Here is what I made:
Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread
(Dorie Greenspan)
(Dorie Greenspan)
These were very popular on the internet. They are a sturdy shortbread cookie containing espresso powder that yields a "cookies and cream" appearance. The chunks of dark chocolate scattered into the dough give the cookie a good chocolate bite without the cookie tasting like a decidedly "chocolate cookie". They tasted great with coffee... or a latte.
Very easy to make. The idea of using a zip-loc bag to roll out the dough is brilliant. I couldn't get mine to look particular "pretty" but they still tasted great.
I've made rugelach in the past and always swear it is the LAST time. It is time-consuming, the dough is always hard to work with, and mine always seem to break and/or look ugly. But they taste divine! I have made Lora Bordy's Rugelach many times in the past but this year I decided to try Ina Garten's wondering if it would be any easier.
I'm not sure if it was the recipe (they actually look very similar when you compare the two) or if I just resigned myself knowing it would take a long time and therefore had more patience this year, but the process of making them was "not bad." I did lots of chilling though... I chilled the dough after it had been divided into 4 parts... then chilled it again after it had been rolled out into 9" circles... then chilled the cookies themselves before baking. It saved some frustration with the dough falling apart while I tried rolling them up.
Mine still never come out as picture-perfect or pretty as I've seen elsewhere, but they taste divine. :)
Nutella Nutters
(St. Petersburg Times)
(St. Petersburg Times)
When I saw this recipe, I knew I was making this one. Nutella + Peanut Butter cannot equal anything but awesomeness. These cookies also contain no flour which make them a naturally gluten-free cookie. They were easy to make with all ingredients I had on hand. These are rich, sweet, chocolate-y and chewy -- tasting of all things good: nutella and peanut butter!
(Gourmet, September 2009)
These were my surprise favorite of the bunch. I had read about this cookie on an online forum thread about unusual Christmas cookies. These shortbread cookies use savory spices to make them taste different. They smelled lovely while baking and had a really different complex flavor to them. I'm wondering if anyone will guess what it is, since I didn't label the cookies this year. Definitely my favorite of the bunch, but we'll see what everyone else thinks...
(Mrs. Fields cookbook)
I wanted another fruity cookie to add to the assortment and settled on these. I had made one in the past with a cream cheese dough that wasn't very easy to work with and decided to try this recipe from Mrs. Field's instead. There is no cream cheese in the dough and the resulting cookie tastes somewhere between a sugar and butter cookie.
I didn't follow the directions to use a melon baller for depositing the jam and instead used my fingers as I would in a normal jam thumprint. I used a mixed-berry jam which contained raspberries, cherries, and boysenberries. The cookies looked pretty and tasted as one would have expected -- fruity and sweet -- but I wasn't wowed by them. Still would like to find a good jam thumbprint...
(allrecipes.com)
I have to admit I was a bit worried about these after I bought the anise extract. I wasn't quite sure what anise was and when I opened the bottle and took a whiff, I didn't think I liked it. The anise flavor is very subtle though. These are a slightly sweet, butter cookie with a very slight hint of anise and sesame seed flavor. They were easy to make and looked pretty when done. They're a nice addition to round out the sweetness of most holiday cookies.
Whew, that was one big baking extravaganza. No more cookies for a while...
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