Christmas Cookie favorites are really a very personal thing. In every home, you are likely to find a combination of nostalgic favorites and those which appeal and you can choose from the panoply of offerings found all around you at this time of year. Some are simple to make and some are more involved. Every year I find the list of offerings to experiment with to be an ever-growing encyclopedic collection, which I try to assemble on my Facebook page In Food Today. If I stash them all there, I can be certain I can find them when I’m ready to give them a try.
Many classic cookie dough recipes can often be played with to bring them up to the next level or just enhanced with a new flavor profile. They can also be made to look a bit more elegant and appealing, which, if you are giving them as a gift or bringing them to a gathering, can be nice.
Who doesn’t love Russian Teacakes? I remember these most fondly as the favorite of my cousin Vincent. My Aunt made these for him every holiday season. They didn’t last long. This is one of the simplest and fastest cookies to make. You can whip up a batch in a half hour.
Nowadays, I take this recipe and play around with it. If you use bright and high quality flavoring agents, you can wind up with an entirely new cookie treat for the holidays. Serve these with a steaming mug of hot chocolate with a homemade marshmallow and settle in by the fire with a good book. However you choose to play with this recipe, make sure you use the very best ingredients possible.
In this iteration, I combine bittersweet chocolate and one of my favorite all-time enduring holiday sensations, the humble and ubiquitous candy cane. I find the bittersweet chocolate plays very well off the over-the-top sweetness of the confectioner’s sugar.
BITTERSWEET PEPPERMINT SNOWBALLS – adapted from Russian Teacakes, Betty Crocker
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp peppermint extract or Peppermint Schnapps
2 1/4 cups Bob’s Red Mill Organic All Purpose Flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup very finely chopped bittersweet chocolate such as Guittard,
1/2 cup finely crushed good quality candy canes, such as Bob’s
1 cup confectioner’s sugar mixed together with 4-5 well-crushed candy canes
white/clear sanding sugar
Preheat oven to 400F. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix together the 1 cup confectioner’s sugar with the 4-5 crushed candy canes. Set aside.
In the bowl of your electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter, confectioner’s sugar, vanilla and peppermint extract or schnapps until smooth and creamy. With the mixer on low, add dry ingredients and mix just until flour disappears.
Remove bowl from mixer. Add in the minced chocolate and the crushed candy canes and mix in by hand. Gather the dough out of the bowl with a dough scraper and roll into 1″balls. Place on the prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 10 minutes until set but not brown. Be careful not to over bake these – they should be soft, not hard.
While warm, roll each cookie in the powdered sugar-candy can mixture, being careful to cover all surfaces as well as possible. Place the cookies on a cooling rack. When you have coated all of the cookies once, repeat the dredging process.
Sprinkle with white/clear sanding sugar!
Enjoy!
adding sparkle!
Note: You can add a splash of Cognac to these cookies for a nice warming treat and extra luxurious background note, adjusting the flour with a tablespoon or two if the dough appears wet.
Good Morning!
