Baking all the Christmas Cookies
Family and friends aside, Christmas isn’t Christmas without the decorating, gift buying/wrapping and cookie baking. I’m happy to say that my decorating and most of my shopping were done the first week of December. So while I waited for the supply chain to deliver (or “find” in the case of FedEx) my goods, I sorted through many a cookie recipe to distill my 2021 baking selection and make my list of ingredients in preparation for the Brandt family cookie party (aka fiasco or chaos depending on your perspective). A houseful of loud, apron-clad women (and a few men) gathered at one of my sister’s houses last weekend. A medley of Christmas carols, holiday movies and KitchenAid mixers competing in the background made for a crazy-fun day in the kitchen. We made and sampled Salted Chocolate Gingerbread Men, Lemon Sables, Peanut Butter Cup Cookies, Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread, Glazed Ginger Cookies and the obligatory Frosted Sugar Cookies.
For this event, we traveled by car from far and wide, over snowy passes and down a horrifically rainy I-5 corridor. Our cars were packed with sugar, flour, butter and chocolate, and cookie sheets and racks, parchment paper and extra measuring utensils bounced in the backs of our vehicles.
Gathering all the equipment and ingredients needed at one house was a task in itself. Here’s a look at the pandemonium.
Equipment
Cookie Sheets – Nordic Ware is my favorite
Parchment paper for lining the baking sheets
Spatulas for scraping bowls (my sister tried stealing this one from me)
Spatulas for taking the cookies off the sheets
Cooling racks galore
Rolling pins (a peak at my new girl - one of three JK Adams pins chosen as America’s Test Kitchen’s Best Rolling Pins )
Measuring cups and spoons – one can never have too many
Four KitchenAid mixers with extra bowls and attachments
A sifter – one sister was spotted using the sifter from our Grandma Rose, dents and all; another used a stainless steel strainer
Zester/microplane for procuring lemon zest
Miscellaneous cookie cutters
Ingredients
A cookie is a sum of its parts, so quality ingredients matter. Here are my (and a particular sister’s) favorites.
Butter (salted and unsalted depending on your recipe). If you’re making a cookie where the butter flavor shines through such as shortbread or sables, I recommend European style, Kerrygold butter. Remember to let it come to room temperature. Caution: Softening in a microwave that’s not yours could result in a melty pool.
Eggs – Vital Farms pasture-raised eggs are the best
Sugars
Organic brown sugar from Trader Joes
Organic granulated sugar from Costco
All-purpose flour was the standard for all our recipes. I’ve just switched to Central Milling Organic Unbleached All-Purpose Flour from Costco. This flour is sold in a pack of two 10-lb bags and has the same protein content as Gold Medal (10.5%). I’ve found that my favorite recipe developers test their recipes with Gold Medal, so this is an important detail.
Aluminum-free baking powder (try Trader Joe’s)
Cocoa and chocolate – lots of brands out there. Look for a high quality dutch-processed cocoa and 70% dark chocolate (not chocolate chips that have additives)
Vanilla or vanilla paste – I use the Kirkland brand as well as Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract depending on what I’m baking.
Assortment of sprinkles
Demerara sugar and glittery sugars of choice
Diamond Crystal Kosher salt
Flaky finishing salt – Maldon or Jacobsen
The Cookie Recipes
Every Christmas cookie tray needs a gingerbread man and I wanted something a little different since we had another ginger cookie on the menu. So I made Donna Hay’s Salted Chocolate Gingerbread Men from her Christmas Feasts and Treats book. The recipe calls for Lyle’s Golden Syrup … which I ran out of mid-cookie! The local grocery store didn’t carry it so I used part dark corn syrup. I really could not tell any difference. It also calls for British Mixed Spice, another ingredient hard to find but easy to make yourself.
These little guys got their feet dipped in melted Valrhona chocolate and sprinkled with Maldon flaky sea salt.
Once the chocolate gingerbread dough is mixed, you divide it in two and roll each piece out between two sheets of parchment paper. Lay them on top of each other, separated by the parchment, on a cookie sheet and chill in fridge for at least 30 minutes. Mine was in the fridge for several hours. The oven was full, so no sweat, these guys waited their turn. When ready, cut out with a gingerbread man cutter (about 8 cm or 3 inches). You should get 20-24 cookies. Then bake at 325 degrees for 8-10 minutes.
Let your men cool completely on the pans. Melt 200 grams of (Valrhona) dark chocolate with 3 tsp. vegetable oil. Dip each cookie feet first into the chocolate and place on rack with parchment underneath. Sprinkle flaky sea salt over the chocolate immediately. Return to baking sheets and refrigerate to harden. These have a bit of a spicy bite to them, and no surprise, the salty chocolate feet are my favorite part.
Lemon Sables from Sarah Kieffer’s Baking for the Holidays book was the sleeper hit and disappeared quickly. (Calling out my 6’5” nephew who doesn’t like chocolate — he was the guilty party.)
Along with Demerara sugar, I added glittery pastel sugar from Sprinkle Pop to my cookie dough logs for extra festive points.
I LOVED these cookies plus I think they balanced out the assortment nicely. The original recipe is for Vanilla Sables. For the citrus variety you simply add 2 tsp. of lemon zest. I used a microplane to collect the zest and then used my fingertips to mix the zest with sugar and salt before adding to the dough to get the juices flowing. These are super easy to mix up in the KitchenAid, form into a log, cover in sugar, place in plastic wrap and refrigerate for a minimum of two hours. Sarah uses two eggs – yolks only. The fat in the egg yolks tenderizes the dough, provides a richer flavor and more chewiness. Delicious. I’m hoping I have time to make another batch of these before Christmas.
My daughter made Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies (#thecookies) from NY Times columnist Alison Roman, available in Dining In. These never disappoint. Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies and these provide a fancy version for the holidays.
Glittery red sugar and flaky Maldon sea salt combined with decadent chunks of chocolate = perfection.
I do think these are best enjoyed right away. The texture is amazing, and I love the crispy edges and salted tops. They require a minimum 2-hour chill; longer is better. You’ll need to chop 6 ounces of high quality semisweet/bittersweet chocolate, careful not to get it too fine. You want chunks not little shavings. chill for several hours. After the dough is chilled and before baking, brush with a beaten egg and sprinkle with Demerara sugar. Slice, sprinkle with flaky salt and bake in a 350 degree oven for 12 to 15 minutes until edges are barely brown. Beware: these may become your new favorite chocolate chip cookies.
There are lots of recipes for ginger cookies, but this one called Frosted Ginger Cookies from the December 2006 issue of Sunset Magazine is our family favorite.
Call us (well my three sisters, not me) crazy, but my sister baked a triple batch!
I featured these last year as well. See my previous post for photo of actual recipe. They use butter (no shortening allowed). In addition to ginger and cloves, freshly grated nutmeg and a lemon glaze put these over the top. These should be on regular rotation through the fall and winter seasons IMHO.
Because you can’t have a cookie assortment without peanut butter, another sister made these traditional Peanut Butter Cup Cookies. The marriage of peanut butter and chocolate stands the test of time. These are made in mini muffin tins. The dough comes together easily in a stand mixer. Then roll into 1” balls and place in greased mini muffin pans. (makes 30 cookies). Bake at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes, being careful to not overbake. Have your Reeses mini peanut butter cups unwrapped and at the ready. Once you remove cookies from the oven, you’ll want to immediately press a peanut butter cup into each ball. I feel like these stay much softer and meltier than the traditional Hershey Kiss peanut butter cookies.
Peanut butter and chocolate combo for the win.
My youngest sister always makes “Blaser’s Famous Sugar Cookies” from her husband’s family. Lucky for you all, she gave me permission to share.
Frosted sugar cookies add some needed color to the assortment.
These are a no-fail sugar cookie, easy to roll out, soft and delicious. Another holiday staple. No cookie tray is complete without sink-your-teeth-into colorfully frosted and sprinkled sugar cookies.
Helpful hints
When you have this many people in one kitchen together, space in the fridge and oven space are at a premium. Plan ahead for things like space to put a cookie sheet in your fridge and spots for your cookie logs to chill. Coolers are a good fallback. Some more suggestions:
Make the doughs that require chilling ahead of time or first and get them in the fridge.
Organize the recipes that bake at the same temperature and line them up to go in oven.
Bake the ones that will get glazed or frosted first so they have time to cool.
Set your own timers people! This is where Alexa and Siri came in handy.
Let everyone participate in the frosting and decorating/sprinkling activity.
Keep up on the dishes as you go! We literally ran out of dish soap!
Bring cookie TINS and containers to pack up the cookies. I’ll admit I’m a bit skittish about mixing the cookies together. I don’t want the ginger or peanut butter contaminating my lemon, for instance. Have plenty of parchment paper on hand.
Have dinner planned in advance so you don’t exist on sugar all day. We each made a Mexican dish ahead of time and brought with us for reheating.
Your turn
Let me know if you make any of these cookies! With Christmas less than a week away, you may not have time to organize a baking party. But you can pick one or two cookies to bake. There have been years where I didn’t have time to bake cookies until Christmas Eve. Don’t worry - they taste wonderful no matter when you bake them.
I still have a few more cookies on my list that didn’t get baked. Alas, World Peace Cookies and Marbled Chocolate Sugar Cookies may have to wait until next year. I’ve been noodling a version of Frosted Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies with peppermint marshmallows, and I want to bring back Olive Oil Sugar Cookies with Pistachios and Lemon Glaze. Stay tuned for Red and Green Velvet cookies …
xoxo
Happy Cookie Baking!
