Cookies, Cookies, and More Cookies

I learned to make cookies alongside my mother, long before I learned to cook anything else. In a drawer in our kitchen she kept a pile of recipes written on index cards, scraps of paper, the backs of envelopes, in no particular order, but it was easy to find the cookie recipes by the butter stains and the sugary feel. In 1963, Betty Crocker’s Cooky Book came out, and Mom and I baked our way through it. I still have the book, and you can tell which cookies we liked best by stains on the pages and penciled notes in her handwriting and mine ("add more ginger," "chill first," and so on).

To make this year’s cookie baking flow as smoothly as buttercream icing, here are a few tips gleaned from making innumerable batches of cookies, plus some trusted recipes. May your holidays be as sweet as sugar, as rich as chocolate truffles, as tender as a snowflake cut-out.

Ten Tips for Cookie Success
1. Dough for drop, molded, and rolled cookies is always easier to handle if it is cold. It takes about an hour in the refrigerator for a 4-cup batch of dough to firm up (less if you subdivide the dough). If dough still seems too sticky to work with, be a miser with any additional flour, as excessive flour makes cookies hard and dry.

2. If you don’t have a lot of time (I assume this applies to all of us), try this strategy: Pick out about 4 different recipes that you’d like to make and make a shopping list so you can acquire all of the ingredients at one time. A day or two (or three) before you want to bake, allot about an hour to mix the batches of dough, putting each into a ziplock bag in the refrigerator. On baking day, take out each batch of dough about /12 hour before shaping the cookies. Separating the mixing from the baking makes it easier to fit cookie baking into a busy schedule.

3. It is rarely necessary to grease a baking sheet, since so many have nonstick surfaces. If your cookies are sticking, apply a light spritz of nonstick spray. Do not grease cookie sheets with butter or vegetable oil.

4. To prevent cookies from burning on the bottom, use an insulated baking sheet or stack two same-size cookie sheets together.

5. Cookies are sensitive to temperature. Too low, and they will melt and lose their shape; too high, and they will burn. If you suspect your oven is flaky, get a second opinion by using an inexpensive oven thermometer to see if 350°F on your oven gauge is 350°F on the thermometer, and adjust as needed.

6. You can freeze cut-out cookies and decorate them later. Place baked, cooled cookies on a baking sheet and put the sheet in the freezer until cookies are frozen, about an hour. Quickly transfer the frozen cookies to ziplock bags or other freezer containers so you can use the baking sheet to make more cookies.

7. Let frosted cookies dry on racks until the frosting hardens enough so that layers of cookies will not stick together. To store in tins or plastic containers, layer them no more than four deep, with waxed paper between the layers.

8. If you are mailing cookies as gifts, pack them into rigid containers, filling any corners with crumpled waxed paper. Bar cookies travel best because they can be packed nearly solidly. When you shake the container (as the post office or UPS is bound to do), nothing should move.

9. Tough cookies are great in gangster films, but not on a holiday buffet table. When rolling out cookie dough, use the least amount of extra flour you can and work the dough as little as possible. The thinner the dough, the more crisp the baked cookie will be. Dip cookie cutters lightly into flour between cuts to prevent sticking.

10. Your cookies will only be as good as your ingredients, and this is no time to skimp. Use real butter, fresh nuts and spices, high-quality baking chocolate. And have fun — if you have someone under the age of 10 to help you, you are extra blessed!

Sometimes spelled rugalah or rogelach, these rolled crescent cookies are a tradition for Hanukkah. Fillings can be varied to include poppy-seed paste, apricot jam, tiny chocolate chips, or finely chopped fruit; sometimes the pastry is made from yeast dough or rich sour-cream dough. We love this version, which is made with cream-cheese dough, which is easy to handle. Adapted from The Wellesley Cookie Exchange Cookbook. (out of print, but available on CD).

Holiday Cookie Recipes

8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
2 cups flour
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup finely chopped walnuts
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Combine cream cheese, 1/2 cup butter, and flour until smooth. Chill, covered, to make dough firm. Roll out about 1/3 of the dough on a floured board to make a circle. Brush with 1 tablespoon of the melted butter. Combine walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon in a small bowl and sprinkle 1/3 of the mixture over the circle of dough. Cut the circle into 12 pie-shaped pieces; roll up each piece, starting with the outer edge so that the point is on the outside. Place on ungreased cookie sheets and repeat with remaining dough.

Heat oven to 350°F and bake cookies for 10 to 15 minutes, until lightly browned. Makes 36.

These cookies are so rich and buttery they almost literally melt in your mouth. They are best made using a cookie press. You can tint the batter if you prefer, or press colored sugar crystals into the tops as soon as they come out of the oven. Adapted from a recipe called Bev’s Shortbread in Golde's Homemade Cookies: A Treasured... by Golde Hoffman Soloway.

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
2 to 3 drops red or green food coloring (optional)

Cream all ingredients together in a bowl, or combine in a food processor until well blended. Fill a cookie press and squeeze cookies out onto greased cookie sheets, using a variety of different shapes and designs. Heat oven to 375°F. Bake cookies for 8 to 10 minutes — they will be pale on top, golden on the bottom. Remove carefully to racks and let cool. Makes about 3 dozen.

My mother made these cookies nearly every Christmas. She always strove to make 10 different kinds of cookies to have on hand "in case anyone drops in" (which happened a lot, since everyone knew she’d have 10 different kinds of cookies to offer!). Adapted from The Wellesley Cookie Exchange Cookbook.

1 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup finely chopped pecans
confectioners sugar for rolling

Cream butter and 1/2 cup confectioners sugar. Add vanilla and beat well. Stir in flour, salt, and chopped pecans. Mix well, and chill dough if necessary for handling. Heat oven to 350°F. Shape dough in small balls and bake on ungreased cookie sheets for about 15 minutes. Cookies will still be pale, but will hold their shape. Remove from pan, let cool for about 2 minutes, then roll carefully in confectioners sugar. Let cool completely. Dust with additional confectioners sugar before serving. Makes 3 to 4 dozen, depending on size.

Cream butter and sugar; add vanilla and egg yolk and beat until fluffy. Stir in flour. Gather dough into a ball, wrap in plastic, and chill for at least 2 hours. Roll level teaspoonfuls of dough into balls. Dip balls in lightly beaten egg white, then roll balls in almonds. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet 1" apart. Make an indentation in each ball with your finger or a thimble, and fill with raspberry jelly. Bake at 300°F for 20 minute, until golden. Cool on a wire rack. Makes about 2 dozen.

Icing:
1 cup sifted confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or brandy

Whisk the flour, baking soda, and spices together in a mixing bowl and set aside. Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan with the brown sugar, molasses, and vinegar, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Stir this mixture into the flour mixture, then add the egg yolk and stir until the dough is well blended. The dough will be sticky. Cool the dough to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate overnight.

Heat oven to 350°F. Divide dough in half. Place one portion on a lightly floured surface and roll out to about 1/8" thickness. With floured cookie cutters, cut out stars and other shapes. Use a spatula to place cookies on a greased baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough and reroll the scraps. If the dough becomes too soft, chill briefly.

Bake until set and dry to the touch, about 7 or 8 minutes. Don’t overbake — the cookies are thin and can scorch. Cool on a wire rack.

Whisk the icing ingredients together until smooth. Brush the cooled cookies with the icing and let stand until the icing is set. Makes about 4 dozen small cookies.

In a medium bowl, with electric mixer at medium speed, beat sugar, cocoa, butter, and liqueur until smooth. Chill for 1 hour. Shape into 1" balls and roll in additional cocoa. Store refrigerated in a covered container. Makes 2 dozen truffles.

The Last Bite

A Good Cup of Coffee to Go With All Those Cookies

With more than 400 billion cups consumed every year, coffee is the world’s most popular beverage (after water). In terms of its international trade value, coffee ranks second only to petroleum, with about $10.4 billion in exports in 2000. In the U.S., 52 percent of adults drink coffee every day, averaging 3.3 nine-ounce cups each.

What is a good cup of coffee? According to Scientific American, the best-tasting coffee is Coffea arabica, which originated in the Ethiopian highlands and now accounts for two-thirds of world production. The aroma of coffee brewed from high-quality, properly roasted arabica beans "has an intense, intricate aroma that can be reminiscent of flowers, fruit, honey, chocolate, caramel, or toasted bread." Coffee aromas that have been put through a gas chromatograph reveal the smells of roses, Darjeeling tea, vanilla, violets, truffles, soup, cheese, and sweat.
Consider the long lineage of coffee, reaching back to more than 3000 years ago in Ethiopia, where nomads needing a pick-me-up ate crushed coffee beans mixed with fat and shaped into golf-ball-size portions. Popular in the Arab world from about 600 A.D. on, coffee was one of many exotic new flavors introduced to Europe centuries later as trade routes developed. The Dutch brought seedlings to Java and Ceylon, the French to Martinique, the Portuguese to Brazil.

So the next time you brew up some coffee to go with that beautiful plate of cookies you just baked, stop for a second and think about the complexity of the drink you created. Do you detect the vanilla and the violets? Perhaps the cheese? Take time to smell the roses, too. And it’s OK to dunk your cookies while you consider your coffee.

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