I know, twelve may seem, on the surface, a bit excessive. After all, we’re in downsizing mode due to the pandemic, celebrating the holidays in our self-contained safe bubbles…roasting turkey parts instead whole turkeys. I’ve never been one to hold back on my holiday baking, whether it be in a professional capacity as a pastry chef or privately at home. From Thanksgiving through Christmas my universe revolved around butter, sugar, flour, eggs, cream, fruit, nuts, chocolate, and sprinkles…lots and lots of sprinkles. This year is no different, despite the obvious challenges. I may not be baking for thousands this year, but I am determined uphold the tradition and spirit of holiday baking.
My Twelve Treats of Christmas (give or take a few) are downright modest compared to the actual “gifts” in the song The Twelve Days of Christmas–no pipers piping, geese a laying, nor maids a milking…though plenty of eggs and milk are used. It’s all about balance. Curating a set of delicious treats–both sweet and savory (though mostly sweet)–that hits all the flavor and textural notes, not to mention color palette. You have to have color–jewel tones mixed deep chocolate browns, snowy whites, sparkly sprinkles, and creamy ivory. It’s also about creatively honoring the classics and putting a tasty spin on the familiar.
So here we go…
Ugly Sweater Sugar Cookies – I began making these last year to give myself a much needed laugh. I guarantee you won’t be able to stop smiling biting into these. Instead of decorating the cookies with layers of the traditional royal icing, I prefer to use colored coating chocolate, which dries faster and, I think, tastes better. If you can’t get together with your friends for the annual Holiday Ugly Sweater party, sharing these are the next best thing!
Minty Chewy Brownie Cookies – This is sort of like a mash up between peppermint bark and a brownie…only in a cookie form. My friend Maria requested (before her doctor put the kibosh on her sugar consumption) something “peppermint barky” or with crunchy candy cane bits. You’ve got the classic chocolate peppermint chewy brownie cookie topped with white chocolate drizzle and crushed candy cane. Mission accomplished!
Pistachio Snowballs (aka Russian Teacake) – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I hate walnuts. I avoid using them as much as possible. Consequently, I always sub out the walnuts in the traditional Russian teacake recipe with more palatable nuts, like buttery cashews, hazelnuts, or in this case verdant green pistachios, which imparts a lovely hint of color to the cookie dough. The key to keeping the powdered sugar coating from attracting too much moisture and getting gummy is to roll the raw dough in superfine sugar before baking. This creates a protective barrier between the cookie and the powdered sugar.
Vanilla Thyme Blood Orange-Grapefruit Jammy Sammies – Sometimes an epic fail can inspire unexpected deliciousness. Such was the case with this cookie. I was trying to recreate a two-layer blood orange and pink grapefruit pate de fruit I saw online. Unfortunately neither layer set up as intended. I think it was a combination of using fresh juices (rather than the commercial product specified in the recipe) and not having the right ratio of sugar to acid to pectin, which plays a vital role in the gelling process. Instead of a firm set fruit confection, I had a quart of thick jewel-toned citrus jam. What to do with it? Well sandwiching it between two cookies was the obvious choice. Not so obvious was adding a bit of chopped fresh thyme to a basic vanilla butter cookie to elevate the flavor quotient by a factor of ten.
Matcha Melting Moments – Melting Moments are exactly what the name suggests–a cookie so buttery and delicate that they practically melt in your mouth. I make these once a year, during the holidays of course, usually flecked with vanilla bean and dipped, on one end, in dark chocolate. This year I decided to switch things up and flavor the cookie with matcha powder. Instead of dark chocolate, I dipped the cookie in white chocolate, which I think compliments the slightly bitter, grassy notes of the matcha better, and finished with a flourish of freeze-dried strawberry dust–very Japanesey.
Apricot Roasted Pineapple Pockets – This one is an oldie by goodie, pulled from the archive of favorites, dusted off and reimagined. My friend Irene and I made these years ago back in our hotel restaurant days. I created them for a cookie plate I think. Texturally reminiscent of rugelach, the cookies are flaky cream cheese pastry enveloping a slightly tangy roasted pineapple filling, perfumed with fresh rosemary, and sweetened with apricot preserves. The bite-size pastry pockets are finished with a yogurt-based white chocolate drizzle.
Mini Chess Pie Bites – Not one to make more work for myself I decided to repurpose the cream cheese dough from the previous cookie for another treat. Originally, I was going to make pecan tassies (or mini pecan pies)…that is before I realized I ran out of pecans. I did however have plenty of freeze-dried corn (weird I know but I use them to make fabulous corn cookies), which is the “secret” ingredient in Milk Bar’s “crack” pie filling, which is a variation of chess pie. Just didn’t feel “crack pie bites” sounded very festive. All you have to know is they are rich, buttery, and addictive. Enough said.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Honeycomb (aka better than Butterfinger) – I came across this on Josh Weissman’s YouTube channel and was intrigued. Like him I do like Butterfinger candy but only in small doses. The candy itself is really sweet and sticks to my teeth. The chocolate coating is meh. Chopped up and folded into peanut butter mousse pie or baked into peanut butter cookies it’s pretty great–like I said in small doses. Weissman’s recipe yields a much softer, creamier filing which is a huge improvement from the original. However, I like mine with a little more honeycomb and crunch of finely chopped peanuts. The sea salt on top is the game changer.
Gingerbread Men & Reindeer – No Christmas cookie box would be complete without these. The slightly soft texture yields to the bite. The sweet blend of spices and molasses warms your senses. Perfect with a cup of coffee…or tea…or hot cocoa.
Petite Yule Logs – When my friend Maria first suggested mini yule logs, I scoffed. Then my friend Karen brought up the idea too. Okay, maybe it was worth considering. I was already thinking about making Mini Battenbergs in festive holiday color combinations (see below). With petite size yule logs I could offer a set of 3 flavors, small enough give everyone a taste, something you’d never get to do under normal circumstances. You rarely see more than one flavor of yule log even at a large dessert buffet. Every year I’d make a buche de noel for the extended family Christmas dinner, usually filled with either chocolate mousse or rum chestnut creme, then make another dessert just for variety’s sake.
Each petite yule log can serve up to 4 people (if cut into smaller slices) and even more if each person gets a taster slice of the Chocolate Hazelnut, Maple Bourbon Pumpkin, and Eggnog (aka The Nog Log). And honestly, those mini meringue mushrooms are so damn stinkin’ cute!
Holiday Mini Battenbergs – I fell in love with Battenbergs when I was working on my blog post a few months back about the joys of English afternoon tea. The checkerboard design lends itself perfectly to bold holiday colors. If you love marzipan (and I make my own) wrapped cake, these are right up your alley.
Savory Fruit & Cheese Bickies – I featured these on last month’s bake sale menu. They were so popular I decided to offer them again. Pairing dried fruit with savory cheese–4 flavor combinations in fact– in a buttery shortbread-like biscuit (or as the Brits call “bickies”) is like creating a non-perishable, portable, snackable cheese board. It’s a nice respite from all the sweet holiday treats.
There you have it, my Twelve Treats of Christmas, which by no means are the only treats on the menu—there will be more to come. Let’s just say they are, at the very least, the “first” twelve.
If there is one recipe you need to make a variety of sweet and savory treats it’s Cream Cheese Pastry Dough. Super easy to put together in a food processor or stand mixer–I vote for the former. To make the Apricot Roasted Pineapple Pockets and Mini Chess Pie Bites I simply rolled out the dough to scant 1/8″ thickness, cutting out 2.5″ squares for the pockets and rounds for the mini pie shells. For a savoy treat, substitute shredded cheese and herbs or even a tiny chunk of brie for the fruit filling.
Cream Cheese Pastry Dough (adapted from Rose’s Christmas Cookies)
Yield: about 30 mini pies or 40 pockets
- 4 oz. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, chilled
- 1 c. all-purpose flour
- 1/4 t. salt
- 8 oz. cream cheese, cut into small pieces, chilled
- Combine cold butter, flour, and salt into the bowl of a food processor.
- Pulse at 5 second intervals to until butter and flour mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
- Add the cream cheese and continue intermittent pulsing until the dough comes together.
- Tip the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap, then wrap and flatten into a flat disk.
- Chill the dough for at least 1 hour before using.