HOLIDAY COOKIE

This is the time of year when everyone’s thoughts turn to the upcoming holidays; we all have our own rituals and family traditions, which enhance our holidays. This is especially true for me; one of the things I love to do during the holidays is too bake cookies.  In fact I stopped buying gifts (for the adults) years ago, and started to give out my cookies as gifts.  This tradition has become so popular in my house that weeks before the holiday I have people calling me asking me what I am baking this year and letting me know exactly what they want in their cookie packages.  It sounds a little weird, but this system works because family and friends get exactly the cookies that they wanted.  If they were coming to the house for the holidays, I would let them choose their own cookies to take with them.  This eliminated a lot of the guesswork for me and made my guests very happy.

Last year I did not bake; I was in my own little world, digging myself out of my own misery.  This year I am going to bake, and when I say bake I mean bake fantastic cookies, not your ordinary, everyday, run-of-the-mill cookies.   I bake Pignoli cookies, Rainbow cookies, Linzer cookies, and cookies filled with raspberry jam.  Irwin loved raspberry jam, so I made sure everything I baked was filled with it.  I only make these particular types of cookies one time of the year, and that is Christmas time, and this year I am going to continue a tradition I started years ago and bake.

I would start the second week in December and by the time Christmas week came around I had a pretty good collection of home baked goodies.  Irwin worked long hours this time of the year, and I had a lot of free time on my hands, so I baked.  After I baked the cookies I would keep them on the dining room table in round tins, and I would have to make sure to leave Irwin his daily ration because he always attacked the cookies.  In case I have not mentioned it before cookies were his thing.  He was a jeweler and this was the time of the year when he put in his longest hours, but he always managed to steal a few on his way out the door.  One time he actually took one of the tins filled with cookies with him. So after that I got smart and I made sure whatever I was baking on that day or the day before, he had his own batch to take with him to the store, so he would not steal anymore off my dining room table.  This way he got to eat his cookies, and the cookies on my dining room table were safe for my gifts.  Needless to say he was very popular with the people he worked with at the store this time of the year!

I am going to share some of my favorite holiday cookies with you in the upcoming weeks. You might try one or two of these recipes and add them to your cookie repertoire list. They are well worth the effort.

LINZER COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

2/3 CUP HAZELNUTS

1/2 CUP PACKED LIGHT BOWN SUGAR

2 ½ CUPS ALL PURPOSE FLOUR

½ TEASPOON BKING POWDER

½ TEASPOON SALT

¼ TEASPOON CINNAMON

2 STICKS (1 CUP) UNSALTED BUTTER SOFTENED

1 LARGE EGG 

1 TEASPOON VANILLA

1 12OZ JAR SEEDLESS RASPBERRY JAM (MAKE SURE IT IS SEEDLESS 

2 TO 2/14 INCH FLUTED ROUND COOKIE CUTTER AND SMALLER ½ INCH ROUND COOKIE CUTTER (TO CUT OUT CENTER OF COOKIE)

DIRECTIONS

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350F.

Toast hazelnuts in a shallow baking pan until fragrant and skins begin to loosen about 6 minutes.  Rub nuts in a kitchen towel to remove any loose skins (some skins may not come off), then cool to room temperature.

Pulse nuts and ¼ cup brown sugar in a food processor until nuts are finely ground.  Whisk together flour, baking powder salt, and cinnamon in a small bowl.  Beat together butter and remaining ¼ cup brown sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes in a stand mixer (preferably fitted with paddle) or 6 minutes with a handheld.  Add nut mixture and beat until combined well, about 1 minute.  Beat in egg and vanilla.  Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture, mixing until just combined.  With floured hands, form dough into 2 balls and flatten each into a 5 inch disk.  Chill disks, wrapped in plastic wrap until firm at least 2 hours.

Put oven rack in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 350F.

Roll out 1 disk of dough into an 11 inch round (1/8 inch thick) between 2 sheets of wax paper (keep remaining dough chilled). If dough becomes too soft to roll out, rewrap in plastic and chill until firm.  Cut out as many cookies as possible from dough with larger cookie cutter and transfer to 2 un-greased large baking sheets, arranging about 1 inch apart.  Using smaller cutters, cut out centers from the other half of the dough that has been chilling, reserving centers and re-rolling along with scraps (re-roll only once).  Place these cookies on baking sheet.  They will become the tops of your cookies.

Bake cookies switching position of sheets halfway through baking until edges are golden 10 to 15 minutes total, and then transfer with a metal spatula to racks to cool completely.  Make more cookies from second disk.

Spread about 1 teaspoon jam on flat side of 1 solid cookie and sandwich jam with flat side of windowed cookie, sandwich remaining cookies in the same manner. Sprinke with powdered sugar.  Cookies keep layered between sheets of wax paper or parchment chilled in an airtight container 2 weeks.