I’m looking for recipes, Christmas baking, in particular.
Actually I’m looking for a, “I’m going to meet with former best friends that I had a huge falling out with and that I haven’t seen for 4 years since the last time they made me cry, but recently rekindled through facebook, and are meeting up at Christmas, and I am totally happy with my new life and want to show off how completely put together I am and how I put Martha Stewart to shame with my baking prowess” type cookies.
Any ideas?
I just made some incredible Turtle Cheesecake Pinwheel cookies. They were pretty complicated (for me) and involved chilling dough overnight. They turned out INCREDIBLE! It’s a cheesecake cookie dough, rolled out into a sheet. Then I added mini chocolate chips, chopped pecans and caramel sauce. I rolled the the dough into a tube and then rolled the tube in crushed graham crackers and more pecans. I chilled over night. Cut the tube into 1/4 inch slices and baked at 375 for 15 minutes, cooled on wire racks. It’s a really pretty cookie and I’ve never had anything quite like it.
Go out to www.cooksillustrated.com, register, and download their recipes for brown sugar cookies and truffles. The truffles are truly good and decadent, but a bit time consuming. The cookies are easier, don’t take that much equipment, and good in a adult sort of way. You might also want to pick up Cooks Illustrated magazine’s holiday baking issue for ideas in general.
The people behind that magazine really are crazy. They’ll test amounts of butter and flour working in tablespoon or quarter cup intervals and baking temperatures at 25 degree Fahrenheit until they get things just right, then publish the recipe. I’ve had very few failures making their recipes and a lot of successes.
These are one of the cookie recipes I tried today. They are very pretty, dusted with icing sugar and taste a lot like rich brownies. This recipe is definitely going in my tried and true recipe file.
Chocolate and peppermint pinwheel cookies, ala Alton Brown. I tried to make them a couple of seasons ago, confused peppermint extract (what the recipe calls for) with peppermint oil. Whooooo boy did the cookies taste minty. Sadly, we decided to throw them away, as too much peppermint can be dangerous. (Esp. for my 90-some year old grandmother.*) Might be tempted to add chocolate pieces to the chocolate cookie batter… Hmmmm…
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_35325,00.html
*(It’s not that I don’t know how old my grandmother is; it’s that I can’t remember how old she was… That doesn’t sound much better, does it?)