Tag Archives: christmas cookies

Mocha Kissy Cookies require no kissing before eating

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When you work with preschoolers as I did for many years during my career in early childhood education, you learn how to hold in your laughs. From the mouths of those sweet, innocent little children come words that express their most serious thoughts. More than once during those years with young children I was astonished as I listened to their conversations.

I’ll never forget the day I was sitting in a child-size chair at a kidney-bean-shaped table with short legs, enjoying a snack with a small group of three-year-old children. Out of the blue, one little girl said, “Dolly Parton’s not a Christian.” Her big eyes glistened. Her mouth kept moving as she nonchalantly continued to eat her snack.

On the chair right beside her, another blue-eyed little girl with long blonde hair spoke up. “She’s not Jewish, either.” It was so surprising, it was humorous. I held back a little giggle. As Art Linkletter would have said, “Kids say the darndest things!”

Each year just before Christmas, we had a holiday gathering for all the children and their families at the campus child care center I worked at for several years. Each family contributed a plate of holiday treats.

One year, as I moved around the Center visiting with parents and siblings of the preschoolers I spent time with each day, I happened upon a conversation between two preschoolers. They each held one of those peanut butter cookies with a Hershey kiss in the middle. “Kiss me,” said the little girl as she looked at the confused little boy in front of her. “You can’t take a bite of your kissy cookie until you kiss me. That’s what my mom and dad do,” she said sweetly. I pictured her young parents sitting on the couch in their living room at home with a tin of Kissy Cookies resting on their laps, sharing a quick little peck as they ate cookies together. I held back a little giggle.

The little boy wanted nothing to do with any kind of kiss other than the chocolate one in the middle of the cookie he held in his small hand. He turned on his heels and walked away, the cookie held up to his mouth as he began to chew the chocolate out of its middle.

Mocha Kissy Cookies do have a milk-chocolate kiss stuck into their middle. No kisses are required before eating them, though.

The cookie dough comes from a recipe for cookies I got at a cookie swap in 1992. Typically, the dough is rolled into balls and smashed with a fork to make a criss-cross pattern on each cookie. For Mocha Kissy Cookies, I rolled each ball of dough in an egg white whipped with enough water to make it thin and then rolled them in cinnamon-sugar before baking. The result is a crunchy outside with a chewy coffee-flavored inside, a hint of cinnamon and a big kiss of chocolate — mocha flavors through and through.

It’s a cookie adults will enjoy more than children. If you’re having friends over, serve Mocha Kissy Cookies with a cup of Holiday Hot Mocha topped with fluffy whipped cream. That recipe is in my column this week. Click here to get to that recipe.

Eat, sip and be merry. Kissing requirements are up to you.

Mocha Kissy Cookies

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons instant coffee granules or espresso powder
  • 1/3 cup shortening
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • 1 tablespoon hot water
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 egg white mixed with a couple of teaspoons of water and whipped with a whisk
  • 48 Hershey’s milk chocolate kisses, wrappers removed

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Sift flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and instant coffee granules or espresso powder into a bowl and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening, brown sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar, egg, vanilla and milk until fluffy. Add sifted dry ingredients and blend. Add hot water and mix. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. (I used a #100 portion scooper).

Mix remaining 3 tablespoons granulated sugar with cinnamon in a bowl. Quickly dip each ball of dough into a bowl of egg white and water mixture. With a fork, transfer ball to sugar mixture and roll to coat. Place sugar-coated ball of dough onto prepared baking sheet. Bake in preheated 400-degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Remove from oven and immediately push a milk chocolate kiss into the middle of each cookie. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet. Use a metal spatula to transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely. Makes 3 1/2 to 4 dozen cookies.

 

 

Pecan-Topped Gingersnap Cookies

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A couple of weeks ago I was calling around to area bookstores, trying to find a specific book that I wanted to give as a gift. I found a copy at Beagle Books, an independent bookstore in Park Rapids, Minnesota. So, a few days later, my husband and I were driving down Highway 71, heading to the cozy little bookstore. We wound up making an afternoon of walking up and down Main Street, browsing the shops and having some lunch at 3rd Street Market.

It was while we were in Summerhill Farm that my husband discovered some gingersnap cookies he fell in love with after the first bite. Owner of Summerhill Farm, Eileen Reish, had made the cookies for holiday shoppers to nibble as they browsed through her store. I had passed them up. I was filled to the brim after having a large, chubby avocado wrap for lunch at 3rd Street Market. Before we left the store that afternoon, Eileen had already emailed the gingersnap recipe to my husband. He forwarded the recipe to me. I guess he thought I’d be more likely to make the cookies than he would.

Each morning this week, I would sneak out to the garage to get the tin holding pfeffernusse, one of my new favorites. I had made them on Sunday during springerle baking (see my previous post) and baked them on Monday. They were going fast. I love these cookies, chock full of dried fruit, chopped nuts, sweet spices and anise. They seem to be one of those cookies you either love or hate. I love. My husband hates. And that’s a good thing, actually, because it leaves more of them for me.

The tin was nearing an empty state and I was beginning to panic.

That’s when I decided to make a batch of Eileen’s Gingersnaps, which came to Eileen from one of her coworkers, Peg Mosbo. According to Eileen, Peg is a fabulous baker. I was hoping to create cookies that would at least give me a little bit of a fix for my pfeffernusse addiction. To do that, I had to adjust Peg’s recipe by adding some allspice and black pepper. If I wanted my husband to eat them, there was no way I could add anise oil to the cookie dough. I wouldn’t even think about stirring dried fruitcake mix into the gingery dough. But, I could safely push a pecan half into the top of each cookie before baking. I rolled the cookie balls in sugar to give them some holiday sparkle. Peg Mosbo’s original recipe says to coat the baked gingersnaps with a powdered sugar glaze.

These cookies are soft and chewy, spicy and sweet. A perfectly satisfying Christmas cookie with their spicy fragrance. I love them. But, they’re not pfeffernusse. No…….they’re gingersnaps. Mighty good ones.

Pecan-Topped Gingersnap Cookies

  • 1 ½ cups butter
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 ½ cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • ½ cup dark molasses (I used half mild molasses and half full-flavored dark molasses)
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons ground cloves
  • 2 teaspoons ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • Sugar, for rolling cookies in
  • Pecan halves

Cream butter and sugar. Mix in molasses and eggs. Sift dry
ingredients together then mix with butter-sugar mixture until blended.
Chill the dough. Roll into small balls. Roll balls in sugar to coat. Push a pecan half into the top of each cookie. Place on ungreased or parchment-lined cookie sheets and bake 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees. Makes 10 to 11 dozen cookies when using a #100 portion scooper.

German Springerle-Making Day

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I’ve seen wooden molds with delicate designs carved into them many times as I’ve browsed through antique shops and rummaged my way through flea markets. I never really knew what they were supposed to be used for. A neighbor once gave me the light colored rolling pin you can see in the photo above. She’d had it for years and wasn’t exactly sure if she’d ever used it, but she thought it would be a nice addition to the collection of old rolling pins I kept in an old wicker bike basket hanging on the wall in my kitchen. That was years ago. I’ve never used that carved rolling pin. Until last Sunday.

I was invited to join the Oja family in their spacious kitchen for their annual springerle-making day. Snowflakes were falling as another friend and I pulled into the long driveway leading to their house tucked into the countryside outside of Bemidji, Minnesota. As I stepped into the warm and cozy home, I was immediately hit with the aroma of mulling spices and cardamom. Beth Oja, our hostess, had prepared Finnish Pulla and mulled cider made from apples the family had picked from their trees and pressed themselves. I thought I might be in heaven. And, I knew this was going to be a great day.

Beth had already pulled out the tried-and-true springerle recipe that she had gotten many years ago from a German family she was friends with when she was growing up in Burlington, Iowa. For many Germans, the crunchy, biscuit-like springerles (an archaic German word meaning a springing or jumping horse) are a Christmas tradition.

Beth has a collection of springerle molds that she has gathered over the years, finding some old ones at flea markets and antique shops. She has some newer molds, too. She recommends anyone looking to buy a wooden mold or two to check out her favorite resource for springerle molds, House on the Hill in River Forest, Illinois. Beth keeps her molds out on display all year long.

Anise-flavored sweet dough, rich with butter and eggs is rolled out, stamped with wooden molds, and the embossed design air-dried before baking. In the heat of the oven, the imprinted dough puffs up like little pillows. They are almost too beautiful to eat. Almost.

In one bowl, Beth mixed sugar with egg yolks and butter until the mixture was light and creamy.

In another bowl, the egg whites were beaten until stiff. The beaten whites then got folded into the fluffy yolk mixture. Beth set the timer for 20 minutes and let the mixer go at medium speed.

An old-time leavening agent called Hartshorn, sometimes referred to as bakers ammonia, is used rather than baking powder to produce the fluffiest texture possible. Don’t stick your nose in the jar — the smell is awful. It could actually take your breath away — in a bad way. But once the dough is baked, hartshorn cannot be detected by smell or taste. It seems to disappear and the anise takes over, casting its strong licorice aroma throughout the kitchen.

Finally, the flour is incorporated into the batter and it’s ready to roll. Beth buys bleached flour only once a year, and that’s for the springerle. One five-pound bag is just enough for one batch of the dough. The bleached flour keeps the baked springerle almost as white as snow.

The counter is cleared to make way for the dough, the molds and plenty of flour for rolling.

The dough is rolled out to just the right thickness.

Springerle molds are brushed with flour before being pressed onto the dough.

The molds are pressed onto the dough, creating delicate designs.

Making springerle is a group effort.

It takes almost surgical precision to cut out each imprint.

Unbaked springerles are left out to dry overnight. Baking comes the next day.

The same dough can be used to make German pfeffernusse by adding chopped nuts, chopped dried fruitcake mixture and heavenly spices.

I discovered the Oja kitchen is never quiet. No sooner was the springerle dough off the work counter, the molds and rolling pins swept away, and out came some cracker dough.

A successful day of making springerle. I came home with two trays filled with beautifully embossed cookies. I left them out on the kitchen table overnight. In the morning, I was greeted with the wonderful fragrance of anise. I’ve left a few of my baked springerles out on the kitchen counter just to keep the house smelling like a German Christmas.

Beth’s Springerles by way of the Blaufuss family in Burlington, Iowa

  • 6 cups sugar
  • 12 egg yolks
  • 3/4 pound (3 sticks) butter

Cream sugar, yolks and butter until smooth.

  • 12 egg whites

In another large bowl, beat egg whites until stiff. Add to egg yolk mixture and beat at medium speed for 20 minutes.

Add:

Beat at medium speed for 10 minutes.

Add:

  • 5 pounds bleached all-purpose flour

Mix well.

Roll out pieces of dough to 1/8-inch thickness on a floured surface. Press with springerle molds. Cut out each cookie. Dry springerle, uncovered, overnight.

Bake on parchment-lined baking sheet in 350-degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Cooled springerle freeze well.


Two darlin’ cookies

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 Darlin’ little clementines are just the right size to fit into a little hand. They are easy to peel and so sweet and juicy. And right now, they are showing off their bright orange color in all of the grocery stores.

Their season is short, though, so I’ve been eating them, juicing them and using the juice for baking. The juice freezes nicely, making it possible to enjoy the sweet-flavored liquid well beyond their showing-off time in the stores.

During the last week, I’ve used the zest and juice of the clementine to make granita and cookies.

Little Darlin’ Melting Moments are fashioned after a cookie I tasted years ago when I belonged to a recipe exchange group. Just before Christmas, our small group of women would get together to share some of our holiday baking. Melting Moments were made with cornstarch and powdered sugar, developing a cookie that did melt in the mouth. I fashioned Little Dalrin’ Melting Moments cookies using that basic recipe from years ago as a foundation for a sweet and tart cookie made with zest and juice of clementines.

Little Darlin’s Melting Moments are perfect with a cup of Christmas tea or a scoop of clementine granita.

Little Darlin’ Melting Moments

3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup powdered sugar

Zest of 2 clementines

3 tablespoons fresh clementine juice

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

Glaze:

2 tablespoons fresh clementine juice

6 tablespoons powdered sugar, sifted

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

For dough: Cream together butter and powdered sugar until smooth. Stir in clementine zest, juice and vanilla. In separate bowl, sift together flour, cornstarch and salt. Stir into butter mixture. Chill dough for at least 1 hour. Overnight is good.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Smash each ball with the bottom of a glass that has been dipped in sugar. It works well to attach a damp paper towel with a rubber band to the bottom of the glass. Bake cookies for about 12 minutes and allow to cool.

For glaze, whisk together juice, powdered sugar and melted butter. Pour glaze over cookies to cover. Allow to set for about 1 hour. Makes 4 dozen.

 

Chocolate-Dipped Clementine Cookies are a slice-and-bake shortbread cookie. They are spiked with ground zest of the clementine. At holiday time, it’s nice to have a log of cookie dough in the refrigerator that is ready to bake when you’re ready to bake. The cooled cookies can be dipped into semisweet chocolate. Citrus and chocolate are two flavors that marry well.

Chocolate-Dipped Clementine Shortbread Cookies

1 clementine

1 cup sugar

 1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate morsels

1 teaspoon shortening

Use a vegetable peeler to remove the zest of the clementine. Place zest in a food processor or blender with the sugar. Process for 1 minutes or until the zest is reduced to fine pieces. Add the butter and process until fluffy. Add the flour, baking soda and salt and process for 25 seconds. Form the dough into a log and cover with plastic wrap and chill the dough for at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut the log into 1/4-inch slices and place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 12 minutes until lightly golden. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

When cookies have cooled, melt chocolate morsels and shortening in a small saucepan until mixture is smooth. Dip half of each cookie into chocolate. Set on waxed paper to set.

 

Push in your thumb and pull out a plum: a premium holiday thumbprint cookie

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For as long as I can remember, Thumbprint Cookies have been my favorite holiday cookie treat. My paternal grandmother started the Thumbprint tradition. The cookies soon became a favorite of her little son Ronny (my dad.) So, of course, my mom had to learn how to make them and carry on the Thumbprint tradition. My mom’s been gone for many years, so the Thumbprint tradition was left to me. I’m certain the tradition will be carried on for generations. My daughter-in-law makes them now, too.

Our Thumbprint cookies are made of a rich, buttery dough that is rolled into a ball, coated with coconut and poked in the middle to make a bowl to hold creamy frosting — red and green, of course. Long ago, my grandma may have used her thumb to push a shallow indentation into each little ball of cookie dough, thus the name Thumbprints. Somewhere along the line, though, my mom began using the end of a wooden spoon for the job. It may have been because the thumb-pressing process doesn’t take place until the cookies have baked for 5 minutes. It makes for a very hot, steamy thumb. Ouch!  The end of a wooden spoon creates a space for frosting much too small for my taste. Over the years, I’ve started using the end of the handle on a small Swedish butter knife made of wood. It’s the only thing I ever do with that wooden tool. The rest of the year it stays tucked in a kitchen drawer. The end of that knife makes a large basin to hold lots of frosting. Perfect!

When I gathered with friends a few weeks ago to make Swedish Ginger Snaps, Judy, our host, pulled some holiday cookies from her freezer. At that time, she already had a good start on her Christmas cookie baking. They were not only beautiful, they were delicious. She was kind enough to share the recipes for two kinds of cookies that I wanted to add to my holiday baking list.

I’ve already tried one of the recipes Judy gave me. And, a couple of highly-regarded tasters have already decided these Chocolate Caramel Thumbprints will be granted a spot in our "Keep Forever" Christmas baking file.

Oh, I know they are a little bit putsy to make. But it’s that attention to detail that results in beautiful cookies, which is one of the requirements for any cookie that wants a spot on my Christmas cookie platter.

I’ve started to wonder how it happened that my grandma’s Thumbprint Cookies became a holiday tradition. Where did she get the recipe? Maybe one of her friends shared the recipe with her as they shared holiday treats with one another. Was it a tradition in that friend’s family? So, does that mean there could be other people out there using the exact same recipe at holiday time that my family has been using? I wonder.

Use your thumb or find something else that becomes the official tool for making Thumbprint Cookies. The bigger the indentation, the more caramel filling it will hold. Who knows? Chocolate Caramel Thumbprint Cookies may become one of your holiday traditions.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Caramel Thumbprint Cookies

  • 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 16 vanilla caramels, unwrapped
  • 3 tablespoons whipping cream
  • 1 1/4 cups finely chopped pecans
  • 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate morsels
  • 1 teaspoon shortening

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Add sugar and beat well.

Separate egg, setting the egg white aside to use later. Beat in egg yolk, milk and vanilla. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture and beat until wll combined. Chill the cookie dough in plastic wrap for at least 2 hours.

In a small saucepan, heat and stir caramels and whipping cream over low heat until mixture is smooth. Set aside.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Slightly beat reserved egg white with a couple of drops of cold water. Roll the dough balls in egg white and then in chopped pecans. Place 1 inch apart on a lightly greased or parchment-lined cookie sheet. Using your thumb, (I use the end of a wooden Swedish butter knife) make an indentation in center of each cookie.

Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for abut 10 minutes, or until edges are firm. Remove from oven and spoon some melted caramel mixture into indentation of each cookie. Transfer cookies to wire rack to cool. (If necessary, reheat caramel mixture to keep it spoonable.)

In another saucepan, heat and stir chocolate morsels and shortening over low heat until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Let cool slightly. Transfer the chocolate mixture to a plastic zip-top bag. Close bag and cut a small hole in one corner. Drizzle cookies with chocolate mixture. Let cookies stand until chocolate is set. Makes 36 cookies.

Tips from the cook

  • These cookies can be stored in a tightly sealed container in the freezer for a month or two.
  • 1 (14-ounce) bag of caramels will be enough to make 3 batches of these cookies.

See the Thumprint Cookies that are a tradition in my family right here.

 

Butter in my cookies, please!

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Butter season. It’s here. The inside of the door on my freezer holds several pounds of Land O Lakes butter. Many more of the 1-pound boxes are stacked on the shelves in my refrigerator. My holiday baking has begun.

Baking Christmas cookies is one of my favorite things in the whole world. There’s nothing that puts me at peace during this crazy busy time of year like getting into the kitchen to do some baking while Christmas music plays in the background. Maybe it’s because I think of the many years my mom and I baked holiday cookies together. When I make the thumbprint cookies, a family favorite for generations, I can almost hear my mom tell me to roll the little balls of cookie dough no larger than a walnut. (Click here if you’d like to get to the recipe for my mom’s thumbprints). Now I use my small portion scooper and each cookie is the exact same size. She would have loved that little tool.  We would stay up until all hours of the darkness to bake hundreds of special cookies that had become a tradition through the years.

I stll make many of the same cookies my mom and I created each holiday season. But, each year I find new ones to try. I have a stack of clipped cookie recipes that I flip through each November, pulling out a couple that will become newbies on the cookie tray. Some of those become keepers and are tucked into the "Keep Forever" file. Others are half-heartedly consumed and are never found on our holiday Christmas cookie platter again.

Praline Butter Cookies are very likely going to make it to the "Keep Forever" file. It’s a recipe I’ve eyed for several years (since 1989, would you believe?), but never pulled it out of the stack to try. It would mean a trip to the liquor store to find praline liqueur. A couple of weeks ago, as my husband and I drove through Brainerd, we stopped at Westside Liquor on Highway 371. I found at least a few brands of praline liqueur to choose from. I chose a bottle labeled Praline New Orleans-Style Pecan Liqueur. The fragrance that wafts from the open bottle is enough to make me swoon.

A couple of tablespoons of Praline liqueur in these rich and buttery cookies intensifies the nutty pecan flavor that begins with a big pecan half stuck right in the middle of each cookie. My husband declares this cookie a winner. They will be taste-tested by a few other family members before the recipe can be awarded a place in the "Keep Forever" file.

And, by the way, my one and only tip to make your holiday sweets the best ones ever: USE BUTTER. No margarine, please. Butter delivers flavor, tenderness, deliciousness. Butter. Only butter. And don’t worry where all that butter may wind up. After all, it’s Christmas. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that Christmas calories don’t count.

Enjoy!

If you love cookies with pecans, you might be interested in Praline Cookies that my daughter-in-law and I make every year for Christmas. Click here for the recipe.

Praline Butter Cookies

  • 1 cup butter, room temperature
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons praline liqueur
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup pecan halves

Cream butter. Gradually add sugar, beating well at medium speed of an electric mixer. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating after each addition. Stir in vanilla and praline liqueur.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add to creamed mixture, mixing well. Shape dough into 1-inch balls (I used a #100 portion scooper). Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. (I lined my cookie sheets with parchment paper.) Press a pecan half into center of each cookie. Bake at 300 degrees for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on wire racks. I got 5 dozen cookies using the portion scooper.

Happy Turkey Day!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

I just mixed up the dough for the rolls that my son loves. The turkey is still in the refrigerator, slathered with salt. During a visit with my husband’s 86-year-old aunt on Saturday, who still makes a turkey each year for Thanksgiving, we discovered her secret to the best roasted turkey in the world. She cleans the turkey well on the night before Thanksgiving. She pours coarse salt into the cavity and packs salt all over the outside of the turkey and then stores the bird in the refrigerator overnight. On Thanksgiving Day, she washes all the salt from the turkey. Using loads of butter, she rubs under the skin and over the skin and inside the turkey and seasons it with her favorite herbs and spices. I like to stuff the turkey with apple and onion wedges, fresh lemon wedges, cloves of fresh garlic, a little celery and a few fresh sage leaves. That’s it. So, we’re giving Aunt Martha’s method a try this year.

Today our meal will be late in the afternoon, so I don’t feel rushed right now. I just wanted to thank all of you who are such loyal readers of my blog and my newspaper column. You make my work so rewarding.

And, I wanted to show you the cute ginger snap turkeys that will mark each person’s place at our table this year. I used those sweet sugared orange slices that you can get in small bags in the candy aisle of the grocery store to stick on the back of each turkey to help them stand up.

The ginger snap dough makes darling Christmas cut-outs, too. You can find the recipe in my newspaper column this week along with a couple of pictures of the same dough in holiday shapes. Just click here.

Enjoy this beautiful day!