What would Christmas be without Christmas cookies? Rose Levy Beranbaum can`t even imagine a cookieless Yuletide season.
”There`s a reason that the word `cookie` follows the word `Christmas`
with such inevitability,” explains the best-selling cookbook author and longtime cookie-lover. ”Christmas is about giving, and nothing represents the spirit of loving, nurturing and giving more than a homemade cookie.”
Two years ago, after writing a best-selling (200,000 copies sold so far)
cake cookbook called ”The Cake Bible,” and translating the French cookbook
”A Passion for Chocolate” into English, Beranbaum decided her next project would be a pie and pastry ”bible.” But while she was rolling out crusts and contemplating fillings, something curious happened. An inner voice, impossible to ignore, began caroling, ”Cookies! Cookies!”
”Whenever I spoke to my book editor about `The Pastry Bible,` I would end up talking about cookies,” Beranbaum recalls with a smile. ”They`re just such fun, and I guess I must have wanted to do something that would be purely delightful. I was exhausted from doing `The Cake Bible` and `A Passion for Chocolate,` and I wanted to have a good time. Finally my editor said, `You know, I think you have a cookie book in you.` And I said, `You`re right, I`m dying to do cookies.` ”
But not just any old cookies.
”If I was going to do a cookie book, it would have to be Christmas cookies,” says Beranbaum, who ended up putting pastry on hold and rounding up five dozen of her favorite recipes for her latest book, the lavishly illustrated ”Rose`s Christmas Cookies” (Morrow, $19.95). ”That`s because the best is always saved for Christmas.”
Cookies, Beranbaum contends, are one of the few things that stressed-out, overscheduled folks still are willing to take the time to bake from scratch. And Christmas is the time of year they`re most likely to get the urge to haul out the flour sifter, sugar and cookie cutters.
”Making Christmas cookies is such a nice tradition to share, especially with children,” she says. ”I still remember how my aunt, who lived in New York and never baked during the rest of the year, invited me to make Christmas cookies with her when I was about 15. My stepchildren are grown now, but this year I made cookies with my 6-year-old nephew.
”And this year, because of the economy, I think that more people are going to be thinking in terms of spending time, rather than money, on gifts. Homemade cookies are a nice way to tell people that you love them without getting yourself into financial difficulties doing it.”
Novice cooks and kitchen klutzes take note: Christmas cookies also are something you can do without getting yourself into serious culinary difficulties.
Although the English word ”cookie” comes from the Dutch koekje, which means small cake, most cookies are much easier to make than cake. Cookies can take overmixing and overhandling in stride; scraps of cookie dough can be reshaped again and again without ruining the texture. And even though using a food processor or electric mixer may get the job done quicker, dumping the ingredients into a large bowl and stirring with a low-tech wooden spoon works just as well when making most cookies.
Don`t cook them fast
”You don`t even have to make a whole batch at a time,” Beranbaum says.
”You can divide the recipe and make just part of a batch. Cookies are the absolute easiest thing of all to bake. It`s so hard to ruin a cookie.
”The only really bad thing that can happen to a cookie is to cook it too fast. It won`t have the wonderful texture anymore, and texture affects flavor. I found that out when I had a professional (cook) test the recipes from my book, and I noticed they weren`t coming out as well as they could.
”It turned out that he had used his cookie pan so often that it had darkened. A darkened pan absorbs heat, and the cookies were cooking too fast. Most people don`t use them often enough to have that problem, but if your pan is darkened, you should turn down the heat, use a piece of shiny foil on top of it or get another pan.”
Beranbaum also cautions cooks against putting cookies of varying sizes on the same cookie sheet:
”It`s fine if you want to make very large or very small cookies, but if you put them all together on the same cookie sheet, they will bake at different rates. And if it`s your last batch and you only have a few left to bake, space them evenly on the cookie sheet instead of bunching them up in a corner.”
While many of the recipes in ”Rose`s Christmas Cookies” are traditional favorites such as linzer squares, stained-glass cookies and sugar cookies, Beranbaum notes that some-such as the lemon poppyseed cookies, buchettes de Noel and the cinnamon yeast crunchies-are her own creations.
Perfecting cookies
The cook and author is proudest of her lemon butter bars recipe:
”I didn`t invent that one, but I perfected it. My problem with other recipes for lemon butter bars is that the shortbread base never is crisp enough, and the lemon curd topping is so soft that you can`t cut the cookie easily. With this recipe, I ended up fully baking the bottom and doing the lemon curd separately on the stove. When I poured it onto the cookie base, it wasn`t totally liquid, so it didn`t make the shortbread soggy.”
Despite the trend toward more ”natural” foods, Beranbaum recommends using bleached white flour for making most cookies.
”Unbleached flour has a high protein content, which is great for developing gluten when you`re making bread, but it makes a cookie tough.”
There`s no getting around it: With ingredients like flour, sugar and butter, most Christmas cookies simply can`t qualify as low-calorie, health-food fare. But Beranbaum says that her Moravian spice crisps and buchettes de Noel have ”no cholesterol whatsoever” (the buchettes do contain ”a minuscule amount” of saturated fat, thanks to the cocoa), and that the book does contain some relatively low-calorie recipes. ”My feeling is that most people tend to say to heck with diets during Christmas.”
Don`t be intimidated by the length of the following recipes. Beranbaum writes thorough directions.
THE ULTIMATE LEMON BUTTER BAR
Preparation time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: 50 minutes
Chilling time: 30 minutes
Yield: 18 bars
Shortbread base:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled
2 tablespoons each: confectioners` sugar, granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups flour
Lemon curd topping:
4 large egg yolks
3/4 cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Pinch salt
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons confectioners` sugar
1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Place 8-by-16-inch piece of foil over bottom and up 2 sides of an 8-by-8-inch pan.
2. For shortbread base made in the food processor, cut the butter into 1- inch cubes, wrap it and refrigerate. Process the sugars in food processor fitted with metal blade for 1 minute or so, until the sugar is very fine. Add the butter and pulse until the sugar disappears. Add the flour and pulse in until there are a lot of little moist crumbly pieces, and no dry flour particles remain. Dump the mixture into a plastic bag and press it together. Remove the dough from the plastic bag and knead it lightly until it holds together.
3. For shortbread base made by hand or in electric mixer, whisk together the sugars in a medium bowl. Cream butter in a large bowl with the sugars until light and fluffy. Mix in flour with your fingers or the mixer, until incorporated. (If using the mixer, add the flour in 2 parts.)
4. Pat the dough into the prepared pan. Use a fork to pierce the dough all over. Bake until the edges are lightly browned and the top is pale golden (do not brown), about 50 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, for lemon curd topping, place a strainer over a bowl near stove. Beat egg yolks and sugar with a wooden spoon in heavy non-aluminum medium saucepan until well blended. Stir in lemon juice, butter and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened enough to coat thickly a wooden spoon but still liquid enough to pour, about 6 minutes. Do not boil or it will curdle. Pour it at once into the strainer. Press it with the back of a spoon until only the coarse residue remains. Discard the residue. Stir in the lemon rind.
6. When shortbread is baked, remove from oven and reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees. Pour lemon curd over shortbread and return to oven for 10 minutes.
7. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Sprinkle with confectioners` sugar. Loosen sides without the foil with metal spatula or knife. Use the foil to lift out the lemon bars onto a cutting surface. Use a long, sharp knife to cut them first into thirds, then in half the other way, then each half in thirds. Wipe the knife blade after each cut. Store in container at room temperature up to 3 days, or refrigerate up to 3 weeks.
LION`S PAWS
Preparation time: 1 hour
Chilling time: 1 hour
Cooking time: 20 to 30 minutes
Yield: 22 two-inch cookies
1/2 cup blanched slivered almonds
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon each: baking powder, salt
1/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Topping:
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
1. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Have non-stick or greased baking sheets ready. Place the almonds on a baking sheet and bake, stirring often, until lightly brown, about 10 minutes. Cool completely. Turn off oven.
2. For food processor method, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl. Process the sugar in food processor fitted with metal blade. Cut the butter into a few pieces and add it with the motor running. Process until smooth and creamy. Add egg and vanilla and process until incorporated, scraping the sides of the bowl. Add the flour mixture and pulse in just until incorporated.
3. For electric mixer method, soften the butter. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in small bowl. Cream sugar and butter in medium bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla until well blended. Beat in flour mixture on low speed until incorporated.
4. Scrape the dough onto a piece of plastic wrap, press it into a thick disc, wrap it tightly and refrigerate at least 1 hour.
5. Measure 22 level teaspoons of dough for the bottoms. As you shape each piece of dough, knead it by flattening it between your palms and rolling it into a ball.
6. Place each ball on prepared baking sheets, pressing it to flatten to about 1/8-inch thickness. Using your fingers, shape the dough into a triangle with rounded corners, measuring about 2-by-2-by-1 1/2-inches. Leave about 1 inch between cookies.
7. Place 3 chocolate chips in a row, points down, toward the wide end of each cookie triangle. To create a knuckle effect, place 3 more chips points up, directly on top of the first 3.
8. For the tops of the cookies, measure 22 slightly rounded teaspoons of dough. Shape the dough as for the bottoms, but shape them a little larger and thicker at the widest part so they will drape over the chips. Place the cookie tops over the bottoms, matching the shapes and covering the entire bottom. Press lightly around the edges to seal. Using a thumb, press down the dough in the center to flatten and shape them to resemble paws. Firmly press in 4 almond slivers between and on either side of the chocolate chips to form the claws. (See photograph.)
9. At least 15 minutes before baking, heat oven to 350 degrees. For topping, mix sugar and cinnamon in small bowl. Brush surface of cookies lightly with beaten egg white, dust cookies with cinnamon-sugar. Bake until golden, 20 to 30 minutes. Cool a few minutes on sheets. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Store in airtight container or freeze.
