Tag Archives: holiday baking

A fancy take on traditional thumbprint cookies

16 December 2012

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Chocolate Turtle Cookies

The 2010 edition of America’s Test Kitchen’s Holiday Cookies magazine was a good one. Not only was it filled with a variety of concoctions, but more than half of the 64 recipes were actually good. I hate it when I buy a magazine containing what look like promising recipes, only to have them turn out poorly or not how I had hoped or expected.

One of my favorite recipes from this edition was Chocolate Turtle Cookies. They take the idea of thumbprint cookies to a whole new level with their chocolate cookie base, nutty adornment and chocolate filling. They’re one of the most gorgeous cookies I’ve ever made. If you love chocolate, caramel and nuts, this is the recipe for you. The recipe calls for melting caramels for the filling but, if you’re feeling ambitious, as I usually am, you can make the caramel from scratch using your favorite recipe.

If you’re working on a cookie platter for the holidays, be sure to give this recipe the time it deserves. It’s worth the effort and will make a nice addition to any dessert tray or other array of holiday food. If you don’t like pecans substitute peanuts or another kind of nut. You really can’t go wrong.

By the way, this week I passed 1,000 hits on my blog since I started it nearly six months ago. Thanks for reading.

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg, separated, plus 1 egg white
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups pecans, chopped fine
14 soft caramel candies
3 tablespoons heavy cream

Combine flour, cocoa, and salt in bowl. With electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 2 minutes. Add egg yolk, milk, and vanilla and mix until incorporated. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture until just combined. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, 1 hour.

Adjust oven rack to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Whisk egg whites in bowl until frothy. Place pecans in another bowl. Roll dough into 1-inch balls, dip in egg whites, then roll in pecans. Place balls 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Using 1/2 teaspoon, make indentation in center of each ball. Bake until set, about 12 minutes, switching and rotating sheets halfway through baking.

Microwave caramels and cream in bowl, stirring occasionally, until smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Once cookies are removed from oven, gently re-press existing indentations. Fill each with 1/2 teaspoon caramel mixture. Cool 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Spicing up the Christmas cookie assortment

9 December 2012

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chaicookies

I’m in the middle of my baking test runs, the annual tradition of testing out new recipes to make for Christmas Eve. So far I’ve tried cherry shortbread dipped in chocolate, chocolate mocha sandwich cookies, chocolate gingerbread and chai spice cookies.

I came across the chai spice cookies on Better Homes and Gardens a month or two ago and bookmarked it as a holiday baking idea. I regularly enjoy Bigelow’s Vanilla Chai at work, but had never thought to use it in a cookie. I was on the hunt for a new spice cookie for the assortment this year and this looked like a promising option.

Whenever I test a recipe, I only make a half batch so, in case I don’t like it, I’m not stuck with a lot of it. I should have made a whole batch of these chai cookies. They were like shortbread with chai thrown in, topped with a drizzle of icing. But chai isn’t for everyone, so I took it to work to gauge the reaction to the cookies. My coworkers loved them.

Better Home and Gardens had this labeled as one of its newest recipes. They hit it out of the park. These will be making an appearance on my tray of Christmas cookies this year. I hope they’re as well-received by my family as they were at work.

Ingredients
2 spiced chai-flavored tea bags
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons molasses
1 recipe Powdered Sugar Icing (see recipe below)

Remove tea bag contents (3 teaspoons); discard bags. In medium bowl combine tea, flour, and
pumpkin pie spice; set aside.

In large mixing bowl beat butter on medium to high 30 seconds. Add sugar; beat until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks and molasses. Beat in as much of the flour mixture as you can; stir in remaining flour. Divide dough in half. Cover and refrigerate about 3 hours or until easy to handle.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper. On lightly floured surface, roll half of the dough at a time until 1/4-inch thickness. Cut dough with 4-inch gingerbread girl cutters.

Bake 12 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool on cookie sheets 2 minutes. Transfer to rack to cool completely. Decorate with Powdered Sugar Icing. Makes 18 to 20 cookies.

Powdered Sugar Icing
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
3-4 teaspoons milk

In a small bowl stir together powdered sugar, vanilla or almond extract, and enough milk (3 to 4 teaspoons) to make icing drizzling consistency.

A triple-threat cookie for Christmas

2 December 2012

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cinnamon swirls

I discovered one of my now-favorite Christmas cookies in the 2010 edition of America’s Test Kitchen Holiday Cookies. I tried many of the recipes in that edition, some failures and some successes, but this one stood out. I could make the dough ahead of time, something that really helps when making a large number of cookies.

Some of the cookies I make for Christmas are elaborate — chocolate cookies with homemade caramel, carefully decorated sugar cookies, chocolate-dipped mint cookies — so I need a couple that are less involved. These Cinnamon Swirls were exactly what I wanted. They’re simple, beautiful and tasty, what you might call a triple threat in the world of baking. They’re like a sweet shortbread, one with cream cheese mixed into the dough; and the cinnamon not only adds a bit of spice, but a nice design as well.

One thing to note when making these is to make sure to roll them tight enough. On my first attempt a couple years ago, the rolls were too loose, so there were gaps in the baked cookies. Be sure to refrigerate the dough for the proper amount of time, too, because they’ll spread out too much if the dough is at room temperature before it goes in the oven.

I really do love this recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup super-fine sugar, plus 3 tablespoons for filling
1/4 teaspoon salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces and softened
2 tablespoons cream cheese
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

With electric mixer on low speed, combine flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt, and butter, and mix until crumbly and slightly wet, 2 minutes. Add cream cheese and vanilla and mix until dough just begins to form. Finish kneading dough by hand to form large cohesive mass. Divide into 2 disks of dough, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Whisk remaining sugar and cinnamon together. Roll one disk between two large sheets of parchment paper to a 12-by-7-inch rectangle. Remove the top layer of parchment and sprinkle dough with half of the cinnamon-sugar, leaving a 1/4-inch border along the edges. Spritz the filling with water, and roll dough into a 7-inch log, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until firm, about two hours. Repeat with remaining dough and cinnamon-sugar.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and place rack in the middle position. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Trim the edges of each log, then cut each log crosswise into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing about 1 inch apart. Bake until edges are golden brown, about 12 to 15 minutes, switching baking sheets halfway through baking time. Cool 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.