The holiday baking edition 🤗
Cardamom-rose snowball cookies, an Italian fruitcake and more.
Rosewater cardamom snowball cookies
Recipe from myself!
Immediately after my story was finally published, I went straight to the kitchen and emerged about four days later, covered in powdered sugar and flour and the scent of cardamom and roses. Not a bad way to de-stress, although by the sixth dozen batch of these cookies I had to pull the plug on the operation, lest I drown in butter. But you can pick up where I left off, by making these super rich, buttery cookies coated with a thick layer of snowy sugar, a little spin on a holiday classic. Here’s how: Line two cookie sheets with parchment. In a large bowl, beat two sticks of softened, salted butter (I always use salted butter, and a high quality one makes a big difference) with ½ cup of powdered sugar. Add ½ tsp ground cardamom, 1 tsp rosewater, and 1 cup finely chopped (using a food processor or some good knifework) freshly toasted walnuts. Beat in 2 cups of all purpose flour, just to combine. Shape dough into small balls and place 1½ inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Chill for about 20-30 minutes (or more), and preheat oven when ready to bake. Bake 12-15 minutes, or until very lightly browned. You don’t want to overbake it, as it will lose some of the tenderness. Let cookies cool for five minutes, or until warm but not piping hot, and roll them individually in a bowl of powdered sugar.
These cookies make great gifts! They are delicate but also easily transportable. I put them in empty, cleaned tea tins and decorated them for holiday gift exchange.
Tartine’s Panforte with candied quince pear
Recipe form the Wednesday Chef
Panforte means “strong bread” in Italian, and this cake isn’t messing around — you could definitely bludgeon someone with it. It’s h e f t y, packed full of fruits and nuts. It’s also a luxury recipe, requiring your time, attention, and advance planning. You’ll have to track down some fresh quince (we couldn’t, so my co-baker just candied pears instead), candy your own fruit ahead of time, and grate fresh nutmeg. Any other time of the year, it’d be a nuisance, but for the holidays, it’s the perfect project to spend some quality time with your favorite people.
Thank you to my friend Hannah for inviting me to make this holiday treat, for sourcing all the ingredients, and candying all the fruits <3
Chocolate chip raspberry crumb bars
Recipe from Nestlé
These cookies are the exact opposite of the cardamom snowball cookies. They’re overstated people-pleasers, kid-friendly and good with crowds. A buttery shortbread base is topped with a thick layer of chocolate fudge, followed by cookie crumbles, walnuts, and dollops of raspberry jam. They’re showstoppers that are a snap to make, the perfect thing for holiday parties, and as addictive as fudge brownies. A few recipe notes: Definitely line your baking pan with parchment paper or greased foil; the filling is very sticky. While the cookies are warm, score them, and let them cool completely in place. Once it’s cool, lift the whole thing out and then slice into bars. They will firm up nicely once chilled, but note that they’re not great for gift-giving in cookie boxes, the jam will remain sticky. It’s better to invite people over for this one, or bring a tray to the office. Try the recipe here.
Frozen mini croissants from Trader Joe’s
Available at your local Trader Joe’s
People have probably written tomes on what makes a good croissant, what the best croissant in New York is, how many flaky layers a croissant should have, etc. but let me let you in on a little secret: A freshly baked croissant, no matter who made it, is almost always heaps better than one that’s sat on a shelf for even a few hours. This is why I recommend all households have a pack of these mini frozen croissants in the freezer, ready to bake at a moment’s notice. The best thing is that you can bake as many (or as few) as you desire; and in 30 minutes you’ll have the butteriest little snack ready for consumption, no mixing bowl needed.
Raspberry Rose Rugelach from the New York Times
Recipe from NYT Cooking
This recipe looks deceptively simple and charming but it is not. You need to sprinkle rosewater onto a bowl of sugar and leave it overnight like you’re some kind of goddamn cookie fairy. In the morning, the recipe will tell you to delicately “rub between fingers” but in reality the whole thing will be a calcified clump of sugar, akin to a tabletop model of a mountain range at a nature museum. Meanwhile, you will have used all your butter and some forbidden dairy (cream cheese) to make a dough that refuses to be rolled out and sticks to goddamn everything (nevermind that I used an empty bottle of rum to roll it out; what millennial has a rolling pin?). Reader, I brought that chunk of dough to my friend’s house, hoping we’d have a quaint rugelach-making party and then when that failed I brought that chunk of dough back home with me and then I canceled my morning plans to try to tackle it head-on and you know what, then I threw it in the trash. This recipe has too many steps and requires too much rolling for me, but if you are a more patient and experienced wrestler of sticky dough than I, I will happily accept offerings of rugelach.
Happy holidays!
Soph