Posts Tagged ‘christmas cookies’
no-bake lemon drops
Every time I come home I am expected to do a few things. Make dinner, fix problems on my mom’s iPhone and laptop, etc. Making my mom a lemon drop martini every night is also on the list. I’m happy to do it – playing bartender for my mom has a very fun Christina Crawford feel to it. Making lemon drop inspired cookies is even better.
I tried these weeks ago during a shoot at work and immediately photocopied the recipe for my own use. Finding a really really delicious no-bake treat is hard, in my opinion, and this one is fantastic. Just the right balance of sweet and tart, plus oddly refreshing since they’re chilled. There’s no vodka in them (sadly!) but instead crushed up lemon drop candies, my all-time favorite treat. Be sure to use the rough, cheap drug store-type lemon drops. The kind that make your tongue feel like sandpaper after having too many. Yummy!
pistachio shortbread
Pistachios are something I have in abundance this time of year. St. Nick always leaves plenty in my stocking and as much as I love the ritual of shelling each nut and chomping away at the salty pistachio inside, I can never seem to get through an entire bag. Enter these cookies.
I fell in love with this method of making cookie dough in the food processor right away. It’s honestly a base dough where the nuts can be interchanged with whatever you like, whether it be pecans, macadamia nuts, cashews, etc. You could of course go the much easier route here and just buy pre-shelled pistachios which makes these cookies even easier to whip up. Go nuts.
(See what I did there?)
double raisin oatmeal cookies
On the twelfth day of Christmas my oven gave to me… 4 dozen awesome oatmeal cookies!
Okay I know the twelfth day of Christmas is technically January 5th but it’s 12 days until Christmas right now and I can’t help it. It’s inevitable. The holidays roll around, I get insanely festive, and the baking bug bites me bad (try saying that 3 times fast!) Even after a full day of cooking and styling I still want to come home and just listen to Bing Crosby and make cookies. That is the power of Christmas. And that is why I love it so.
These cookies are a riff on my favorite oatmeal raisin by using some golden raisins and pecans, two things I had sitting around and just sounded fun to toss in. I’m such a fan of scooped cookies – rolls you have to chill and then slice seem so tedious and not at all what you want to bake after a hard day’s work. So throw these together and enjoy! You can even freeze the dough balls and bag them up to bake in the future. Not a bad present to save for yourself, if I do say so myself!
chocolate hazelnut thumbprints
Alright, let’s get back on the chocolate train, shall we? Welcome, #5 on the Christmas cookie list.
I’m a strong supporter of the “Just-add-Nutella-and-everything-gets-better” party, so when I saw this recipe for a classic thumbprint cookie that was rolled in toasted hazelnuts, I knew my beliefs would come in handy. The original recipe had you filling them with jam — the boring traditional way. But the hazelnuts immediately got Nutella on my brain and I knew right away what I’d replace that jam with.
Speaking of hazelnuts – they are, quite frankly, a huge pain in the ass to work with. Roasting and skinning them takes ages since getting their skins off is pretty tricky even if you use the old method of rubbing them between a towel. Thankfully, I found a new method which makes it unbelievably easy, and also lets you roast the nuts after they’ve been skinned, giving them even more flavor. These cookies are toasty and crunchy on the outside with a thick, ooey-gooey rich center of chocolate-hazelnut goodness and my God why haven’t you made them already?? Get to it!
lemon glazed wreaths
Time for cookie #4 in the Christmas cookie list. No, those aren’t mini bagels. And no, they’re not mini donuts either! They’re cookies!
This is a simple cookie with a lot of frills and froufrou to dress it up. It’s a nice simple lemon cookie with lemon glaze, but it’s just so pretty. And sometimes (let’s face it), that’s what holiday baking is all about.
I strayed from Martha’s recipe a bit because my dough came out incredibly sticky when I was done, so I added a bit more flour, chilled it overnight, and did a double glaze to get that great bright white color on top. I love the little white nonpareils on top since they look like snow (and add great texture), but if you really wanted to push the wreath idea, green and red would also be super fun.
