My Holiday Cookie Boxes
and recipes for soft ginger cookies and chai palmiers
I spent this week baking cookies for my friends and neighbors. As someone who’s strength is definitely not striking up conversation with strangers, being “neighborly” pushes me a little bit out of my comfort zone. Having a box of goodies to hide behind can give me a little oomph of confidence and we had so much fun dropping by our neighbors’ houses this week and delivering them boxes of sweets.
This year’s cookie boxes featured a lot more “low effort” cookies—aka I was not planning on rolling and cutting dough and/or making royal icing. Marco is not quite old enough to decorate cookies and has found his sweet spot in helping me in the kitchen in pouring measuring spoons of dry ingredients into bowls, cracking eggs, and yelling “Marco taste” over and over again until he does eventually get to taste whatever we’re making. It was a bit more chaotic than in years past, but also a little more fun.
So without further ado, here is the line-up for this year’s cookie boxes…
Ginger Molasses Cookies, tweaked from one of my old blog recipes, new recipe included below)
Bitter Nib Shortbread, from Wild Sweetness by Thalia Ho
Chocolate Peanut Butter No-Bake Cookies, adapted from a splattered page in our family cookbook
Butterscotch Crispy Treats, from Eric at Easy Gay Oven
Fig and Rosemary Thumbprint Cookies, adapted from Erin at Cloudy Kitchen
Biscotti with Cranberry, Orange, and Hazelnut, adapted from my recipe (on the blog)
Chai Palmiers, a very loose no-recipe recipe included below
Also, I want to hear about your cookie boxes! What holiday cookies are you making and loving this year?
ginger molasses cookies
makes 32-36 small cookies
Ingredients:
226 g (1 cup) unsalted butter, slightly softened
200 g (1 cup) brown sugar
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
2 eggs, room temperature
85 g (1/4 cup) molasses
400 g (3 1/4 cup) all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp cardamom
3/4 tsp ground cloves
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
granulated sugar, for rolling
Procedure:
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cardamom, and cloves. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar, and grated ginger until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add eggs one at a time, mixing until homogenized before adding the next. Mix in molasses and vanilla extract, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
With the mixer on low speed, gradually add dry ingredients, mixing until just combined and no flour streaks remain. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.
When ready to bake: preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Portion the dough using a small cookie scoop, and gently roll each ball in granulated sugar to coat before arranging on your prepared baking sheet. Leave about 2” of space between cookies. Bake for 10-11 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are just beginning to brown and the tops of the cookies are no longer wet. Let cookies cool on pan for at least 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
a very loose how-to guide to chai palmiers
Palmiers, also called elephant ears, are simple French cookies made traditionally with only two ingredients—puff pastry and sugar. For this recipe, I added my chai spice blend to the sugar for a warming, holiday vibe.
Here’s how I made them: I had about 2 tbsp of chai spice blend in a container in my spice cabinet. To that, I added about 1/2 cup of granulated sugar and I shook the container well to combine. I laid a piece of parchment paper on my work surface and spread about 2 tbsp of the chai sugar in an even layer on the parchment paper. I then rolled out one sheet of very cold store-bought puff pastry over the sugared parchment paper and sprinkled another 2 tbsp or so of the chai sugar over the surface of the puff pastry. I gave a few, very gentle passes with a rolling pin just to help the sugar adhere to the pastry. Then, working from either side, I began folding the edges of the puff pastry in towards each other in pieces about an inch wide until they met in the center. (This Food Network recipe has a video of Ina Garten showing this process that may help you visualize the folding, skip ahead to 1 minute in.)
I wrapped my folded log in plastic wrap and popped it in the fridge for a bit, about an hour. When I was ready to bake, I preheated the oven to 450° F and lined a baking sheet with parchment paper. I used a super sharp knife to cut slices about 1/2” thick and then arranged the cookies on the baking sheet. I baked them for about 15 minutes total, checking them frequently and flipping them partway through until both sides were deeply golden brown.
