Tag Archives: Christmas

White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Shortbread Wedges

Hi there! I am sorry I left you hanging for a few weeks there—COVID finally got me—but I am very happy to be back with a new recipe in time for the Sweetest Season Cookie Exchange. This event, which I am participating in for the fifth year, is a food blogger-lead fundraiser and awareness campaign for Cookies for Kids’ Cancer. This organization is a 501(c)3 non-profit with the express mission to raise funds for innovative pediatric cancer treatments and research through bake sales and cookie swaps. Supporters (“Good Cookies”) can do this throughout the year, but I am delighted to lend support as part of my holiday giving especially right now when OXO is matching donations up to $100,000! If you’d like to learn more and/or make a charitable donation to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, click here. For White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Shortbread Wedges, keep scrolling!

I would like to give a high five to whichever person decided white chocolate, dried cranberries, and pistachios is a Christmas combination. I don’t believe it was a part of any holiday parties or cookie exchanges I took part in while growing up, but I am all for it now. Aside from just being festive—love that red, green and white—it’s delicious, and a welcome departure from the chocolate, peppermint, and spice-heavy fare that seems to be available 24/7 in December. Not that I’m complaining.

Today’s White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Shortbread Wedges are the perfect vehicle for showcasing this new holiday classic combination. They’re simple to make, require just a few ingredients, and are incredibly cute—things cut in wedges automatically have Christmas tree vibes, you know?

These buttery shortbread treats come together just as simply as the classic cookies. The dough is mixed in one bowl in just a few minutes. It’s got all the usual shortbread suspects (granulated sugar, softened butter, all-purpose flour), plus confectioner’s sugar, vanilla and salt for smooth texture, flavor and balance. Oh, and white chocolate chips, chopped dried cranberries and pistachios for pizzazz!

Once mixed, the dough is spread into a cake pan lined with an extra-large piece of parchment. It’s docked (vented) with a fork all over before baking for about 40 minutes, until just turning golden at the edges. Fifteen minutes later, that extra-large parchment is used to lift the whole disk of shortbread onto a cutting board and slice it into wedges while it’s still warm. I love those clean edges.

These shortbread wedges are thick and substantial, with a slight softness to their crunch, and plenty of color and flavor from the mix-ins. My favorite bites are the ones with white chocolate—it caramelizes in the oven and is outrageously good. I like to dot a few extra white chocolate chips on top after baking for diversity of flavor (and obvious cuteness). And the chewy cranberries and crunchy pistachios? So good!

White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Shortbread Wedges are perfect for any upcoming party or cookie giving (eating?) occasion. They’re as satisfying to make as they are to eat, and the dough is a perfect blank slate for any festive mix-in your holiday heart desires. What would you put in shortbread wedges? Let me know in the comments!

White Chocolate Cranberry Pistachio Shortbread Wedges
makes 12-16 wedges

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup confectioners sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
1/3 cup dried cranberries, finely chopped
1/3 cup pistachio meats, finely chopped
1/3 cup white chocolate chips, plus more for garnish

Preheat oven to 325F. Cut a large (12-14 inch) circle of parchment paper. Grease a 9-inch cake pan with butter. Line the pan with parchment circle, leaving the overhang for ease of removal. Grease again. Set aside.

Place softened butter in a large mixing bowl. Use an electric mixer to beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add granulated and confectioners sugars and vanilla, and beat until incorporated. Beat in half of flour and salt, followed by remaining flour. Add chopped dried cranberries, pistachio meats, and white chocolate chips.

Transfer dough to prepared pan and press into an even layer. Use the tines of a fork to dock the entire surface of the dough. If you hit a big piece of pistachio (or whatever), simply pull it off the fork and press it back into place.

Bake shortbread 38-40 minutes, until golden at the edges and set on top. Dot with additional white chocolate chips, if desired.

Let shortbread cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes. Then use the overhang to remove the still-warm shortbread to a cutting board. Use a large sharp chef’s knife to cut into 12 large or 16 smaller wedges. Gently transfer wedges back to the rack and let cool completely. Serve.

Leftover shortbread will keep covered at room temperature for a few days.

Mint Chip Buttercream Bars

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It seems impossible, but we’ve reached the last recipe of the year.

With three days to go until Christmas, I wanted this one to be easy enough that you could add it to your menu at the last second, but not so in-your-face Christmasy that you couldn’t make it for New Year’s Eve or any other time. These Mint Chip Buttercream Bars certainly fit that bill. With just ten minutes of actual baking, a flavor that’s universally beloved, and a high yield, they’re exactly the sort of recipe you want to have in your back pocket during the holidays.

Oh, they look fancy with their three layer presentation, but they’re dead easy. The thick Oreo crust is the only thing that requires baking; the creamy mint chip buttercream and chocolate topping are simply whipped up and layered on.

You can make these all in one go or do them in steps, making the crust one day and applying the other layers a day or two later. Once assembled, put them in the fridge for a couple of hours for optimal sliceability, and that’s it!

I like to cut these really small, because they pack a wallop. With layers of crumbly Oreo crust, chocolate chip studded mint buttercream and glossy chocolate, they’ve got texture and flavor all over the place. I only need a bite or two to be satisfied—that doesn’t stop me from going back for more though!

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! I am taking Christmas Eve off, but will be back next week with some end of year wrap up stuff.

Mint Chip Buttercream Bars
makes 2-2.5 dozen depending how small you cut them

Oreo Crust:
24 Oreos
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Mint Chip Buttercream:
1/2 cup (1 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
2 cups confectioner's sugar
pinch of Kosher or sea salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extrac
1/4-1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
2-3 tablespoons heavy cream
2-3 drops green food coloring (I used gel)
6 tablespoons mini chocolate chips

Chocolate Topping:
6 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 8- or 9-inch square pan with butter. Line with parchment, leaving overhang on two sides for removal. Grease again. Set aside.

Make the crust. Place Oreos in the bowl of a food processor and blitz until they are crumbs. Add melted butter and pulse until the mixture can be pinched together. Press it into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake 10 minutes to set. Let cool completely. At this point, the pan and crust may be wrapped with plastic wrap and stored for a day at room temperature.

Make the mint chip buttercream. In a large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in confectioner's sugar in two installments, scraping down the bowl as necessary. Beat in salt, vanilla and 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract. Add in heavy cream until desired consistency is reached. Add 1-2 drops gel food coloring (or a few drops of liquid) and use your electric mixer to beat until combined. Adjust color as necessary. Fold in mini chocolate chips.

Spread mint chip buttercream over the crust, smoothing into an even layer. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

Make the chocolate topping. Combine chopped chocolate and butter in a small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in 15 second increments, stirring in between, just until melted. Drop chocolate over filling one spoonful at a time. Use a small offset icing knife (or a silicone spatula) to carefully spread it over a section of the filling. Continue dropping and spreading chocolate until it’s all used. Freeze until chocolate has hardened, about 15 minutes.

Use parchment overhang to remove bars to a cutting board. Carefully peel off and discard parchment. Use a lightly-greased sharp chef’s knife to slice bars (mine are 1x1 1/2-inch). pieces).

Bars may be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week (check the date on your heavy cream). Layer them with parchment if they are to be stacked.

Frosted Eggnog Sugar Cookies

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You could not pay me to drink a glass of eggnog, but I will happily bake with it all Christmas season long. Being made of eggs and dairy, it’s just a thin custard—think melted ice cream—so it’s an easy swap for the liquid in many of my favorite bakes.

I’ve made eggnog sandwich cookies, cakes, scones, and puff pancakes over the last several years, plus a few more treats that I still need to perfect before I pass them your way. These Frosted Eggnog Sugar Cookies though? They couldn’t wait. They’re the seasonal sibling of the Soft Sour Cream Sugar Cookies I posted earlier this year, and they are spectacular.

I think of these as a slightly-sophisticated holiday take on the Lofthouse Cookies I loved in college. Made with ingredients like softened butter, sour cream and eggnog, and sweetened with a mix of granulated and confectioner’s sugars, these cookies are super tender and slightly cakey (but in a good way). Their flavor is rounded out with cinnamon and nutmeg; you can add 1/2 teaspoon of rum extract (not straight rum!) too, if that’s your deal.

Heads up that this recipe requires a fair amount of inactive prep time. Initially, the dough is super sticky and needs a long chill to be workable. There is no way around this—I tried the freezer, rolling it between parchment, and separating it into quarters before the chill. You need to set aside at least four hours between mixing and baking, or prepare to have sticky hands and be extremely frustrated. No, thanks! Once the dough is cold and the ingredients have had a chance to meld though, it’s smooth sailing.

Make sure to roll your cookies out so that they’re super thick. I like them to be 1/2-inch thick before baking, and though they will spread somewhat significantly, they’ll still get some good height. They won’t look particularly enticing coming out of the oven, but that’s because they aren’t done yet. Ohhh no. Each of these ultra-soft sugar cookies is topped with a blanket of buttercream and sprinkled with a mixture of cinnamon and eggnog for maximum holiday cheer.

I know I say this about every recipe, but these are so good, y’all—feather soft with plenty of eggnog flavor and a little tang from the sour cream. The combination of tender cookie and hearty schmear of buttercream is akin to eating the top a cupcake. If that’s not the ideal way to consume eggnog this holiday season, I don’t know what is.

Frosted Eggnog Sugar Cookies
makes about 3 dozen

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup confectioner’s sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar, packed
1 large egg, room temperature
1/4 cup sour cream (not fridge-cold)
1/4 cup eggnog (not fridge-cold)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Eggnog Buttercream:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
2 cups confectioner's sugar
pinch of ground cinnamon
pinch of ground nutmeg
pinch of Kosher or sea salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 tablespoons eggnog

Special Equipment:
a 2-inch round cookie cutter
offset icing spatula

Make the cookie dough. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, confectioner’s sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a medium-large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in sugar until creamy. Mix in egg, followed by sour cream, eggnog and vanilla. Add dry ingredients in 2 installments, beating until combined. Dough will be a bit sticky.

Divide dough into halves and wrap each in plastic wrap. Chill for at least 4 hours or up to 3 days.

Place oven racks in central positions. Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2 rimmed sheet pans with parchment paper. Set aside.

Generously flour a surface and rolling pin. Unwrap one half of the dough. Roll the dough to 1/2-inch thickness, lifting and turning the dough frequently so that it doesn’t stick to your surface. Use a 2-inch round cutter to cut cookies. Cut directly down. Do not twist.

Place cookies 2 inches apart on prepared pans. Bake 10-11 minutes, rotating top-to-bottom and back-to-front at the 5 minute mark. Cookies are done when puffed and no-longer raw-looking. They should be mostly pale, but there may be some golden coloring at the bottom edges. Let cookies cool on the pans for 8-10 minutes before removing to a rack to cool completely. Let sheet pans come to room temperature before proceeding with the next batch.

Repeat rolling, cutting and baking with remaining half of dough. Re-roll scraps as desired, refrigerating if anything gets too sticky.

Make Eggnog Buttercream. In a large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in confectioner's sugar in two installments, scraping down the bowl as necessary. Beat in cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and vanilla. Add eggnog and beat until combined.

After cookies have cooled completely, use an offset icing spatula to frost each one with about 1 tablespoon of Eggnog Buttercream. Garnish with pinches cinnamon and nutmeg immediately after frosting. Buttercream will crust after an hour or so. You may serve the cookies immediately after frosting, but they are softest the next day.

After they’ve crusted, leftovers may be layered with wax or parchment paper and kept in an airtight container. They will keep at room temperature for a couple of days or in the refrigerator for up to a week.

Vegan, Gluten-Free Linzer Cookies

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After nailing the perfect snappy texture in last week’s Vegan, Gluten-Free Gingerbread Cookies, I couldn’t resist taking that formula and making it into linzer cookies.

Traditional linzer cookies are made from a dough that isn’t much more than a sugar cookie with a smattering of ground nuts tossed in for depth and tenderness. My vegan, gluten-free cookie formula already gets all its structure from almonds, but I still found a way to make the final product uniquely linzery. Linzerian? Linzeresque? Anyway…

The gist is that I removed the dark molasses and spices from the dough, lightening the flavor profile with maple syrup and a small, but effective amount of toasted ground hazelnuts. If you can’t get your hands on hazelnuts, pecans will work just as well (plus you won’t have to peel them).

This dough requires a short chill before the usual rolling, cutting and baking. Don’t forget to stamp out a little window in half your cookies for that signature linzer cookie look!

As far as filling goes, you can use any spread you like, but jam is traditional. I’m not much of a jam person, but I had a jar of homemade blueberry jam from my friend Suzette up in Maine, so I used that. Raspberry and strawberry would give festive Christmas red vibes, but I think orange marmalade might be absolute magic paired with the nutty cookies. I’ll have to try that another day though—for now, I’m extremely into these blue-black little picture windows and the signature flavor of my favorite place.

Vegan, Gluten-Free Linzer Cookies are initially very crunchy, but soften a bit as they soak up some moisture from the jam. This is not a bad thing at all, as it makes them easier to eat without getting crumbs on your shirt. That’s very important if, like me, you plan to casually snag a cookie every time you walk by the plate from now until 2022.

Vegan, Gluten-Free Linzer Cookies
makes about 2.5 dozen sandwich cookies

1/2 cup whole hazelnuts (or pecans)
2 1/2 cups blanched almond flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon Kosher or sea salt
1/2 cup vegan butter, softened to room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup or light corn syrup
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For assembly:
2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
~3/4 cup jam or spread of choice

Special equipment:
rolling pin
2-inch cookie cutter
smaller cookie cutter (I used the large end of a piping tip)

toast and peel the hazelnuts. Place hazelnuts in a dry skillet over medium heat. Stir frequently until fragrant, 7-10 minutes. Immediately transfer hazelnuts to a clean, dry hand towel. Fold towel around the hazelnuts and then rub the towel with the palm of your hand. This will allow the hazelnut skins to loosen. This step does not have to be done perfectly. (If you are using pecans, you do not need to peel them.)

Let hazelnuts cool completely. Transfer to a food processor and pulse until they are a fine meal. Do not over-process or you’ll have hazelnut butter (delicious, but not helpful here).

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together ground hazelnuts, almond flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a separate medium-large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat vegan butter until fluffy (about 2 minutes). Add sugar and confectioner’s sugar and beat until fully combined (about 2 minutes). Beat in maple syrup and vanilla.

Add dry ingredients in two installments, mixing completely after each addition. Dough may look rubbly, but should hold together extremely well when pinched.

Divide dough in two. Form each half into a disk, then wrap with plastic wrap. Chill for 1 hour or up to 3 days.

Place oven racks in central positions. Preheat oven to 325F. Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment.

Use confectioner’s sugar to dust a surface and rolling pin. Unwrap one disk of dough and place it on the surface. Use the rolling pin to roll it out to 1/8-inch thickness. A thin offset icing spatula or bench scraper (or similar) will make moving the dough much easier, as will adding more confectioner’s sugar to the surface and rolling pin.

Use a 2-inch rom d cookie cutter to cut cookies, then use the icing spatula to move them to the prepared pans, keeping them 1.5 inches apart. Use a smaller cutter (I used the wide end of a piping tip) to cut windows in half your cookies—these are the tops of your linzers. Bake cookies 12-14 minutes, rotating the pans top-to-bottom and front-to-back at the 7 minute mark.

Let cookies cool 10 minutes on their pans. Use a spatula to remove them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Repeat rolling, cutting, and baking as needed, re-rolling scraps as needed. Let cookie sheets come to room temperature between batches.

Set a cooling rack over a piece of parchment. Once all cookies are baked and cooled, set the cookies with the centers cut out on a prepared rack. Sift confectioners sugar over the tops.

Spread each whole cookie with jam (amount is based on your preference). Carefully sandwich cookies together. Serve.

Cookies will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the refrigerator for up to a week. Place wax paper between layers for best storage. Cookies will soften a bit over time.