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in which the author posts a recipe
My daughter loves Christmas, though she is a professed atheist. She likes the glitter and the smells and the cookies most of all. She likes the tree (which is decorated exclusively with secular type ornaments, including a rather raunchy santa for the top, with a sheep in his lap), and of course, presents.
Years ago I made dozens and dozens of different kinds of cookies for Christmas and gave them away to neighbors, but that is a social convention that doesn't seem to fly out here on Puget Sound. I tried it the first year and got that odd look, you know the one: wow, how nice but now I'm obliged and I'm not sure what to do about it.
Thus I cut way back on the cookie thing. To my daughter's distress. She wants three dozen kinds of cookies and homemade truffles and caramels and cakes. This is the daughter who is very tall and wears a size three, remember. She can get away with eating this stuff, and she has no pity on her matronly, rounded mother.
And of course I'm trying to finish this novel, too. If I had three dozen cookies sitting here, I'd eat them all in my push-to-finish-the-novel anxiety.
But tomorrow I will bake some cookies. After much negotiation and debate (the United Nations has nothing on this family when it comes to baked goods) we have settled on a compromise. The girl child picked two kinds of cookies (chocolate mint fingers and meringues), the mathematician husband picked two (hazelnut shortbread and browned butter shortbread), and I stuck with my favorite recipe, for this cookie, called Neopolitans.
I have made these cookies every Christmas since 1977, and I am fond of them. They are a Maida Heatter recipe from this out of print cookbook which is, believe me, much the worse for wear.
The cookies require two separate doughs, but it's well worth the effort. The yield is very large -- 70 cookies -- I usually bake half and leave the other half in the freezer until Christmas Eve. They also taste best if they've been left to age a day or two. This recipe requires one large loaf pan, two small loaf pans, or a square (8x8) cake pan with straight sides. I prefer the square pan. Whatever you use, you need to line the pans with aluminum foil or waxpaper so that you can lift the dough out after it freezes.
70 cookies
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon powdered cloves
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 lb unsalted butter
2 teaspoons instant coffee
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed (dark or light)
2 eggs
1 cup pignoli nuts
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 lb butter
1-2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 egg
3/4 cup golden raisins
1 lemon (the rind only, finely grated)
24 candied red cherries, cut into quarters
1/2 cup green pistachios (shelled, of course)
This dough chills overnight. On the day you're ready to bake, preheat oven to 400.
For the dark dough: sift together flour, salt, baking soda, cloves, and cinnamon and set aside.
Grind or cut chocolate until it is fine (otherwise it will be hard to slice the dough). Set aside.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, add the coffee and brown sugar and beat well.
Add the eggs and beat to mix. Beat in the ground chocolate.
On low speed gradually add the sifted dry ingredients, scraping the bowl regularly. Don't overblend! Then stir in the nuts. Set the dough aside (not in the fridge) and make the light dough.
Light dough: Sift together flour, salt, baking soda. Set aside.
In a large clean bowl of the electric mixer with clean beaters, cream the butter. Add the vanilla, the sugar, water and beat well. Add the egg, beat to mix. On low speed gradually add the shifted dry ingredients. Don't overmix.
Mix in the currents, lemon rind and cherries.
Layer dough in the pans: one half the dark dough (carefully pack down and smooth), all the light dough (do the same), then the rest of the dark dough. Press down to make a compact loaf.
Chill overnight (or for about twelve hours) in the freezer.
To bake: preheat to 400. You'll need unbuttered cookie sheets, lined with foil if possible.
Turn the pan over so that the cake of dough slides out, and peel off the foil or waxpaper.
With a long and heavy knife, cut the cake in half the long way (if you used loaf pans); if you used a square 8x8 pan, cut it in three equal strips. Work with one piece at a time (wrap and freeze the others).
Now slice the long piece you've got into individual cookies, about 1/3 of an inch thick. Place them 1 1/2 inches apart on the cookie sheets -- they will spread.
Bake 10 minutes, watching carefully. The white dough should be lightly browned, but the dark dough will burn if you're not careful.
My tip for these cookies:
Get a male into the kitchen and set him to prepping all the things that need to be chopped. Because that's the most time consuming part of these cookies and you know, men like to be useful. Really. Promise him anything, but give him a knife.These cookies taste better after they've aged a couple days in a air tight container. They are chewy, buttery, full of flavor.
Now I'm going to back writing.
December 17, 2005 06:46 PM
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Comments
Dang..they sound good!!
Posted by: Marg at December 17, 2005 07:11 PM
I think Christmas homemade cookies are great. Alas, I've never been a very successful cookie maker.
How did you like Brokeback Mountain?
Posted by: Jacqui at December 17, 2005 10:47 PM
I, too, love this Maida Heatter book, which I finally found on eBay. (Had been using recipes photocopied from it in late 80s, but the the cheap paper had begun to discolor with age.) I heartily recommend two other recipes in it: the Palm Beach Lemon Squares and the Cowboy Date Bars. (Speaking of the latter, yeah, do say what you thought of Brokeback. Were you able to see it? Did that whole excursion turn out okay?)
Posted by: sherryfair at December 18, 2005 06:19 AM
mmmmm Christmas cookies. One of my favorite parts of the holiday is all the great food.
*wishing you were my neighbor who would bring cookies over and I'd make the tea and we'd have a lovely break from writing*
Posted by: Danielle at December 18, 2005 08:49 AM
That's weird, this No Cookie Exchange Among Neighbors thing. That has always been a huge part of my Christmas life. Is it really a regional thing? Huh.
I just can't fathom anyone not being excited about free hom-baked cookies. Mind-boggling.
Posted by: Beth at December 18, 2005 06:45 PM