Christmas Cookie of the Week - Angelettis

As I have noted previously, baking Christmas cookies was not a holiday tradition in my family. Because I’m not sure what is considered a Christmas cookie, I rely on lists such "Classic Christmas Cookies" or "Favorite Christmas Cookies" to guide me. Martha Stewart has several slide shows showcasing Christmas cookies on her site. While most of the cookies are familiar to me, a few are not.

I had never heard of Angelettis. The picture didn’t even seem attractive which I found surprising considering how meticulous Martha is (see below). A quick glance at the ingredients only pointed up two unusual ingredients, anise extract used in the cookies and lemon juice used in the icing. I decided to try them out to discover why Martha is so keen on them.

Like most Martha Stewart recipes, this one is very rich. It uses 6 eggs in the cookie batter and an entire box (16 ounces) of confectioners’ sugar in the icing. My only quibble with her is with the size of the bowl used to sift the dry ingredients into. Four cups of flour is a lot of four and requires a large bowl, not a medium bowl. Be very careful adding the dry ingredients to the liquid ingredients. They take a bit longer than usual to be incorporated into the liquid. Keep your mixer on low. Any faster and you should be prepared to be enveloped in a cloud of flour. The batter is very stiff, but scoops nicely into balls. I was surprised when they kept their shape instead of spreading out while baking. Fifteen minutes seemed long, but was exactly right.

Next up was the icing. Believe it or not, ¼ cup of lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of water will dissolve an entire pound of confectioners’ sugar. The result is rather tart. I was hesitant to use it on the cookies which tasted great on their own but I was glad I did. Once on the cookies, the lemon taste was not obvious. It added a little tang to an otherwise very sweet cookie.

It turns out that I know these cookies. I have eaten them in the past. I can’t remember when or where, just that they were really good. Now I’m glad to have the recipe and to add it to my cookie repertoire.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!





Angelettis(source: MarthaStewart.com) 

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
6 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla or anise extract
1 box (16 ounce) confectioners’ sugar
¼ cup lemon juice
Coarse sanding sugar, for decorating


Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. On medium speed, add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla; beat until is incorporated. With mixer on, gradually add four mixture; beat until dough comes together.

Scoop dough into tablespoon-size balls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or a nonstick baking mat. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, stir together confectioners’ sugar, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons water. Place wire rack over a rimmed baking sheet. Once cookies have cooled, top with icing. Sprinkle with sugar, and let stand until icing is firm.

Makes about 6 dozen.

Recycle: vanilla or anise extract bottle

Compost: eggshells

Christmas Cookie of the Week - Gingerbread Boys

I bought my Betty Crocker cookbook in 1980. It is the 1974 edition and showing its age. Not only are some of the ingredients outmoded, the names of some of the recipes are definitely non-PC. For instance, the recipe for gingerbread cookies is called "Gingerbread Boys".

Comparing this recipe to the one I made last year, really shows up its age. Shortening instead of butter, no egg versus 1 egg, ¾ teaspoon of salt (yikes!) compared to ¼ teaspoon, ungreased baking sheet versus greased baking sheet. Betty’s version was also more difficult to roll out. The dough is very sticky.

The cookies came out perfectly. When all was said and done, I have to admit that Betty won the taste test hands down. This is the way to make gingerbread boys (and girls).

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!



Gingerbread Boys(Source: Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, 1974 ed.)

½ cup shortening
½ cup sugar
½ cup dark molasses
¼ cup water
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour*
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon soda
¾ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
Raisins
Candied cherries or red gumdrops
Citron
String licorice
Decorators’ Icing


Cream shortening and sugar. Blend in molasses, water, flour, salt, soda, ginger, nutmeg and all-spice. Cover; chill 2 to 3 hours.

Heat oven to 375°. Roll dough ¼ inch thick on lightly floured cloth-covered board. Cut with gingerbread boy cutter; place on ungreased baking sheet.

Press raisins into dough for eyes, nose and buttons. Use bits of candied cherries and strips of citron and string licorice for other trims. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Immediately remove from baking sheet. Cool. Trim with Decorators’ Icing.

About fifteen 4-inch cookies.

*If using self-rising flour, omit salt and soda. If using quick-mixing flour, add 3 tablespoons milk.

Note: For crisper cookies, roll dough 1/8 inch thick. Bake 8 minutes. About 2 dozen cookies.

Recycle: molasses bottle

Christmas Cookie of the Week - Snickerdoodles

I started my holiday baking early this year because … does anyone really need a reason to start their holiday baking early? Maybe it’s because of all the pre-Thanksgiving Black Friday sales that it feels like the Christmas season is upon us.

Christmas cookie baking was not a tradition in my family, so I am unfamiliar with a lot of the traditional recipes. I saw this recipe on the Martha Stewart site last year, but ran out of time before I could try it out. So I bookmarked it for this year. I just liked the name.

I was kind of at loose ends this weekend, craving something sweet but feeling too lazy to bake anything complicated. Cookies came to mind, then Christmas cookies and Snickerdoodles popped up. It seemed like an easy and fun recipe to try.

A and I recently attended a cooking class sponsored by Taste of Home. One of the things I learned was that the difference between parchment paper and wax paper is that parchment paper has more paper than wax and wax paper has more wax than paper. I’ve been substituting wax paper for years because it’s what I have on hand. I’m more confident now in my substitution and didn’t hesitate to line my cookie sheets with wax paper rather than Martha’s recommended parchment paper.

She doesn’t say whether the butter should be softened or not, so relying on my years of baking experience, I softened the butter before using it. It didn’t affect the end result at all that I can tell.

Martha, perfectionist that she is, uses an ice cream scoop to form balls of dough. My ice cream scoop is like the ones used by “professional” ice cream scoopers rather than the round ones favored by Martha and her ilk. So I just used a spoon to scoop out small amounts of dough which I then hand rolled as I do for meatballs. Balls of batter are much more fragile than balls of meat, so they lost some of their shape, becoming a bit bumpy, when I rolled them in the cinnamon sugar. Fear not! They baked into attractive round cookies which did indeed spread quite a bit as they cooked.

I’m a much lazier cook than Martha, so I couldn’t be bothered with two baking sheets on different racks in the oven, rotating them halfway through their baking times. I baked my cookies one dozen at a time, one cookie sheet at a time in the middle of the oven and they came out perfectly.

As for the taste, well, that’s a little difficult because I’ve never tasted a Snickerdoodle before. I can say that I don’t care much for the taste of the cream of tartar and the amount of cinnamon needed to counteract that taste is too much. I felt like I had overdosed on cinnamon after eating only one cookie.

Verdict: Not bad, but I won’t be making this one again.




Snickerdoodles(source: MarthaStewart.com)


2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
½ cup pure vegetable shortening
1 ¾ cups sugar, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon, plus more if needed
2 large eggs


Preheat the oven to 400°F, with one rack in top third and one rack in bottom third of oven. Line baking sheets with Silpat baking mats or parchment paper; set aside.

Sift together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine butter, shortening, and 1 ½ cups sugar. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add eggs, and beat to combine. Add dry ingredients, and beat to combine.

In a small bowl, combine remaining ¼ cup sugar and the ground cinnamon. Use a small (1 ¼-ounce) ice-cream scoop to form balls of the dough, and roll in cinnamon sugar. Place about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the cookies are set in center and begin to crack (they will not brown), about 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheets after 5 minutes. Transfer the sheets to a wire rack to cool about 5 minutes before transferring the cookies to the rack. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

Makes 4 dozen.

Recycle: cream of tartar and cinnamon bottles

Compost: eggshells

Christmas Cookie of the Week: Pfeffernusen

For my final Christmas cookie recipe, I made a cookie that I remember from the Christmases of my childhood. Christmas cookies were not a part of our tradition except for Pfeffernuse. My father always bought a box and ate most of them himself. The rest of the family didn’t care for them. I never understood why he liked cookies that tasted just plain weird. I chalked it up to the powdered sugar. He liked powdered sugar doughnuts, so it made sense, sort of, that he liked cookies with powdered sugar.

Years later, when a relative was sharing family secrets with me, I got an inkling of why he liked pfeffernuse cookies. My father had a German grandmother. It’s not surprising that I never heard of her. My parents were born during the Great Depression and grew up during World War II when everything German was bad. People of German descent were suspect so families with any German connections concealed that fact from everyone.

Pfeffernuse cookies were most likely a holiday tradition during my father’s childhood prior to WWII. The taste of them years later probably brought back fond memories for him. In honor of the woman I never knew, I made pfeffernuse cookies for Christmas.

I chose a recipe from Martha Stewart. Her cookies are always so buttery. I was a little concerned because the batter was very wet but I was able to roll it into balls with a little effort. The cookies baked up perfectly. Shaking them in the powdered sugar was fun. The taste was . . . well, I don’t know how my father could stand eating those hard, stale-tasting little cookies for so many years. These were soft and flavorful. They will become part of my holiday tradition.

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!


Pfeffernussen(source: Martha Stewart Holiday Baking 2002)

1 ¼ cups confectioners’ sugar
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground allspice
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
¼ cup unsulfured molasses
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Place the confectioners’ sugar in a brown paper bag.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, pepper, cinnamon, allspice, nutmet, cloves, and baking soda. Set aside.

Place butter, brown sugar, and molasses in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Beat on medium until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture; beat until just combined. Pinch off dough in tablespoon amounts; roll into 1 ¼-inch balls. Arrange balls 1 ½ inches apart on prepared baking sheets. (Dough can be frozen at this point, covered tightly with plastic wrap, up to 1 month.)

Bake until cookies are golden and firm to the touch with slight crackng, about 15 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer sheets to a wire rack to cool slightly, about 10 minutes. Working in batches, place cookies in paper bag; shake until well coated. Let cool completely on wire rack. Store in an airtight container.

Makes 3 dozen

Recycle: molasses bottle, vanilla bottle

Compost: egg shells

Christmas Cookie of the Week: Bacardi Rum Balls

The record breaking Nor’Easter that buried New Jersey over the weekend threatened to disrupt my holiday baking schedule. After shoveling my driveway , especially the huge wall of snow the plow left at the end, and my walk and front porch so that the mail carrier could get through (gotta love online shopping – your packages come to you!), I had no desire to spend several hours in the kitchen baking cookies.

So I put aside the recipe I had planned to bake and instead made Bacardi Rum Balls, a no-bake option that I had originally planned on making the same weekend that I made the Peppermint Bark, another no-bake recipe. I had overscheduled myself that weekend and ended up putting the Rum Balls recipe aside. This weekend was the perfect opportunity to revisit it. Just grind up first the walnuts and then the vanilla wafers in the food processor (no liquid, no mess), stir in honey and rum, and then sit comfortably while making 1-inch balls and rolling them in confectioners’ sugar.

Except that’s not what happened. Grinding up walnuts and vanilla wafers was a breeze. It was when I added the honey and rum that things began to go terribly wrong. There is too much liquid in this recipe. I tried adding more vanilla wafer crumbs hoping that they would soak up some of the liquid, but to no avail. The result was too sticky to roll and too wet to hold its shape. It also soaked up all of the confectioners’ sugar on its surface.

They passed the taste test though. Yum! They are quite addictive. And after an afternoon of flinging snow around, I definitely needed a drink.

Verdict: Needs work


Bacardi Rum Balls(source: Bacardi Rum)

¼ cup Bacardi Gold rum
2 cups ground walnuts (from 2 ½ cups chopped walnuts)
1 ½ cups vanilla wafer crumbs
½ cup honey
Confectioners’ sugar

In a medium bowl, combine walnuts and wafer crumbs. Stir in Bacardi Gold and honey. Shape into 1-inch balls. Roll in confectioners’ sugar.

Store in tightly covered container.

Makes approximately 2 ½ dozen

Recycle: rum bottle, honey bottle

Christmas Cookie of the Week: Spritz

I cheated this week. I made a recipe that I’ve made before. Once. A long time ago. But nothing says Christmas like Spritz, so I got out the cookie press that has been gathering dust in the back of the cupboard and my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook and baked a batch of Spritz.

I chose the Betty Crocker recipe because I know that it works. I tried another Spritz recipe a few years ago that was a disaster. The problem was that it was too stiff. Comparing the two recipes, it was easy to see why. Betty uses significantly less flour and sugar. Fewer dry ingredients equals a wetter dough which is easier to push through the cookie press.

I was surprised at the saltiness of Betty’s dough. The salty taste is less noticeable after baking but still definitely there. I liked the taste of the other recipe better. Again, looking at both recipes, the reason was clear. Betty uses ½ teaspoon salt and salted butter. The other recipe uses unsalted butter and only a dash of salt. Hmmm . . . I see the beginnings of an OldRoses recipe, don’t you? A little experimentation with ingredients and I can probably come up with the perfect OldRoses’ Spritz recipe.

Using only ¼ of the dough at a time in the cookie press makes it easy to switch shapes. I made trees, wreaths, poinsettias and ornaments and decorated them with red and green sugars.

Verdict: Needs work


Spritz(source: Betty Crocker) 

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
½ cup sugar
2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract or vanilla

Heat oven to 400°F. Cream butter and sugar. Blend in remaining ingredients. Fill cookie press with ¼ dough at a time; from desired shapes on ungreased baking sheet. Bake 6 to 9 minutes until set but not brown.

About 5 dozen cookies

Recycle: almond extract or vanilla bottle

Compost: eggshells

Christmas Cookie of the Week: Peppermint Bark

This is a recipe that I bookmarked weeks ago. It seemed easy and fun. When I came up with the idea of “Christmas Cookie of the Week”, it was a perfect candidate.

It is indeed easy. So easy in fact that even I, as artistically challenged as I am, was able to swirl the red color attractively through the melted chips. My only quibble with this recipe is that ½ cup of crushed peppermints is too much. ¼ cup would be plenty.

Just for the record, 5 candy canes equals ½ cup. In case you were wondering. Leftover candy canes are hung on the Christmas tree. Recycling at its finest!

Verdict: Yum!! This one’s a keeper!!



Peppermint Bark(source: McCormick.com)

1 package (12 ounces) white chocolate chips
1 teaspoon peppermint extract (optional)
8 to 10 drops red food color or 8 to 10 drops green food color
½ cup crushed peppermint candies or candy canes

Microwave chocolate chips in large microwavable bowl on HIGH for 1 ½ to 2 minutes or until almost melted, stirring after 1 minute. Stir until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is smooth. Stir in peppermint extract, if desired.

Spread on large foil-lined baking sheet to ¼-inch thickness. Add food color, drop by drop, over mixture. Using a wooden skewer, swirl color through chocolate. Sprinkle with crushed candies, pressing lightly into chocolate with spatula.

Refrigerate about 10 minutes or until firm. Break into irregular pieces to serve. Store in covered container at cool room temperature or in refrigerator up to 5 days.

Recycle: peppermint extract bottle, food color bottle

Christmas Cookie of the Week: Gingerbread Cookies

Every year, December comes and goes as I attend to the holiday rush of parties, shopping and decorating while trying to keep to my usual schedule of trying one or two new recipes a week. Then January rolls around and I think to myself that I should have baked Christmas cookies. Baking Christmas cookies was not a tradition in my family so it’s not something that I associate with the holidays.

This year, I wanted to break out of my usual holiday routine and try some new things. Christmas cookies immediately came to mind. So please join me in my new tradition of Christmas Cookie of the Week. I will be trying out a new Christmas cookie recipe each week and sharing the results with you here.

My very first recipe is a time-honored one: gingerbread men. I had volunteered to make up a batch for an event at Rutgers Gardens. A long time ago, I had made the gingerbread men recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook. Last weekend, I decided to try the recipe from the bottle of Grandma’s Molasses. It uses cloves instead of allspice and butter instead of shortening which should result in a richer cookie.

The dough came together well and rolled very easily. My mistake with this recipe was greasing the cookie sheets. Not having any cooking spray on hand, I used shortening. I must have been a little heavy handed because the first batch of cookies spread out all over the cookie sheets. The second batch baked perfectly.

I didn’t decorate the cookies because they were to be decorated by attendees at the HollyDay event. They looked great, but were too soft for their intended use. I was also unhappy with the taste. Too spicy. More ginger snap than ginger cookie. I will go back to my trusty Betty Crocker recipe next year. Look for it in December 2010.

Verdict: Not bad, but I won’t be making these again




Gingerbread Cookies(source: Grandma’s Molasses bottle) 

8 tablespoon butter (1 stick)
½ cup sugar
½ cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves

Beat butter with sugar and molasses. Mix in egg. Sift dry ingredients and mix into wet mixture. Chill in freezer 1 hour or in refrigerator 2 hours. Heat oven to 350°F. Roll out portion of dough ¼” thick on lightly floured board. Chill remaining dough. Cut with cookie cutter, place on greased baking sheets and decorate with raisins, chips or nuts, if desired. Bake 8-10 minutes. Cool.

3 dozen

Recycle: molasses bottle

Compost: eggshells