Christmas Cookies

Making Christmas cookies is usually something I leave to someone else, especially my Grams, as she made them so well. Without her this year, I decided I must finally attempt the tradition, though I couldn't bring myself to attempt hers just yet. I don't have many of her original recipes, and I fear I might ruin the memory of hers trying to find substitutes. So, this year, I turned once again to The Pioneer Woman (Ree) for inspiration, and I got some much appreciated help from my friend Claire. Not only does Claire make a great helper (she helped with my dad's 60th birthday cupcakes), but having two people allows for some good action shots (as you will see below)!

First, we decided to take the Festive Fruitcake Cookies recipe and adapt it. The adaption gave us a bit more of an Irish recipe, which was needed for Nick and I's annual Christmas party (Irish themed this year). Ree's recipe calls for brandy, and we used Powers Irish Whiskey instead. Also, Ree's recipe calls for candied fruits and nuts, and we decided to do without the nuts and go with a mix of candied and dried fruits instead, to be more like a traditional Irish Christmas cookie recipe I had seen.

Look at the beautiful colors: red and green candied cherries, dried apricots, dates and pineapple, all cut into tiny pieces.

After the fruit was chopped and ready, we mixed the ingredients. Then we added the eggs to the already creamed sugar and butter.

Next, we mixed the milk and baking soda mixture, the flour, the whiskey and vanilla. Isn't all that whiskey wonderful looking?!

Finally, we mixed in the fruit. At that point, Ree's recipe says the batter should be rather wet. Ours really wasn't, so we added a bit more whiskey. We opted for whiskey over water or milk, because how can you ever go wrong with more whiskey? By eating too much of the batter, that's how! You might be tempted to do this, but it was not not the best idea I ever had - strong stuff!

These cookies turned out very cake-like. The dried fruit softened nicely. And, though the whiskey taste might be a bit potent for some, the flavors blended very well. Ree's recipe suggests making a glaze to top these cookies with, but we didn't think they needed it.

The second batch of cookies we decided to make was Christmas Cherries. These are a citrusy sugar cookie kind of base with candied cherries on top. However, we again modified the recipe, not having or wanting to use so many candied cherries. We instead decided to do half of the cookies topped with candied cherries and the other half with white chocolate chips, since Claire wanted to incorporate some kind of chocolate.

First, we creamed the butter and sugar. Then, added the eggs, vanilla, lemon peel (we only had lemons, so that is what we used), and lemon juice and beat them together.

Next, we added the sifted flour.

Ree's recipe says to then put the dough into a Ziploc and refrigerate for an hour. However, we didn't have an hour, and didn't want to mess with trying to get our dough in and out of a Ziploc, so rolled into a rough ball shape, wrapped it in wax paper and put it in the freezer for a half hour. This seemed to work out.

Look at those green cherries! They are somehow wondrously delightful and a little disgusting at the same time. :)

Finally, we made little balls out of the dough, used our thumb to imprint a spot to put the cherries and white chocolate chips in to and baked them. The lemon butter cookie was delicious, and the candied cherry was a surprisingly good addition.

The white chocolate chips did not stick to the dough, however, so we had a slight panic moment. Claire suggested melting caramels and dropping it onto the top of the chips to make them stick. I vaguely knew how to make homemade caramel (didn't have any store bought ones), so we tried it. I love it when recipes turn into experiments!

We combined milk, sugar, maple syrup and butter, stirring and heating until thickened to the consistency we wanted and then drizzled it over the cookies with a spoon.

The final product of our little experiment was great; the caramel stuck, and the taste combination was better than I thought it would be.

My one complaint about these cookies (candied cherry and white chocolate chip caramel) is that the cookie itself is extremely crumbly. You have to pop the whole thing in your mouth at once, or make a big mess on the floor that you will have to be sure to vacuum up before it gets smashed into the grooves of your rug (Ugh! What a mess!). Unfortunately, I don't know how to fix that one :(

Maybe next year I will tackle some of my Gram's old recipes, but until then, these are awesome!