LEMON COOKIES WITH TOASTED COCONUT FROSTING

If I had to name my mom’s favorite foods, at least as far as I know, lemon and coconut would top the list—so when I saw this recipe at Two Peas and Their Pod, I knew it would be the perfect treat to bake for her birthday. Frosted cookies don’t mail well, but I was fortunate enough to be able to celebrate with Mom in person, as her birthday happened to be the first day of my parents’ annual California visit. I’m glad I had this idea, not only because everyone (and especially my mother) really enjoyed the cookies, but also because I probably wouldn’t have gotten around to making them if I hadn’t had such a festive semi-selfless excuse; frosted cookies are just so much more of a hassle than regular ones. Missing out on these tender, sunny sugar cookies with fluffy coconut-flavored frosting and crispy toasted coconut would have been a shame. After all, lemon and coconut are fave flavors of mine too…it must be genetic.

I used regular milk in the frosting because I didn’t want to open a whole can of coconut milk just for a spoonful of it, but if you happened to have some just sitting around, it would amp up the flavor even more—a triple coconut dose. The frosting turned out on the soft side, which, combined with the flakes of coconut on top, makes eating these a rather messy endeavor (they’re a little more tractable when frozen), but I didn’t want to add any more sugar to stiffen it because it was already quite sweet. It might have been cloying on its own, but the cookies themselves aren’t overly sugary, so together they balance out.

Cookies:
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons lemon zest
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Frosting:
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon coconut extract
1 tablespoon coconut milk (or regular milk)
1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
   
2. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Whisk and set aside.
   
3. In another small bowl, add granulated sugar and lemon zest. Rub the sugar and lemon zest together with your fingers until fragrant.
   
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large bowl with a hand-held mixer), beat butter and sugar/lemon mixture together until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, vanilla, and fresh lemon juice. Mix until smooth.
   
5. Slowly beat in flour mixture on low speed until blended.
   
6. Drop dough by tablespoons onto prepared baking sheets, spacing 2 inches apart. Gently flatten dough with the palm of your hand.
   
7. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until cookies are just set and slightly golden brown. Cool cookies on baking sheet for 2 minutes and transfer to cooking racks. Cool completely.
   
8. While the cookies are cooling, make the frosting. In a stand mixer (or using a hand-held mixer), mix together butter and sugar. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes. Add coconut extract and coconut milk (or regular milk). Beat on medium speed for 1 minute or until frosting is smooth and creamy. You may need to add a little more sugar or coconut milk, depending on your desired consistency.
   
9. Once the cookies are out of the oven, turn the heat down to 325 and spread the coconut in a thin layer on a baking sheet. Put it in the oven just until light brown and fragrant, 5-10 minutes, stirring halfway through.
   
10. Frost the cooled cookies and sprinkle toasted coconut on top.

Yields: About 2 dozen
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Great; store in an airtight container for several days at room temperature or indefinitely in the freezer.

SOFT FROSTED SUGAR COOKIES

As I’ve mentioned before, I have nostalgic feelings about sugar cookies. Most of my childhood memories involve the flat, crisp-chewy style with thin, glaze-like icing. I could never resist these in a bakery window, especially when they came in unusual shapes with elaborate decoration, like the faces of Sesame Street characters (bonus points for garish blue or green that stained my tongue); my particular favorite was the “cookie on a stick” I would always choose as my treat for behaving myself when my mom dragged out shopping at the mall. But later in life, mostly thanks to office holiday celebrations, I fell hard for the polar-opposite sugar cookie model, the fluffy, impossibly soft, buttercream-frosted ones found in grocery store bakery sections. Why do I find them so irresistible? It’s that pillowy cakelike texture, even when it verges on being too floury (and no doubt artificial-preservative-laden). I always felt a little gross after finishing one, but the first bite was sheer heaven.

So when a recipe popped up at Annie’s Eats that promised to replicate the super-soft sugar-cookie experience, I had to give it a try. These cookies really do feed that craving, satisfyingly thick and tender but without the dense, doughy, chalky quality the storebought ones can have. And the flavor is infinitely better, buttery and intensely vanilla-spiked.

My one stumble has been with the frosting, which has turned out smooth and glaze-like instead of thick and creamy both times I’ve made these. The first time (pink, for Valentine’s Day 2013; yes, I’ve been holding out on you that long) the finished cookies were so homely (er, “rustic”) that I didn’t even want to photograph them, but as soon as I realized how addictively delicious they are, I knew I’d have to try again so I could post them. I figured I had put too much milk in the frosting and tried to dial it back on the second attempt, but got the same result (this time in robin’s-egg blue, in honor of spring). The frosting is delicious and I have no desire to change it, but you’ll see that mine didn’t resemble Annie’s original picture or the store version.

It’s strange to say because I always consider myself a chocolate-chip fan, but these might be some of my favorite cookies ever. It’s kind of a problem how good they are. If you’re a soft sugar-cookie fan, try this recipe.

















Cookies:
4½ cups all-purpose flour
4½ teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoons salt
1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups sugar
3 large eggs
5 teaspoons vanilla extract

Frosting:
5 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/3 cup (5 1/3 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
7-8 tablespoons milk
Food coloring (optional)
Sprinkles (optional)

1. To make the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt, and whisk together to blend. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar and beat together on medium-high speed until soft and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping down the bowl as needed. Blend in the vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients, mixing just until incorporated and evenly mixed. Cover and chill the dough for 1 hour.
   
2. When you are ready to bake the cookies, scoop a scant quarter-cup of dough and roll into a ball. Flatten the ball slightly and place on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough, spacing the cookies at least 2-3 inches apart. Bake about 10-12 minutes or just until set. (Do not overbake! The edges should be no more than very lightly browned, if at all.) Let cool on the baking sheet for several minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
3. To frost the cookies, place the confectioners’ sugar in a medium bowl. Add the melted butter, vanilla, and milk to the bowl and whisk until smooth. Whisk in additional milk as necessary, 1 teaspoon at a time, until you reach your desired consistency. Tint with food coloring if desired. Use an offset spatula or spoon to frost the cooled cookies. (If the frosting begins to thicken as you decorate, just continue to whisk in small amounts of milk to keep it workable.) Top with sprinkles if desired.

Yields: About 2 dozen large cookies
Time: 2 hours
Leftover potential: Great. I store mine in an airtight container in the freezer and they keep for weeks. 

POPCORN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

My work counterpart went through a phase where she was obsessed with popcorn. At least once a week she’d stop by Trader Joe’s on her lunch break and come back to her desk with a bag of cheddar or kettle corn. Then remorse would strike and she’d press me to share in her snack, which was just fine by me. So when her birthday rolled around and I wanted to bake a gift, something involving popcorn seemed a natural choice.

I remembered seeing a recipe for buttered popcorn cookies in the Smitten Kitchen cookbook, but when I Googled for it, I stumbled upon this Joy the Baker adaptation that improves upon that brilliance by adding chocolate to the mix. My coworker loves the sweet-salty combo, I have a long history with chocolate popcorn, and it doesn’t really seem like a birthday without chocolate, so it’s no surprise which version I settled on.

As an homage to the recipient’s particular fixation, I used TJ’s bagged kettle corn instead of making buttered popcorn from scratch. It turned out so well (not to mention being easier) that I’d be tempted to cut this corner again in the future, but I’m leaving in the directions for popping the corn yourself in case you’re more energetic (or farther from a Trader Joe’s) than I.

No matter what, these are some excellent treats. When I plopped the dough onto the baking sheets, it looked like clumps of popcorn just barely held together by batter, but they did indeed settle into proper cookies as they baked. If popcorn cookies sound weird to you, think addictively chewy chocolate chip cookies with an extra dose of salt and an occasional bit of crunch…the perfect movie-theater contraband snack. My coworker loved them, but they’ve definitely earned a spot in my personal cookie hall of fame too.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
¼ cup yellow corn kernels
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
½ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
½ cup light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup semisweet chocolate chips or coarsely chopped dark chocolate
Coarse sea salt for sprinkling

1. To make the popcorn, place the oil in the bottom of a medium saucepan. Heat over medium heat. When oil is hot, add corn kernels in a single layer across the bottom of the pan. Cover the pot but keep the lid ajar to let a bit of steam out. Listen to the popcorn as it pops. Turn off the heat and remove the pan from the burner once the popping has subsided. Sprinkle with ¼ teaspoon salt and drizzle with the 1 tablespoon of melted butter. Toss well, then pick through the popcorn to remove any unpopped kernels. Set aside to cool. You’ll have about 4 to 4½ cups of popcorn.

2. Preheat then oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until butter is pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla extract for one more minute. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and beat on low until just combined. Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and use a spatula to fold in the popcorn. It might seem like a disproportionate amount of popcorn considering the cookie batter, but keep folding; the popcorn will break down a bit as it’s folded in. Fold in chocolate.

4. Scoop dough by the heaping tablespoonful onto the prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with coarse sea salt. Bake for 10 to 13 minutes or until the edges and tops are golden brown. Remove from the oven, allow to rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Yields: 2 dozen
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good; store in an airtight container at room temperature or in the freezer.

DARK CHOCOLATE, PISTACHIO, AND SMOKED SEA SALT COOKIES

Why don’t we put pistachios in cookies more often? Walnuts, pecans, and almonds steal the spotlight, and macadamia nuts have their white-chocolate niche, but pistachios are super delicious yet seem to get little love. They finally get to be superstars in this recipe, transforming otherwise ordinary (though always tasty) chocolate chip cookies into something truly special. You might be distracted by the exoticness of the smoked salt, as indeed I was when I first bookmarked this recipe from Joy the Baker, but it plays a supporting role here, and indeed if you were to use regular coarse sea salt instead, I wouldn’t scold you. I recalled seeing smoked salt in grinders at Trader Joe’s for a few bucks, but of course when I went to actually buy it I found it had been discontinued, as are so many TJ’s products just at the moment you really need them. Thinking that these would just be plain old chocolate chip cookies without the smoked salt, I went to Whole Foods and spent a rather ridiculous sum of money for a container I will now spend the rest of my life trying to use up. Don’t be like me! The smoked salt is great if you can get it, but the pistachios were the real revelation here. We both loved these cookies, to the point that A repeatedly exclaimed how good they were every time we ate one. Definitely a keeper—and not just because I now have a surplus of smoked salt on my hands.

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ cups dark chocolate chips or chunks (I’ll admit I just used semisweet and it was still great)
1 cup shelled pistachios, coarsely chopped
Smoked sea salt for topping

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat butter and sugars together until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the egg and beat in for about 1 minute. Add vanilla extract and beat to incorporate.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the mixture all at once to the butter mixture. Beat on low speed until just incorporated. Finally, mix in the chocolate chips and nuts.

4. Dollop or scoop cookie dough by the 2 tablespoonful onto prepared baking tins. Leave about 2 inches of room between each cookie. Sprinkle generously with smoked sea salt.

5. Bake cookies for 18 minutes, or until just golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yields: 2 dozen
Time: 40 minutes
Leftover potential: Great, either in a sealed container at room temperature or frozen.

CHOCOLATE COCONUT OATMEAL COOKIES

Is it too soon to talk about cookies? These are the next item on my long backlog list and I really feel you ought to know about them. Sure, all the food blogs are still full of green smoothies and if your cupboards are anything like mine they’re still full of leftover Christmas treats, but if you don’t feel up making these just yet, bookmark them for later. Because if I’d managed to get this recipe posted in 2013, it probably would have garnered a spot on my list of the year’s top recipes.

I know these look really basic, even homely, and I wasn’t expecting anything especially remarkable. I mean, chocolate and coconut are great together and oatmeal cookies are my fave, so obviously that trifecta is what lured me to try this recipe when I saw it at Tasty Kitchen. But except for the slight twist of replacing some butter with coconut oil, this is about as straightforward as cookie formulas come. Yet I ended up making them twice last year, and considering I don’t make cookies more than once a month (excepting December) and have a wealth of great recipes already on file, that’s pretty remarkable. These might be my ideal everyday cookie. (OK, not every day, but ordinary, not special-occasion.)

One thing I like about these is that they’re not too sweet, but I was too lazy to go to Whole Foods for the unsweetened shredded coconut and got good results using the less-sweetened version from Trader Joe’s, which is still way less cloying than Baker’s or other standard grocery-store versions.



















1¼ cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup (heaping) unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
⅛ teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
3 tablespoons coconut oil
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1½ teaspoons vanilla
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut (unsweetened)
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

3. In an electric mixer, cream together the butter, coconut oil, and sugars. Scrape down the sides and then add the egg and vanilla; mix to combine.

4. On low speed, gradually add the flour and cocoa mixture and mix until incorporated. Add the shredded coconut and oats and mix. Add chocolate chips and mix until just folded in.

5. Form dough into balls about the size of a heaping tablespoon and place on baking sheets lined with silicon mats or parchment paper.

6. Bake for 11 minutes or until just solidified. Remove from oven and let cool for about 2 minutes more on the sheet, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Yields: 3 dozen
Time: 35 minutes
Leftover potential: Great; freeze well.

CHOCOLATE OR BANANA BISCOFF WHOOPIE PIES

I had big plans for all kinds of wild cooking experiments to perform while I was unemployed, but then I only ended up being out of work for two weeks. (Yay, but also, sigh.) Making ricotta and crafting my own flour tortillas will have to wait, but I did manage to get together with my (also unemployed) friend S to bake some whoopie pies. I’ve always been a huge fan of sandwich cookies (probably more so than I’m a fan of actual sandwiches), but having to make a cookie and a filling always seems like too much of a pain for me to try at home. With a second pair of hands and a free afternoon, however, it was the perfect kitchen adventure.

We settled on whoopie pies fairly quickly (it helped that I’d received a mini whoopie pie pan for Christmas and was itching to try it out), but when it came time to choose which kind to make, I instantly became overwhelmed by all the available options. S suggested this chocolate Biscoff recipe from Gimme Some Oven, and since I hadn’t gotten around to trying Biscoff yet, I figured why not kill two tasty birds with one stone? (For those who don’t know, in the food blog world, Biscoff is the new Nutella. It’s a Belgian spread made from ground cookies called speculoos, which are gently spiced buttery biscuits.)

To maximize the adventure, we also started toying with the idea of making a second variety of whoopie pie. I was taken with these banana caramel ones from Annie’s Eats, but making another type of cookie, another type of filling, and a caramel to go into the filling sounded too crazily ambitious an undertaking. Then I mused that banana cookies would probably taste pretty great with Biscoff filling, and a plan was hatched: Make a double recipe of the filling and then both types of cookies. That way, we could get a little variety but keep our process manageably streamlined.

Our decision was even more spot-on than we could have suspected, because that Biscoff cream cheese filling is seriously one of the most delicious things I’ve ever made. I can’t even explain it, because I’ve tasted Biscoff cookies and haven’t really been into them (they’re sort of a lighter gingersnap). I tasted a bit of the spread when we cracked the jar open and liked it better; it tasted vaguely like graham crackers. But mixed with cream cheese (which I normally don’t even enjoy that much), sugar, and a bit of vanilla, it became transcendent. Something about the tart cream cheese balanced out the sweet, nutty cookie perfectly. I could happily eat it straight—and I did, to clean out the bowl—but it was dynamite with the cookies. The chocolate cookies were the best overall, tender and not too sugary, but the flavor overshadowed the filling somewhat (after tasting one, we went back and added more filling to the rest, since we had some extra); it was in the banana version that the Biscoff flavor really shone. I’d make either kind again in a heartbeat. They weren’t even as difficult to put together as I’d expected, although ours definitely turned out a bit “rustic” in shape. Really, the only problem is that I can’t stop eating them! Not only is the flavor great, but the texture of the big, soft, fluffy cookies with a layer of frosting in the middle is also wonderful—like portable, handheld cake. I’ll reserve them for special treats, but I’ll certainly make them again…even though my next bout of unemployment will hopefully be far in the future.

Chocolate Biscoff Whoopie Pies

Cookies:
1⅔ cups all-purpose flour
⅔ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk

Filling:
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
½ cup Biscoff spread (aka speculoos cookie butter)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon mats.
   
2. In a medium bowl, sift together, flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar with a mixer on low until just combined. Increase speed to medium and beat for about 2 minutes. Add egg and vanilla and beat for two more minutes. Add half of the flour mixture and half of the milk and beat on low until incorporated. Repeat with remaining flour and milk and beat until combined.
4. Drop batter on baking sheet in tablespoon-sized clumps, each about two inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes, or until cookies spring back when pressed gently. Remove from oven and cool for about five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.
5. Meanwhile, make the filling: Using an electric mixer, cream together cream cheese and Biscoff spread on medium speed until combined. Add vanilla and powdered sugar, and mix on low speed until sugar is incorporated. Stop mixer, and use a spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl. Increase speed to medium and mix for 1 more minute until well combined.
6. Once cookies are cooled, match them into pairs by size/shape. Spoon or pipe the filling onto the flat side of one cookie in the pair, and then top with the other cookie to make a whoopie pie. Repeat with remaining filling and cookies.

Yields: 24-36 whoopie pies
Time:  1½ hours
Leftover potential: Good. I didn't try freezing them because I thought they would get too hard and I knew we wouldn't need to store them for very long because they were getting eaten so quickly, but they were a bit sticky at room temperature, so I kept them in the fridge, which worked well.

Variation: Banana Biscoff Whoopie Pies

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup mashed banana (about 1–2 bananas)
½ cup sour cream
½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 batch Biscoff filling (see above)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; whisk to blend, and set aside.
3. In a small bowl, combine the mashed banana and sour cream.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Blend in the egg and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients in three additions alternating with the banana mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix each addition just until incorporated.
5. Drop batter onto prepared baking sheets in tablespoon-sized clumps, spacing a couple of inches apart. Bake until the cookies are just set and the bottom edges are starting to brown, about 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheets for 5 to 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Once the cookies are completely cooled, match them up in pairs by size. Spoon or pipe filling onto the flat side of one cookie of each pair, and sandwich the cookies together, pushing the filling to the edges. Store in an airtight container.

CARDAMOM COOKIES

I made these cookies last Christmas and never managed to take a photo of them. I made them again this Christmas and only remembered to get a picture of them when they were already placed on the Christmas Eve cookie trays, ready to be devoured. So the photo isn’t the best, but honestly, they’re very homely cookies. It doesn’t help that I can’t seem to manage to get the shape to resemble the illustration in the original Sunset recipe—last year they spread so much that the two ends of the horseshoe fused together (A said they looked like butts), and this year they didn’t flatten out at all (A said they looked like turds). I’m not sure why they have to be in a horseshoe shape; I’m tempted to give up on it entirely next time, but then they’d just be plain brown circles, which could look even less tempting. At least I can pretend this odd shape has some sort of charming traditional Scandinavian significance. Plus, they resemble the letter C, which seems very apropos: C is for “cookie,” and “cardamom,” and “Christmas.”

Anyone who’s actually brave enough to grab one of these unglamorous blobs off the platter is in for a rare treat, at least if they like cardamom, which fortunately many of my family members do. As I’ve mentioned many times, I adore the stuff and am always adding it to recipes that don’t call for it, so it’s refreshing to see it featured so prominently. This is a serious dose of cardamom in a simple, buttery cookie. The recipe seems a bit odd—it doesn’t have many of the usual cookie ingredients, like eggs, salt, or vanilla—I promise you, it works. These have already become a family favorite, and buttlike, turdlike, or plain-Jane as they may look, they’re part of my holiday ritual now.

P.S. I finally got around to adding a button to my posts to convert them into a friendlier format for printing! I was printing off some recipes from other blogs today and lamenting how annoying it is when that feature isn’t available, forcing me to print a lot of unnecessary material spread over many pages or paste the recipe into Word and print from there. Then I realized that I’m a huge hypocrite because that’s exactly what I put people through with my own blog. (I guess I’m still in denial that anyone might be reading, let alone cooking from, this site.) Or perhaps you’re all cool and modern and you don’t print things anymore and you just cook directly from your iPad or phone or whatever? Well, la-di-dah. But this button also converts the posts to a PDF and lets you email them to yourself, so you might still find it useful. See what a nice friend I am?

1 cup (8 ounces) butter, at room temperature
⅔ cup sugar
1 tablespoon dark molasses
2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cardamom
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. In a large bowl, with a mixer on medium speed, beat butter and sugar until smooth. Add molasses and beat until well blended.

2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda, cardamom, and cinnamon. Beat into butter mixture until well blended. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill until dough is firm, about 1 hour.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

4. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. With lightly floured hands, roll each ball into a rope about 2½ inches long and ½ inch thick; bend each rope into a horseshoe. Place cookies about 2 inches apart on parchment-lined or buttered baking sheets.

5. Bake cookies just until edges begin to brown, 7 to 9 minutes; rotating pans halfway through baking. Let cookies cool on pans for 5 minutes, then use a spatula to transfer to racks to cool completely.

Yields: About 3 dozen
Time: 1½ hours
Leftover potential: Good; freeze well

PUMPKIN BUTTERSCOTCH OATMEAL COOKIES

I love trying new cookie recipes, because they rarely if ever turn out badly. In this case, how could adding pumpkin and spices (yes, I am firmly on board the pumpkin train after years of resistance, and that train is delicious) to the standard oatmeal scotchies recipe be anything but tasty? The pumpkin creates a nice amber color and tender cakiness, the spices help balance the intensely sweet, slightly artificial flavor (I say that in a loving way) of the butterscotch chips, and the whole thing is heartily fallish (if not very photogenic; I think mine are especially homely).

The major change I made to the original recipe was to make my own spice mixture, instead of using premixed pumpkin pie spice augmented by other spices. I went with a similar combination to the one I’ve used in all my other pumpkin recipes, but because I didn’t feel like doing endless math to match the exact amount, it made a little more than the recipe calls for, so you’ll have find some other use for the extra (I threw it into my refrigerator oatmeal the next day). I also increased the salt from ¼ teaspoon to ½ teaspoon, which seemed necessary to counteract the richness of the butterscotch chips (it’s also the amount used in the traditional oatmeal scotchies recipe, at least as published on the Quaker oatmeal package). I would maybe consider cutting back slightly on the butterscotch chips; 1½ cups (nearly but not quite an entire bag, according to my measurements) made for a very sweet result, and some of my cookies seemed more like clumps of chips loosely held together with a bit of dough. I found myself longing for more of the oatmeal-pumpkin portion, so I might try just 1 cup next time. Lastly, I think I could have made my cookies a little larger, because I got about 10 more than the original recipe did. But since when is having extra cookies really a problem?

1¼ cup cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon cardamom
⅛ teaspoon ground ginger
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
⅛ teaspoon allspice
⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup pumpkin puree
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1–1½ cups butterscotch chips

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.

3. In a small bowl, whisk together cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg. Measure out 1¼ teaspoons of the spice mixture and add it to the bowl with the flour mixture, whisking well to combine. Save the rest of the spice mixture for another use.

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment (or just in a large bowl using a handheld electric mixer), beat butter, sugar, and brown sugar until smooth and creamy. Add egg and vanilla extract and mix again. Add pumpkin and mix until combined (mixture may appear curdled, but it’s fine).

5. Turn the mixer speed to low and slowly add in flour mixture, mixing until just combined. Stir in oats and butterscotch chips.

6. Drop dough by heaping tablespoons onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the cookies are set and golden. Remove cookies from the oven and cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

Yields: About 3 dozen cookies (original recipe said 2½ dozen; I got 40)
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; freezes well.

COCONUT LIME SUGAR COOKIES

When I make cookies, I usually want something involving chocolate or oatmeal, often both. Sugar cookies seem to boring to bother with—until I taste one and am reminded that they were one of my go-tos as a kid. This is probably because they tended to be frosting delivery devices, but still, a plain sugar cookie is nearly as delightfully nostalgic. What tempted me in this recipe, from Everybody Likes Sandwiches via Poppytalk, was the lime and the coconut, two of my favorite flavors—especially in the summer—but a combination I’ve never tried in cookie form. I was surprised to find that those elements are fairly subtle here, but I wasn’t too disappointed, because what resulted was essentially an excellent sugar cookie with the perfect crisp-chewy texture, but with intriguing notes of citrus and toasted coconut. They taste a lot like the sugar cookies my mom made when I was little, which she made with lemon extract (almond, of course, being reserved solely for holiday spritz). And they’re incredibly addictive.

Maybe it was because I baked these on a hot day, but mine turned out completely different than the ones in the photos accompanying the original recipe; those are thick and rounded, whereas mine are wide and flat, bakery-style. Whatever I did, I want to do it again, because the texture was my favorite thing about these cookies. I kept daydreaming about how perfect they would be as the base for an ice cream sandwich. Someone should get on that, stat.

These cookies are already on the sweet side, so do make sure you use unsweetened coconut. I found mine in the bulk section at Whole Foods.

2¾ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened (dried) shredded coconut
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1½ cups white sugar, plus about ¼–½ cup extra for coating the cookies
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest from 1 or 2 limes
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1. Toast coconut in a small sauté pan over medium heat until fragrant and lightly browned.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment or Silpat.

3. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, toasted coconut, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large mixing bowl using a hand-held mixer, cream the butter and 1½ cups sugar together until fluffy. Add the egg and mix well, then add the vanilla, lime zest, and lime juice. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients until combined.

5. Place some sugar (start with about ¼ cup and add more as needed) in a shallow bowl. Form dough into heaping-teaspoon-sized balls and then roll in sugar. Flatten slightly and place on lined cookie sheets two inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned. Cool for a few minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes: 2–3 dozen
Time: 40 minutes
Leftover potential: High, if stored in the freezer; if stored at room temperature, the chewy texture will disappear after a couple of days.

COCONUT MACAROON NUTELLA NESTS

The different between professional-caliber food blogs and, well, mine is that the real ones will helpfully publish holiday recipes ahead of time, in case you should care to try them during your upcoming festivities. I just post them after I’ve tried them, which is inevitably too late to be of use to anyone until the following year, by which time we’ve all forgotten about them. Selfishness: It’s how I roll! But if you like to plan ahead, you might want to bookmark this one for Easter 2013, because it’s pretty, easy, and delicious. Or maybe you need something to do with this year’s leftover Easter basket goodies, which means I’ve caught you in time after all. Ha-HA!

I don’t usually have the energy or generosity to make themed treats, but when these cleverly designed cookies caught my eye at Two Peas and Their Pod last month, I fell in love with their cuteness. Although I rarely make them for some reason, I adore macaroons and have been on a serious coconut kick lately. I also love Nutella and miniature chocolate eggs (Cadbury mini-eggs are THE BEST), so it was a done deal.

As you might guess, these cookies are fairly rich, sugary, and sticky, making them a good thing to share with friends, especially since they probably wouldn’t freeze very well. I wasn’t a huge fan of the macaroon recipe, which differs from those I’ve made in the past in its use of sweetened condensed milk. The cookies were moist, sweet, and coconutty enough, but they seemed a bit too gooey—one of them even fell apart when I transferred it to the cooling rack. However, this may well have been due to user error. I carefully measured out my 3½ cups of coconut, which for me was the entire bag. Only after I put the cookies in the oven and reached for the discarded bag to throw it away did I see “contains 5⅓ cups” splashed across the front. D’oh! Apparently this particular bag had been extremely compressed on its journey to me. (This is why giving measurements in ounces is the best way to go!) So I used way too much coconut, and I probably could have baked the cookies longer—I like a crisper, toastier exterior than I got. But I also hate having random partially used cans of sweetened condensed milk left over in my fridge, so next time I might try the macaroon recipe from the back of the coconut bag instead.

The cookies were also enormous. Maybe this was due to my excessive use of coconut, but I don’t think so, because the photo in the original recipe makes them look about on the same scale as mine were. Sure, they’ve got to be generously sized enough to hold three candy eggs (one would look like a boob; two would still be weird, not nest-like enough), but next time still I’d try making them smaller. Their size—about as large as my palm—and the fact that the Nutella doesn’t harden like frosting, just stays its same goopy self, made them rather difficult to transport or eat gracefully. But I don’t mean to talk them down too much, because I certainly devoured my fair share without complaint, and everyone who tried them loved them.* Clearly I’m planning to make them again next year, albeit with some alterations (I’d also like to try using the dark chocolate mini-eggs, which I couldn’t find this year, in the hopes of cutting the sweetness a bit). They are really charming and fun to make, without requiring any special decorating skills (which goodness knows I don’t have). And considering that Easter is my favorite holiday, it’s nice to have a festive cookie in my repertoire.

*Just now, A wandered into the room and asked me which recipe I was writing about. When I said it was these cookies, he groaned, "Oh, those were so good!" So there's your testimonial.

⅔ cup sweetened condensed milk
1 large egg white
1½ teaspoons vanilla
⅛ teaspoon salt
3½ cups sweetened shredded coconut
About 10–12 tablespoons Nutella
30–36 small chocolate Easter egg candies (I used Cadbury Mini-Eggs)

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line one or two large baking sheets with parchment paper or a Silpat mat.

2. In a large bowl, stir together the sweetened condensed milk, egg white, vanilla extract, and salt. Stir until combined. Add the coconut and mix well.

3. Scoop up about 2 heaping tablespoons of the dough and place it onto the prepared baking sheet. Form into the shape of a bird nest, pressing down the center with your thumb.

4. Bake cookies for 17 to 20 minutes, or until slightly golden brown. Remove from the oven and press your thumb down in the center of the nests again. Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for about 5 minutes or until they are firm and set. Remove with a spatula onto a cooling rack. Cool completely.

5. Place about a tablespoon of Nutella in the center of each nest. Place 3 egg candies in the center of the nest.

Yields: 10–12
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: OK. I wouldn’t freeze these, but they should last in an airtight container at room temperature for a few days.

PUMPKIN SNICKERDOODLES

After 34 years of total indifference (bordering on mild hostility) to the wave of pumpkin-flavored foodstuffs that sweeps the nation each autumn, I’m suddenly starting to catch on. It started with the pumpkin ice cream last year. I made it again this year, then caught myself jonesing for something else along the same lines. When I spotted this recipe at Annie’s Eats, in which a bit of pumpkin and extra spice is added to the traditional snickerdoodle formula, it seemed a good way to herald fall—and the arrival of My!New!Oven!—without going overboard into full-blown pumpkin mania. And as I’d hoped, the cookies were a perfect pumpkiny twist on an existing fave; the pumpkin adds a tinge of orange color and a tender, cakey texture (don’t expect the usual snickerdoodle crispness here), but its flavor remains subtle.

I replaced nutmeg with cardamom in the dough, because I flippin’ adore cardamom and it never seems to get fair play in baked goods outside of Scandinavia. In general, every time I see cinnamon in a recipe, I throw in a little cardamom too. I may not be a Pumpkin Person yet, but I’m officially Cardamom Crazy! I then rejiggered the coating mixture to approximate full-blown pumpkin pie spice, dialing down the cinnamon a bit to give cardamom a supporting role (natch), scaling back the ginger, and adding nutmeg, cloves, and allspice. I loved the results and will certainly make these again next October. In the meantime, I have half a can of pumpkin puree still to use up, so watch this space for more grudgingly trendy pumpkin recipes in the near future.

Cookies:
3¾ cups all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
¾ cup pumpkin puree
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Coating:
½ cup granulated sugar
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
⅛ teaspoon ground ginger
⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
⅛ teaspoon allspice

1. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, ½ teaspoon cinnamon, and ¼ teaspoon cardamom. Whisk to blend and set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter, brown sugar, and 1 cup granulated sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Blend in the pumpkin puree. Beat in the egg and vanilla until incorporated. With the mixer on low speed add in the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated. Cover and chill the dough for at least 1 hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

4. Combine the sugar and spices for the coating in a bowl and mix to blend. Scoop up 1 heaping tablespoon of the dough and roll into a ball. Coat the dough ball in the sugar-spice mixture and place on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough to fill the sheets, spacing the dough balls 2 to 3 inches apart. Dip the bottom of a flat, heavy-bottomed drinking glass in water, then in the sugar-spice mixture, and use the bottom to flatten the dough balls slightly. Recoat the bottom of the glass in the sugar-spice mixture as needed.

5. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, or until just set and baked through. Let cool on the baking sheets for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Yields: 3 to 4 dozen cookies
Time: 2 hours
Leftover potential: Good; cookies will dry out after three or four days at room temperature, but they freeze fairly well.

OATMEAL BUTTERSCOTCH COOKIES

During my long ovenless purgatory, I kept wistfully bookmarking cookie recipes, and now that My!New!Oven! and I have gotten to know each other and are getting along like gangbusters, it’s time to start putting them to use. Cookies containing oatmeal are always my favorites (except for The Dreaded Oatmeal Raisin), and I’ve been hopelessly attracted to butterscotch chips in all their artificially flavored glory ever since I first encountered them them (in monster cookies) a few years ago, so the ubiquitous oatmeal butterscotch cookies (aka “oatmeal scotchies”) seemed like a no-brainer. I’d figured I’d just try the recipe on the Nestle Tollhouse butterscotch-chip bag (since I find their chocolate-chip cookie formula so hard to beat), until I stumbled across this one at Annie’s Eats. Annie attests that she has tried many oatmeal butterscotch cookie recipes and this one is the best, and how could I resist that?

This recipe varies from the traditional version by adding coconut and toffee bits, two other things I love. Combined with the always-on-the-verge-of-cloying butterscotch chips and the usual cookie ingredients, they conspire to make a very sweet cookie, although the oatmeal and cinnamon help to temper that somewhat. If you can get over the sugar high, however, the flavors are wonderful and the texture is perfect; the coconut adds tenderness and the toffee a bit of chew. I’d still like to try the standard recipe sometime just for the sake of comparison, but I’d definitely make these again.

This was my first time using toffee baking bits (I bought the Heath brand—the “Bits o’Brickle,” not the ones with chocolate), and I have to admit, they were pretty tasty. I’ve got some left over and am looking forward to trying them in another recipe.

1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1½ cups shredded coconut
1 cup butterscotch chips
½ cup toffee bits

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

2. In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir to blend, and set aside.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugars and beat on medium-high speed until light and smooth, about 2 to 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs until incorporated. Blend in the vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. With a spatula, fold in the oats, coconut, butterscotch chips, and toffee bits until evenly combined.

4. Drop scoops of dough (about 2 tablespoons each) onto the prepared baking sheets, a few inches apart. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until just set and light golden, rotating the pans halfway through baking. Let cool on the pans about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yields: About 4 dozen cookies
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good; freezes well.

TOASTED COCONUT CHOCOLATE CHUNK COOKIES

Toasting coconut before you put it in a cookie would not have occurred to me, but it’s a genius idea; not only do you get that toasty flavor but a unique crunchy-chewy-melt-in-your-mouth texture that’s totally different from the moist stringiness of regular coconut. And combining it with dark chocolate is even better.

That said, I didn’t adore these cookies quite as much as I expected to, considering that they incorporate one of my favorite flavor combinations and come so highly reviewed. First off, they seemed too sweet to me, what with the normal complement of brown sugar plus the sweetened coconut. I would not have expected excessive sugariness from Cooking Light, usually a model of restraint in such things, but none of the other reviewers mentioned that—in fact, several specifically said “not too sweet”—so I must be crazy in the minority (A didn’t agree with my assessment either, but then he’s probably never met anything he’d call too sweet). Still, I kept wondering what these would be like if I tried using unsweetened coconut instead.

Second, I could have used a little more chocolate (a few poor cookies hardly had any), but that’s no surprise for a CL recipe that’s aiming for moderation. And there’s an easy fix for that: If I make these again, I’ll try 6 ounces instead of 4.

There’s no easy fix for the fact that the texture of the dough itself is a little unusual, probably because it has about half the typical amount of butter, resulting in a cookie that’s on the crisp and crumbly side. This befits CL but may have contributed to my vague overall dissatisfaction with the recipe. Although I enjoyed the flavors of coconut and chocolate, the cookie base itself tasted one-dimensional to me, as though it was missing something; maybe that something was the savor of butter, and its lack was what left me with the impression of oversweetness.

All this is not to say that we didn’t thoroughly enjoy these cookies; A loved them and I happily scarfed down my share. I just thought they’d rock my world and they didn’t, quite, so I’m a little perplexed by them.

I’ve doubled the recipe, on the recommendation of many commenters; I feel like if I’m going to bother making cookies I’d might as well make a lot of them since they keep so nicely in the freezer (I actually prefer eating them frozen), and apparently CL made them really tiny, which I didn’t want to do. So this will give you about three dozen normal-sized cookies.

2 cups flaked, sweetened coconut
9 ounces all-purpose flour (about 2 cups, lightly spooned in and leveled with a knife)
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ cups packed brown sugar
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large eggs
4 ounces dark chocolate (70% cacao), chopped
Cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Arrange coconut in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake for 7 minutes or until lightly toasted, stirring once. Set aside to cool.

3. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl; stir with a whisk until blended.

4. Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Beat in vanilla and egg. Add flour mixture, beating at low speed just until combined. Stir in toasted coconut and chocolate.

5. Drop dough by rounded tablespoons 2 inches apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake for 10 minutes or until bottoms of cookies just begin to brown. Remove from pan, and cool completely on wire racks.

Yields: About 3 dozen
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Great; I liked them even better frozen.

CARAMEL CASHEW THUMBPRINTS

This photo was taken in their natural habitat, the Christmas Eve cookie tray, so the caramel has been slightly rumpled by interstate travel.

The problem (or “problem”) with having so many kickass favorite holiday treat recipes is that you have scant opportunity to try new ones, unless you want to add to your list every year until your Christmas baking becomes an unmanageable burden and your output far exceeds what your friends and family could possibly eat in an already sugar-laden season. This year I already knew I had to—had to!—make spritz, coconut-apricot cookies, peppermint bark, chocolate peanut-butter balls on pretzels, and rosemary roasted cashews, so I decided I only had room in my life for one experiment. I stumbled upon the ideal candidate early—my Delicious account, where I organize all potential new recipes, indicates that I bookmarked it on January 15, 2010—and the fact that it remained the frontrunner for nearly an entire year is in itself a testimonial to its worthiness. I found it while browsing a random food blog I don’t normally read, and it was from a cookbook (Cuisine at Home Holiday Baking) produced by a magazine I hadn’t even heard of. The blog didn’t reprint the recipe, so I had to Google it and track it down at another blog. That’s dedication! It just sounded like such a perfect showstopper Christmas cookie: not only did it combine two of my favorite things, cashews and caramel, but it was also complicated enough to merit special-occasion status. (I can’t help but get cranky when everyday cookies show up on holiday cookie trays. I love chocolate chip as much as the next girl, but in the tradition I was raised in, Christmas is the time to eat cherished cookies—by the plateful—that you only get once a year and yearn for during the next twelve months. [Sugar cookies are an exception, because although they can show up all year round, their holiday incarnations are festively shaped and decorated enough to still be special.])

No source I could locate specified the recipe’s yield, so I doubled it to be on the safe side and got about 4 dozen, which was perfect; it’s labor-intensive enough that while you’re at it, you’d might as well do a lot of it. The cookie ingredients are a little odd, in an awesome way; there’s only brown sugar and no baking soda or baking powder, providing a toothsome but subtle platform for the main attraction of salty cashews and sweet caramel. (In my opinion, the white chocolate’s function is mainly decorative, and if you wanted to skip it, I would look the other way, though it definitely kicks everything up a notch.) The process is definitely on the elaborate side, since most of the stuff goes on top of the cookies rather than in them, but none of the tasks were too exacting in themselves, so you don’t need to have a lot of special skillz other than good direction-following (though no doubt there are those who could make their chocolate drizzles look far more artful than mine). I did have a little trouble making the caramel-holding divots deep enough (they nearly disappeared during baking, and even straight from the oven the cookies resisted my remaking them), but I noticed that you can still get a fair amount of caramel into even a shallow depression; once you've laid down an initial layer and it's had time to cool for a minute or two and get tacky, you can pile another layer of caramel atop it, even higher than the level of the surrounding cookie. (I still had a little caramel mixture left over, though.)

And how did they taste? Well, my mother, although she might be biased, declared them “the cookie of the year” to anyone who would listen, and I received rave reviews from other eaters as well. I love them, too. There’s a reason the salty-sweet combo is uber-trendy right now: Because it is awesome. This is definitely going into my permanent holiday baking repertoire, which means that next Christmas, unless I forgo trying anything new or I temporarily retire one other favorite (a la the Disney “vault”), I’m just going to have to start my holiday baking before Thanksgiving. For cookies like these, it’s worth it.

1cup butter, softened
1⅓ cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
2⅔ cups flour
2 egg whites
2 teaspoons water
3 cups chopped roasted salted cashews
32 caramels, unwrapped
6 tablespoons heavy cream
6 ounces white chocolate
2 teaspoons shortening

1. In a mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, vanilla, and salt; beat on low until blended. Add flour and beat until combined. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for one hour.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment. Beat the egg white and water with a fork in a small bowl; set aside. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Roll the dough balls in the egg-white mixture and then in the chopped cashews. (For maximum cashew coverage and adhesion, I found that it helps to give the cashew-covered dough balls a gentle squeeze in your hand to press the nuts slightly into the dough.) Place the cookies on the baking sheets and make an indention in each cookie with your thumb. Bake cookies until the edges are set, about 12–13 minutes. (You may need to remake the indentations while the cookies are still warm.)

3. In a small saucepan, heat the caramels and heavy cream over low heat. Stir until the caramel melts and then remove from the heat. Spoon the warm caramel filling into the indentations. Allow to cool completely.

4. Heat the white chocolate and shortening in a bowl in the microwave until the chocolate melts. Drizzle over cookies and refrigerate until set.

Yields: About 4 dozen
Time: 3.5 hours (but that includes 1 hour chilling time and at least 30 minutes cooling time)
Leftover potential: Good; they freeze well.

HOMEMADE HOBNOBS

I visited England three times in the mid-to-late 1990s, and on the third trip, 13 years ago last week, I met A. I immediately introduced him to my favorite British food, Chocolate HobNobs, and during our three months studying abroad at the University of East Anglia, we consumed a great many of them. (I also think I ate a Cadbury bar every single day, alternating among the many exciting varieties only available in the U.K. Ah, for the halcyon era of my innocent young metabolism!) Since returning stateside, I’ve only been able to get my hands on HobNobs a few times, although (like the array of exotic Cadbury bars) they’re becoming more widely available here (I bought some at Cost Plus World Market last year). And, to be only slightly flippant, on those rare occasions when I do taste one, I am still reminded of those long-gone days of carefree adventure and young love.

We don’t celebrate our anniversary per se, except to casually remark its passing, but I bookmarked this copycat HobNob recipe at Cookie Madness forever ago and figured the start of our 14th year together would be a good excuse to give it a try. If you are unfortunate enough to have never tasted a HobNob, (a) my condolences; and (b) they're basically crisp oat cookies--er, biscuits--with chocolate on top (there are also plain ones, but I've never bothered with those). Sounds simple, but there's something in their crumbly texture and wheaty, not-overly-sweet, slightly salty flavor (and, in my opinion, its interplay with the sweet, creamy milk chocolate) that makes them incredibly addictive. Amazingly, the copycat recipe pretty much nails this.

I was a bit surprised the recipe worked out at all, considering how much I ended up messing with it. Usually I follow cookie recipes to the letter, because I know that precision is important in baking and I'm no great improviser. But having gotten all set to make these cookies, I realized that the entire recipe was structured around making the dough in a food processor, and I don't own a food processor. Feeling uncharacteristically cavalier, I decided to just wing it by rearranging the steps as in a standard cookie recipe--mixing the dry ingredients, creaming the butter with the sugar, adding the rest of the wet ingredients and then the dry ingredients--and making the dough with my KitchenAid mixer. I didn't have salted butter, so I used unsalted and added extra salt, and I didn't have whole wheat pastry flour, so I used white whole wheat (but made sure to weigh it out), and following the suggestion in the comments for the original recipe, I also added wheat germ to amp up the wheaty flavor. Then, I figured that since I was already flirting with disaster and I'm terrible at working with dough, I'd skip the laborious effort of rolling out the dough and cutting circles with a cookie cutter and just make drop cookies instead, rolling tablespoons of dough into balls with my hands and flattening them slightly on the cookie sheet to approximate HobNobs' neat circles (actually, I originally planned to shape the dough into a log, chill it, and then slice it into cookies, but I got lazy). Miraculously, even with all these changes, the cookies turned out deliciously, and just as HobNoblike as I could have hoped, down to the characteristic grainy texture (McVitie's calls it "nobbly," which is adorable), although since they contain butter instead of palm oil, they're more flaky than the sandy original--not entirely a bad thing. I'd have to do a side-by-side taste test to be sure, but the homemade version might even be better than the real thing. I'll definitely be making these again every September 8--or any time I have a craving for a little taste of nostalgia.


1¼ cups rolled oats (120 grams)
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (50 grams)
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour (50 grams) (I substituted white whole wheat, but if you do this, be sure to weigh out the 50 grams because the density is different)
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1–2 tablespoons toasted wheat germ
9 tablespoons butter, cut into small cubes
¼ cup packed brown sugar (50 grams)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar (25 grams)
2 teaspoons corn syrup
¼ teaspoon vanilla
4 ounces chocolate (I think Cadbury milk chocolate is perfect in this case, but if you prefer dark, you won't be totally inaccurate--there is also a dark chocolate HobNob variety now)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

2. Process oats in a food processor or blender until fine. Add to a medium bowl with both flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and wheat germ and whisk to mix.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or just a large bowl with a hand-held electric mixer), cream butter with both sugars. Add the corn syrup and vanilla and mix well, then reduce mixer speed to low and add dry ingredients in several additions, mixing just until blended (dough will look dry).

4. Scoop out 1 heaping tablespoon of dough, roll it into a smooth ball with your hands, set it on the baking sheet, and flatten it slightly with the palm of your hand. Repeat with remaining dough.

5. Bake for 12 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then remove to a cooling rack.

6. When cookies are completely cool, melt the chocolate in the microwave or over a double boiler. Spread melted chocolate over cookies. When the chocolate is partially set, you can drag a toothpick or fork through it to make a HobNob-like crosshatch pattern, if you like.

Yields: 12–14 cookies
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: I did not try freezing these, but they stayed pretty fresh in a sealed plastic container on the counter for nearly a week.

JAM COOKIES

If you’re like me and you enjoy making jam more than you like eating it, or if you know someone like me who persists in giving you homemade preserves for Christmas, this recipe is a perfect way to use up that assortment of little half-full jars in the back of your fridge. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that I could just stir jam into plain butter-cookie dough, but I’m so glad Joy the Baker thought of it and created this simple, delicious recipe that can easily be made with ingredients you’re likely to have on hand. I used strawberry jam and the cookies turned out a delicate, barely-there pink, flecked with bits of fruit. The strawberry flavor isn’t strong, maybe because I added almond extract (replacing the ground ginger of the original, since ginger is not my fave and almond most definitely is, and Joy suggested it in the comments so I’m not just flying blind here), but I’m not a devotee of fruity cookies, so I kind of liked that subtlety. You can bet I’ll be trying these in a rainbow of varieties—blueberry, peach, maybe pear or apple butter in the winter… These are certainly basic, everyday cookies (mine verged on downright homely, rescued only by the sparkly sugar coating), but for a non-chocolate dessert, I find them pretty dang exciting.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
⅔ cups sugar, plus ¼–½ cup extra for coating the cookies
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
¼ cup jam

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.

3. Working with a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy and smooth. Add ⅔ cup sugar and beat for 1 minute. Add the egg and beat for 2 minutes more. Add the milk, vanilla, and almond extract, and beat just to combine. Reduce the mixer speed to low, add the jam, and beat for 1 minute more. With the mixer still on low, add the dry ingredients and mix only until they are incorporated.

4. Fill a shallow bowl with sugar. Spoon a rounded teaspoon of the dough into the sugar, toss to coat, and remove to a baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough, leaving about an inch between cookies.

5. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point. The cookies will be only just firm, fairly pale, and browned around the edges. Remove the sheets from the oven and allow the cookies to rest for 1 minute, then carefully transfer them to racks to cool to room temperature.

Yields: About 5 dozen small cookies
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: High

MOM’S SPRITZ

I said that coconut-apricot cookies are my favorite holiday treat that I make, but I am a good Scandinavian, and there’s no doubt that spritz are my favorite cookies that my mom makes. It wouldn’t be Christmas without them.

A few years ago, A’s mother handed down her family’s cookie press to me, and I eagerly set about trying it. But I made one misstep: I decided to use Carole Walter’s spritz recipe from Great Cookies instead of my mom’s. Before you go pointing your fingers at me and hissing, “Ungrateful daughter! Ungrateful daughter!”, keep in mind that since I already knew my mom would be making her spritz for Christmas, there was no point in my making the exact same recipe; plus, it would be fun to try something new, and Walter’s recipes are always impeccable, so maybe it would even be a fancy improvement. But of course, even though there was nothing wrong with the recipe, it wasn’t the spritz I craved. It was more like your standard butter cookie. So I relearned my lesson: mother knows best.

Even though my mom takes care of the spritz-making for our family, I still make spritz every Christmas for my friends in California and for A’s family—I figure that since I’ve been entrusted with the family cookie press, I should repay the kindness in cookies, because no one (at least, no one Swedish) should have to endure a spritz-less holiday. And I stick with the old recipe. The thing that seems to make it unique among the recipes I’ve compared it to—Walter’s and the one in the Betty Crocker Cooky Book—is that it uses powdered sugar instead of regular granulated. Maybe that’s what gives it such a perfect tender texture. That’s the big attraction for me, along with the almond flavor.

I think spritz tend to be underrated. They’re a regular feature of the holiday cookie plate, at least in Minnesota, most of the time the emphasis tends to be on form rather than flavor. They’re just sugar cookies that have been colored and shaped. I made the mistake of bringing some in for my office’s holiday cookie exchange one year, and I had an embarrassing amount of leftovers. A convinced me that people have just been conditioned to expect bad spritz, so few people even tried mine. Or maybe I just love spritz more than the average person. Anyway, I now bring a sexier (usually chocolate-based) cookie to the exchange and save the spritz for myself and others who appreciate them. But if you think spritz are nothing special, do try these and see if they change your mind.

These are really easy to make. The dough is really basic, and dying it with food coloring and sprinkling colored sugar on top is technically optional, though I recommend it for the full just-like-mom’s experience. Using the cookie press is really the only thing that requires a little expertise, or at least finesse, and even that’s not complex—it’s basically just a grown-up version of that device that used to force the Play-Do into different shapes, like star-shaped ropes or spaghetti strands . I’ve heard that if you buy a good-quality new one, like Wilton’s, you don’t need to swear at it quite so much, but I sort of enjoy having to do a bit of wrangling. It makes me that much prouder of the finished product. And luckily, even the deformed spritz taste good. (Although I do recommend sticking to the larger, rounder shapes, like the wreath and the tree or holly leaf or whatever that triangular thing is—it helps keep the cookies from overbrowning.)

1 cup butter, softened
1¼ cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
2½ cups flour
⅛ teaspoon salt
Red and green food coloring
Granulated sugar or sanding sugar

1. Stir together the flour and the salt in a medium bowl.

2. Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and the sugar in a large bowl. Mix in the almond and vanilla extracts and the egg. Gradually add the dry ingredients and mix until blended.

3. Divide the dough in half and place each half in a separate bowl. Add a few drops of red food coloring to one bowl and a few drops of green to the other. Mix each one (I use my hands for this) until the color is distributed throughout, adding more coloring if necessary to achieve your desired hue.

4. Wrap each dough ball in plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.

5. Preheat the oven to 375 and remove dough from refrigerator.

6. Press dough through a cookie press onto ungreased baking sheets.

7. Put a spoonful or two of granulated or sanding sugar into each of two bowls. Put a few drops of red food coloring into one bowl and green food coloring into the other, and stir each bowl until the color is distributed throughout the sugar. Sprinkle a pinch of colored sugar atop each cookie.

8. Bake for 6–8 minutes until firm but not browned, being careful not to overbake.

Yield: Maybe 4 dozen?
Time: 1½ hours, plus 1 hour chilling time
Leftover potential: Good; these keep well in the freezer.

COCONUT-APRICOT COOKIES

Of all the treats I routinely make for Christmas, these may be my favorite—and they don’t even have chocolate in them. Almost every recipe I’ve tried from Carole Walter’s Great Cookies has been spectacular, but this is the most delicious and unique of the lot, and has earned an ardent following among those who’ve tasted the result.

It’s hard for me to detail what makes these cookies so fantastic without wanting to run to the kitchen and bake a batch for inspiration, but I’ll try to break it down for you from memory:

1. They’re a coconut lover’s dream—not only is coconut mixed into the dough and then rolled onto the outside of the cookies, but coconut extract also adds a megahit of flavor. They’re like coconut macaroons that have ascended to a higher plane.
2. Excellent use of apricots. I don’t especially like dried fruit in cookies, but the apricots taste great with the coconut and look so prettily stained-glass-like when the roll of dough is sliced.
3. The texture: moist, tender, buttery, and a little chewy inside, surrounded by a crisp shell of browned coconut.
4. The unusual egg yolk/milk wash that’s painted on the cookies just before baking gives them a sunny yellow color that makes me think of Easter.

Come to think of it, there’s nothing particularly Christmasy about these cookies; Christmas just happens to be the time when I’m in the mood to put a little more effort into my baking. And these do require more effort than your traditional drop cookie; you’ve got to divide the dough, roll it into logs, paint them with egg white, roll them in coconut, chill them, slice them, and then paint them with the egg yolk. But this technique is what makes them so special, and besides, having to chill the dough means you can divide the work over multiple days if you want to—I mixed it up and formed the logs one weekend, stuck them in the freezer, and then sliced and baked the next weekend.

1 10-ounce package sweetened, flaked coconut
2¼ cups all-purpose flour, spooned in and leveled
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (6 ounces) dried apricots, chopped into ⅛-inch pieces
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly firm
¾ cup sugar
1 large egg
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon coconut extract
1 large egg white
2 teaspoons water
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon half-and-half or milk

1. Place the coconut in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Pulse five or six times, then process until finely chopped. Set aside.

2. Strain together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Remove 2 tablespoons of the dry ingredients and toss with the apricots in a second small bowl. Set aside.

3. In the large bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter on medium-low speed. Pour in the sugar in a steady stream, and mix for 1 to 2 minutes. Add the egg and mix for 1 minute longer, scraping down the bowl as needed. Mix in the extracts.

4. Reduce the mixer speed to low and blend in 1¾ cups of coconut. Add the dry ingredients in 2 additions, mixing only to combine after each addition. Using a large rubber spatula, mix in the apricots.

5. Shape the dough into three logs, each measuring about 8 inches long and 1½ inches in diameter. Place the remaining coconut on a 15-inch sheet of wax paper. Whisk together the egg white and the water in a small bowl. Brush one log of dough with the egg wash, then place the log on the coconut, positioning it so that the length of the log is parallel to the short sides of the wax paper. Grasp each side of the wax paper, lift the paper off the counter, and, moving your hands up and down, roll the log to coat it with the coconut. Wrap the log in plastic, twisting the ends of the wrap tightly to secure. Repeat with the remaining two logs, and then refrigerate all three for at least 1 hour or until firm. (This dough will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or may be frozen for 1 month.)

6. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

7. Using a sharp knife with a thin blade, slice each log of dough into ⅜-inch-thick slices, turning the log every two or three cuts to maintain the shape, and place on ungreased baking sheets about 2 inches apart. If the dough tears when slicing, press it back together.

8. Using a fork, mix the egg yolk and the half-and-half or milk in a shallow bowl, then lightly brush the tops of the cookies with the glaze.

9. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges (to ensure even browning, rotate the baking sheets from top to bottom and back to front near the end of the baking time). Do not overbake. Remove from the oven and let stand for 1 minute before loosening with a thin metal spatula. Transfer to cooling racks.

Yields: 6 dozen 2-inch cookies
Time: 1¼ hours, plus 1 hour chilling
Leftover potential: High; can be frozen

CURRY COOKIES

Aaaaand…we’re back to cookies. Spice cookies (gingerbread, pfeffernusse, etc.) are traditional at Christmas, but I can never muster up much enthusiasm for them—especially when I could be having chocolate instead. Still, when planning my holiday assortment, I feel compelled to add the quintessential wintry flavors to the mix, and Carole Walter’s Madras Cookies (from Great Cookies) fit the bill perfectly. They’re festively redolent of spice and orange zest, but the curry powder defies the usual ginger/cinnamon hegemony, and coconut and almond—two tastes I find it hard to resist—play major supporting roles. The cookies have a complex flavor, but they’re still subtle enough to be crowd-pleasers. In other words, you don’t bite into them and say, “Oh, curry”; it just adds a certain je ne sais quoi. These are just basically just a spice cookie with a twist, but it’s a good one.

I won’t lie; Carole Walter is always a demanding mistress (I appreciate the careful specificity of her instructions, down to precisely how many minutes to run the stand mixer at each stage, but occasionally while making one of her recipes I find myself rolling my eyes at some of the hoops she wants me to jump through, even though I’m sure they do make the cookies better), and this recipe is a bit fussy, what with needing to toast the curry powder and grind the almonds and chop the coconut and everything, but I assure you that in this case, all the steps are important. I once substituted almond meal for grinding the almonds myself, and the cookies just weren’t the same—the nubbly texture I achieved in my wimpy mini food processor gave them so much more character. So put your trust in Carole.

2 teaspoons mild curry powder
2½ cups all-purpose flour, spooned in and leveled
1 cup plus about 50 (scant ½ cup) unblanched whole almonds, toasted
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly firm
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
⅔ cup granulated sugar
⅔ cup lightly packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut (Carole likes you to chop your coconut in a food processor ahead of time; I don’t always do this, but I admit that it does improve the texture of the cookies by eliminating long, troublesome strands)

1. Heat the curry powder in a small, heavy skillet over low heat for 15 to 30 seconds until fragrant. Set aside to cool.

2. Place the flour, 1 cup of almonds, toasted curry powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a food processor bowl fitted with the steel blade. Pulse 10 to 12 times, then process for 1 minute or until the mixture is finely chopped and cakey. Set aside.

3. In the large bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter and orange zest on medium-low speed until creamy and lightened in color. Add the granulated sugar in a steady stream, then add the brown sugar and mix for about 1 minute. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each, then add the vanilla, scraping the bowl as needed. Add the dry ingredients in three additions, mixing just until blended after each addition. Using a large wooden spoon, fold in the coconut.

4. Chill the dough for 20 to 30 minutes, or until firm enough to roll into balls.

5. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and moderately butter your baking sheets.

6. Roll the dough in the palms of your hands to form 1-inch balls and place about 2 inches part on the baking sheets. Gently press a whole almond into the center of each cookie. Using the heel of your hand, flatten the cookie into a 1½-inch disk.

7. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown (toward the end of the baking time, rotate the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back). Remove from oven and let stand 2 to 3 minutes before loosening with a thin metal spatula. Transfer to cooling racks.

Yields: 50 2-inch cookies
Time: 1½ hours, plus 30 minutes chilling
Leftover potential: High; can be frozen