An Exercise in Excess
please someone help me down from this sugar high
Do you need some cookies? Please come over, and bring your own tin or bag or bucket or whatever, we have SO. MANY. COOKIES.1
I mean, there is getting carried away and then there is riding a tsunami of slavish devotion to tradition and a compulsion to outdo oneself every damn year (what is that even about I am competing with myself?!).
Tradition may be the democracy of the dead but it does result in some pretty tasty treats. Here’s this year’s list:
Mirro cookie press green trees - I now have my mother’s actual press and the little leaflet with the recipe and you know what? Every time I make these and don’t overbake them I say to myself these are really very good. Also they are green so festive!
Serinakaker - as noted in past years, I don’t know who Serina is but her kaker are damn fine. This is a basic butter cookie so get the good stuff for godssake.
Pfeffernüsse (Classic German Baking) - more subtle than the name pepper cookie might suggest and they use baker’s ammonia for leavening which stinks to high heaven but is kind of cool to tell people about.
Marzipan Sugar Cookies - another Luisa Weiss recipe but not from CGB. A very fine cookie for rolling and cutting and decorating and if you are smart you will have Peter and Izzy do the decorating along with Patty who wields her sprinkles tweezers like the cookie decorating maestro that she is.
Rugelach Bars - there are always so many Rugelach left over and they don’t age particularly well so I figured I’d try this recipe instead this year. I thought they were kind of boring and not to be repeated, basically a streusel cookie with a chocolate-nutty filling but those discerning critics Charlotte and Izzy really liked them and I just had one for breakfast and it wasn’t half bad so maybe they have earned a spot in the rotation after all?
Neapolitan Checkerboards - so pretty! so tasty! so goddamn fiddly and don’t get me started on that dry strawberry dough! so sweary!
Biberle (CGB) - aka Justin Biberle aka Bibbidi Bobbidi Biberle aka Kibble aka Kibberle
Lebkuchen (CGB) - some would call this the King of the Christmas Cookies, with the status conferred by its quintessentially-Christmas spice mix, potash leavening agent, two-month-aged dough, and (annually ill-) tempered chocolate coating but I think it needs a more Teutonic honorific, like the Count or something. Particularly nice enjoyed with a whisky in front of the fire.
Gefüllte Orangentaler (CGB) - more almond paste, this time with candied orange peel and sandwiched with chocolate.
Vanillekipferl (CGB) aka Viennese Crescents aka Generic Ethnic Celebration Cookie - you know them, you love them, you get their powdered sugar all over your sweater.
Makronenschnitten (CGB) - these kind of blew my mind anew this year, they are just walnuts and egg whites and sugar with a moat of jam in the middle but my god are they good.
Sablés Kurova aka World Peace Cookies - purportedly because if everyone had one of these dark beauties we would not need to fight about anything ever again. Unless you are allergic to chocolate in which case, no peace for you. I think I forgot the sel this year and they were not the neatest but with that good a cookie who cares?
Baseler Brünsli - yet another member of the nuts/egg white/sugar brigade, this time with chocolate and cinnamon and ground clove. Possibly my favorite.
Whiskey Butter Tarts - because even the most lapsed of hockey families admire Canada and reminding us once again that their national anthem is better than ours.
Meringue Kisses - well so my grandmother made these, and then my dad, and so of course I do too. It is always a good moment when the oven opens to reveal their gorgeous white plumpity plumpness the next morning. Except for that time I burned them.
Not cookies but also this time of year there is the Boss of the Bakes, the Babka; and Cheese Straws which require puff pastry and the (traumatized) Baumkuchen and have I mentioned the palaver that is Rory’s Orange Batas?
Longtime listeners will know that I do not love Smitten Kitchen but goddamnit several things in my regular holiday rotation come from her. The Babka is her slight adaptation of Ottolenghi’s Krantz Cake and it too has accumulated a filigree of annual notes on the recipe itself. But it took going to cooking school to understand that it is ok if the dough looks like that and yes it really does knead in the mixer for at least 10 minutes and woe to you if you don’t soften the butter and so on. Seven years in I am rawther proud of them now.2
🚨NEW BAKE ALERT!🚨 I know I mentioned the Baumkuchen (CGB) last time but a little more on it now because baking gonna bake. This is a German (of course) cake that is traditionally made of thin layers of batter poured on a spit which makes a darker line for every layer and then when you cut it, it looks like a cross-section of a tree (baum, get it?) Then you put some apricot jam on and then chocolate and it is delicious. Not having a spit (you are shocked, I know) I used the broiler method from CGB but I must have missed the bit about making the layers smooth because my baum looked like it had been bashed about in a storm or something.
A bata is just a stick in Irish apparently and you could be forgiven for thinking that chocolate-dipped orange peel isn’t that big a deal, I mean, it’s not even a bake, why are you even including them here, lady? Because they are definitely holiday and they are definitely a palaver. And they require a very sharp knife.
You can catch a glimpse of bonus dog at the end of this action bit.
Honestly, the conditions under which I am forced to work.3
In Germany the call the Christmas cookie platter the bunter teller which means colorful plate and as you can see I interpret that with American excess.
A bit much, you say? You would be correct in that assessment. Thank goodness it’s over and we can all return to gruel and steamed kale.4
I started this edition about a week ago but rest assured there are still SO. MANY. COOKIES.
Here’s the play-by-play on the babka:
It’s a good thing home kitchens aren’t regulated.
hahaha no
Every year dear friends of ours turn their kitchen into one resembling yours except theirs is ONLY for baking ... and out of their kitchen come mounds of cookies and little holiday loaves of bread, and these are mailed to me (and others) out of this kitchen in North Carolina. I'm still overflowing with cookies after making quite a dent in the cookies over the holidays, when even in my usually non-cook kitchen we make Christmas cookies from my aunt's butter rich recipe. So butter rich that the dough can't be out of the refrigerator until we are ready to roll it. Love reading about cookies. Eating them. Well, I'm pretty much on hiatus right now.