even cook. Cookies may appear slightly undone, but do not over-bake them! They will continue to set up more as they cool. Allow cookies to set on the baking sheets for about 10 minutes or so before carefully transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. If you’d like to make them prettier, garnish cookies with additional white chips on top of still-warm cookies before serving.