Cookie Making

Have you ever tried to make cookie dough while you are fasting?? Don’t do it, it is way too tempting, the butter and sugar combo, the nuts, and the chocolate. I actually think I like cookie dough better than the cooked cookie! After I popped about five filberts into my mouth early this morning, I woke up out of my cooking making stupor and realized, I am REALLY not eating today!! So now I sit, drinking a warm cup of roasted turkey broth waiting for the timer to go off indicating the need to take my first eight ounce glass of “turbo lax” as my husband calls it. I absolutely will NOT be sharing that experience with all of you!

For me, Christmas is about traditions and we have a few in the Taylor household. It is the way we decorate our house, light our tree, have thirty-five people plus for Christmas Eve/Birthday (yes, Geoff was born on my dad’s 65 birthday on Christmas Eve!), display our gifts, find our filled stocking Christmas morning and about making cookies, lots of cookies, like in the thousands. I think I started making cookies in 1978 and it is a tradition my family now WILL NOT let me stop.

The year we were in Barcelona I was absolutely not going to make cookies. Why??? I had no mixer, no cookie sheets, no food processors, no cooling racks, no space AND the sugar there is coarse, like decorating sugar. When my children realized I was not making cookies, I never announced it, they could just tell the activity was NOT happening in the kitchen, they begged. “Christmas will not be Christmas without Christmas cookies”, they said!! Being the good mother that I am, I rounded up an old hand mixer and a few cookie sheets and had my business partner break into my house back in the states to find and scan six or so of my recipes and yes, I made cookies in Barcelona. As we gave them as gifts to our neighbors and friends, I told them that this was an important tradition in the American household. You see, I was an ambassador for the American housewife in Barcelona!

I make anywhere from eight to twelve types of cookies per year. I have my standards that everyone demands but I always try a few new ones for fun. This year I am trying a different peanut butter cookie and a filbertine which I made today along with the almond crisps and ginger. I make my doughs in advance, usually making the recipe four times, and place them in my freezer until all the doughs are done. I then bake half of each dough, give them away and repeat the process for Christmas time. Friends have been known to ask me if I am mad at them, wondering why I have not given them their yearly Christmas cookie bag! My children are my elves during baking time and we pump out dozen upon dozen of cookies in a day. I then place the cookies in bags and freeze them until I am ready to give them out. I feel the richest when I have a freezer full of cookie bags!

I would love to share some of my cookie recipes with you, some of our all time favorites. If any of my friends have their favorite that you would like me to post, just let me know. Enjoy!!

Almond Crisps

This is my absolute favorite of the bunch. It is a thin, crispy bit of heaven. The key to that cookie is to press that dough thin-thin-thin on the cookie sheet. You then need to cook it slow and long in the oven until perfectly brown. THEN you must cut and take them off the cookie sheet as soon as they come out of the oven. It not, they will become hard and break. If that happens just pop it back into the oven for a few minutes to soften them back up. Now you know the secret!!

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg, separated
• 1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract
• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups sliced almonds

Cream butter and sugar in a standing mixer until well blended. Add yolk and extract; continue mixing until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Stir in flour in two batches. Shape dough into a rectangular log at least 2 inches high and chill at least 15 minutes. Slice off a ¼ inch slab of dough off the log and with the heel of your hand press it onto your cookie sheet. Continue until the entire sheet is filled with a thin layer of dough. Mix egg white and brush on top. Sprinkle with nuts and press lightly into the dough. Bake at 300 degrees for about 45 minutes or until evenly brown, turning the cookie sheet half way through. As soon as the cookies come off out of the oven, cut them into 2 inch squares and remove onto a cooling rack.

Coconut Snaps

This is my second favorite and my absolute favorite in its raw state! I got this recipe along with three other top listers in the 1983 version of Gourmet! I am not a big fan of sweetened coconut but in this cookie is works. Try it, I KNOW you will like it!

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
• 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/3 cup walnuts, lightly toasted and chopped
• 2 cups packaged shredded coconut (the sweetened kind)

Place the flour, soda and salt into a small bowl and whisk until well combined. In a large bowl with an electric mixer cream the butter, add the light brown sugar and beat the mixture for 2 minutes. Add the granulated sugar, beat the mixture for 1 minute and beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture in 2 batches, blending the mixture at low speed until it is just combined after each addition, stir in the walnuts and chill the dough for at least two hours.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Have ready in a wide bowl the coconut. Roll level teaspoons of dough into balls and roll the balls in the coconut, pressing the coconut into the ball. Arrange the balls 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper and bake them in the middle of a preheated oven for 18 to20 minutes, or until they are puffed and the coconut is lightly golden. Transfer the cookies to racks, let them cool, and store them in airtight containers. Makes about 110 cookies.