Thank you so much for reminding me of that wonderful recipe. Now is cookie season and I like to pull out the old favorites!
Your cookies look wonderful!
I wanted to find a “new old favorite” and this looks like it!
Three favorites for the holidays – or any time. 
Scottish Shortbread Cookies (Very authentic!)
Ingredients:
6oz Plain flour
4oz Soft butter
2oz caster (granulated) sugar
1 oz cornflour (cornstarch)
Method:
Mix the butter and sugar together (preferably with a wooden spoon) until it is pale and creamy. Sieve both the flour and the cornflour into the bowl and mix well. Put a small amount of flour on your working surface and place the dough on this. Shake a little flour on top and roll out about quarter inch thick. Prick with a fork and cut into rounds with a cutter or, if you want one large shortbread round, pinch the edges with thumb and finger all round.
Use a palette knife to lift the shortbread onto an oiled baking tray and bake for 25 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 325F/170C/Gas Mark 3. If the biscuits are ready, they will be pale brown and crisp; if not, return to the oven for 5 or 10 minutes. Shake a small amount of caster/granulated sugar on the top of the shortbread immediately after they have been removed from the oven. Use a palette knife to move them to a cooling rack and store in an airtight tin once they are cold.
(No pic of these, I’m afraid.)
Nichols’ Super Ginger Cookies
Easy to make, the dough can be frozen and pulled out as needed. Use unsalted butter for a crisp cookie. Nichols offer the spices listed below and they recommend the Bakers Cut Ginger, so easy to handle and the Vietnamese Cinnamon is rich in flavor. I tend to usually not use cloves but they belong on this cookie. Grating a cold cube of butter is a quick solution when butter is cold from the refrigerator.
Oven temperature 350 degrees
Form into 1″ balls
Bake 12 minutes
Cover cookie sheet with parchment paper and leave cookies on sheet for three minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
Makes two to three dozen cookies depending on size.
With a 1″ ball I get 30 cookies.
2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon Vietnamese/Saigon Cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves, ground
¾ teaspoon salt
¾ cup Bakers Cut Ginger or minced crystallized ginger
1 teaspoon pressed minced fresh ginger juice
1 cup light brown sugar
¾ cup unsalted butter (softened or grated)
1 egg
¼ cup unsulphured molasses
Sift first six ingredients and set aside. Place remaining ingredients in a mixing bowl, turn to medium low speed and when ingredients are well combined add flour mix one cup at a time and only mix until it develops a dough like consistency. Place dough in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Remove and follow instructions above. These cookies spread so don’t place closely together.
Sprinkle with decorative sugar if desired.
*The ginger juice will be about 1/2 teaspoon and can be pressed through a very clean garlic press. If frozen and thawed before pressing, it is quite easy.
These aren’t strictly holiday, but I make them every year, together with English toffee, for my postie, Fed Ex and UPS persons. They give me awesome service, so I presume they’re appreciated. I know I love them!
Coconut Almond Biscotti
Ingredients:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. grated nutmeg
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. coconut extract
1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup whole almonds, lightly toasted
3 oz. dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, mix together the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the sugar, eggs, vanilla and coconut extracts.
Beat on medium-low speed until thick and smooth, about 2 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in the flaked coconut with a large spatula.
Turn the dough out onto the parchment-lined baking sheet. Divide into two equal segments and form each into a flatish log 1-inch deep, and approximately 4 inches wide. (Be sure to leave room between the logs as they will spread during baking.)
Bake for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Using a serrated knife, cut the logs diagonally into 14-20 slices, depending on thickness. Lay the slices on their sides on the baking sheet and bake for 15* minutes. Flip the slices over and bake for 15 minutes more.
Place the chocolate chips into a heatproof bowl. Microwave in 20 second intervals, stirring in between, until just melted. Using an offset spatula, spread chocolate on one side of the biscotti and allow to cool until the chocolate is set.
*If you like your biscotti softer, reduce second and third baking times by 5 minutes each.
I used to make biscotti at the cafe. I did two kinds, one with chocolate chips, and one spiced.
I love biscotti and have quite a few recipes for them: Pumpkin, almond, ginger almond, cinnamon hazelnut and double chocolate, to name a few. But the coconut ones are especially fantastic and received by friends with enthusiasm.
I’ll bet your chocolate chip and spiced recipes are wonderful, too. I’d love your spiced recipe if you care to share. I’d like to play around with it and see if it would be good with dried cranberries added.
I’ll look it up, as I love sharing recipes. Some of the items from the cafe I couldn’t share because they belonged to my boss. But a number of recipes I ended up using were ones I found online, like the biscotti. And the scones. And the mulberry pie. And the grape pie. Also the molasses cookies. many others.
Ooh, ginger biscotti… I’d love that recipe, if you have time to write it out, or link.
Of course! Here you go:
Ginger Almond Biscotti
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 3 large eggs
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon and nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon each ground cloves and all spice
- 1/4 cup minced fresh ginger
- 1 cup blanched almonds (okay to use just raw almonds)
Method
Bake almonds 10 minutes at 350°F, let cool, then roughly chop.
Cream sugar, molasses and butter. Add eggs, mix in one at a time. Add minced ginger.
Mix flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and all spice. Add flour mix into butter and eggs mix, one third at a time. Add almonds. At this point it is helpful to refrigerate dough for several hours to make it easier to form into logs.
Turn out onto a well-floured board, and divide into two portions. With floured hands, shape into logs about 9-11 inches long, 2 inches wide and 1/2 inch high, and transfer to a greased and floured baking sheet. Bake until golden brown and firm to the touch in the center, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven, and let stand until cool enough to handle.
On cutting board, cut logs on diagonal into 1/2-inch-thick slices. Return pieces cut side down to baking sheet. Re-bake 15-18 minutes. Cool on wire rack. Store in airtight container.
Thank you – I’ll be delighted to have it!
Thanks.
Hi Baker, I looked at the Monster Cookies recipe and it appears to be gluten free so I’d like to make it for my BF who is GF. I will use only red & green M&M’s so they can be Christmas cookies.
But I have a question: The third line says: “9 ounces” so my question is 9 ounces of what?
White sugar! You are the first to ask that. I wanted to list ingredients in whole ounces as much as possible, so 32 brown and 28.4 of white became 11 and 9. The following is the original huge recipe.
12 eggs
32 ounces brown sugar
28.4 ounces white sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla
2 tablespoons corn syrup
8 teaspoons baking soda
16 ounces butter
48 ounces peanut butter
59 ounces oatmeal
16 ounces chocolate chips
16 ounces m&m’s
Like you I used to match the candy colors to the holiday Red and white and pink for Valentines day, red white and blue for Independence day and so on.
I’d forgotten that both the biscotti had chocolate chips in them. The spice I was referring to had them, along with the spices, walnuts, and dranberry raisins.
Chocolate Walnut Cranberry Espresso Biscotti
3 cups white flour
1-1/2 cups white sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
3/8 teaspoon cloves
6-1/Tablespoon really strong coffee*
2 Tablespoon milk
2 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1-1/8 cups chopped walnuts, or pecans
2 cups chocolate chips
1-1/8 cups cranberry raisins
- At the cafe I could get real espresso shots. If you can’t get it at home, a lot of instant coffee in the amount of water will do. And I think there is espresso powder but I don’t know where it’s available
The above recipes makes two logs. You can cut it in half.
In a large mixing bowl combine all dry ingredients. In another bowl whisk together all the liquids, add to the dry and blend. If it’s too dry add more coffee in incremental amounts to make a soft dough. Add chips, nuts, and craisins. Turn onto a well floured surface and flatten into two logs about 3-1/2 inches wide. and 16 to 17 inches long. Bake on papered sheet pan for 20-25 minutes. They will be cakelike. Cool and with a slight diagonal cut make slices roughly 1/2 inch wide, or desired width. Turn them with a cut side up and bake another 6 minutes, then turn to other side and do it again.
I changed slightly the wording of the directions because some of what I had was related to the particular oven I used, a convection oven. These should be baked at 350F, or 175C, Spice amounts can be altered to tast, and I imagine you could use any kind of chopped nuts.
Any questions get back to me and if there’s an issue I’ll try to figure it out.
Thanks, @Baker! This is perfect! I’ll let you know when I try them.
Here are the recipes from my MIL that Hubs absolutely loves and we (daughter & I) like them too.
Subject: Cookies
Date: 12/14/2006 7:45:13 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: MIL@cs.com
Dear KittenMitten,
The Cut out cookies make a lot. You can either halve the recipe or freeze some of them.
Cut Out Cookies
1 Cup Butter, softened
1 Cup granulated sugar
1 Cup brown sugar
4 eggs
3 Tbs. water
6 Cups flour
1 teas. Baking soda
1 teas. nutmeg
1 teas. Vanilla
and if desired (your husband does) 1 teas Anise.
Cream butter and sugar, mix well.
Beat in eggs, vanilla and anise.
Sift dry ingredients together.
Add dry ingredients and water alternately to creamed mixture.
Rolls out better if chilled about 1/2 hour.
Roll on floured board about 1/8" thick.
Cut out shapes, put on cool lightly-greased cookie sheet.
Bake at 350…Check in 10 mins. For I don’t have time written down.
Dough is hard to make unless you have big mixer.
¼ ½ Ingredient
¼ c ½ c butter
¼ c ½ c granulated sugar
¼ c ½ c brown sugar, packed
1 2 eggs
¼ tsp ½ tsp vanilla
¼ tsp ½ tsp anise
1½ c 3 c flour
¼ tsp ½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp ½ tsp nutmeg
2¼ tsp 4½ tsp water
Frost with:
1 ¾ c sifted confectioners sugar
½ T water
¼ tsp flavoring
Sprinkle colored sugars, nonpareils, jimmies on top of frosting.
Neisenpfeffers
Cream 1 Cup butter or margarine.
Add 2 Cups sifted flour
1/2 teas. Vanilla and
2 Cups Chopped Pecans.
2 tbs. confectioners’ sugar.
Blend well, shape into balls about the size of a small walnut.
Bake on ungreased Cookie Sheet in slow oven 300F 50 mins. Keep watch.
Carefully roll hot cookies in 1 Cup Confectioners’ sugar. Store in cool, dry place.
Makes about 3 dozen
Any questions give me a call.
Love, Mom
Recipe here:
For more than a decade we’ve gone to the Basel Christmas market to buy cookies, anise and cookie molds from Anise Paradise. Last year was their last time they were at the Christmas market in Basel. And this year they’ve also announced that they haven’t been able to find another company to make their molds.
So I’m back to baking my own.
Last year was the
(note, the abrupt ending was in the original!)
I think @Die_Capacitrix realized they were wasting valuable time talking to us instead of making cookies and left to better utilize their time! 
I’m back with this requested recipe
Snickerdoodles
1 cup butter(227 g)
1 cup veg oil(237 ml)
1 cup granulated sugar(201 g)
1 cup powdered sugar(120 g)
1 Tablespoon vanilla(15 ml)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4-1/2 cups of flour(656 g)
When I made the cookies I sent I used less vanilla than about as at home I used Mexican vanilla, which has a stronger flavor. At work I used the ordinary commerical vanilla.
Cream together the butter and oils, then add the sugars and blend until smooth as possible.Stir in the vanilla and eggs. To this mixture add the dry ingredients. When evenly mixed chill for a while in the refrigerator. When I scooped out dough to bake I used a numbered scoop, a #30. The number on a scoop indicates how many you get out of a quart. So a #30 is just a teeny bit more than two tablespoons. A scoop with a bigger number would then give fewer cookies and one with a larger number would give more cookies. At work I sometimes made jumbo snickerdoodles, with a #8, that’s half a cup of dough.
Roll rounded scoops in a cinnamon sugar mixture and place them a couple inches apart on the baking sheet. I use parchment paper on the sheet. Bake at 350F(177C) for 12-13 minutes. They won’t change color or brown really, so depending on your oven you may have to test the length of baking. When taken from the oven leave them on the sheet for a few minutes before removing.
You could roll the dough in colored sugar, but you wouldn’t get the cinnamon flavor. Once in a while I make them with brown sugar instead of while, and use maple flavoring. Or small chocolate chips or chopped nuts can be added. It’s a very forgiving dough.
Ask if there are any questions.
Oooh, I heard about these…