Christmas cookies have never been a real tradition in my family. I think my mother would admit that she’s not a huge fan of baking. She can, and she has some great recipes, but she’s not the type to make fifteen different types of cookies come holiday season. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw her bake a cookie. In any case, last year I was inspired to bake some Christmas cookies. I think it was a snowy, cold day and I didn’t want to leave the house, so I turned on the oven and got to work.
I had looked through several recipes before stumbling upon a couple different recipes on Epicurious.com. I noticed that some of these recipes were all based off the same base dough recipe. That simplification of the whole process was too good to pass up.
The base recipe is Gourmet‘s Basic Butter Cookie Dough. From this simple dough you can make eight (yes, eight!) different cookies. They are: spritz wreaths, raspberry hazelnut triangles, orange cranberry oatmeal cookies, mocha butter balls, jewel bowl cookies, spiced icebox butter cookies, apricot stars, and almond butter crisps.
I haven’t tried all of the different recipes yet. Last year I made the spiced icebox cookies and the jewel bowl cookies. The base dough is really simple to make, and it makes a ton, so you can whip out a lot of cookies with very little effort. These would be great for a cookie swap. I love spiced cookies, and I thought the the spiced icebox butter cookies turned out really well. To be honest, they didn’t even need the glaze that is called for in the recipe. The jewel bowl cookies were great as well. I used blueberry preserves and I was happy with how they turned out.
The dough is easy and quick to make, but the cookies themselves will take a while. It’s not because there is anything challenging, but the recipes just make so many cookies that you constantly have to be in the kitchen, circulating pans in and out of the oven. On a cold wintry day though, sometimes that the best thing you can do.
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Dec 15, 2009 @ 10:03 EST5EDT
