12 Christmas Cookies That Will Impress Everyone You Know | NYT Cooking

the very very very best gift you couldgive is something like a box of cookies[Music]hi I’m Susan Spungen if I could have noother dessert it would just be cookies Ilove cookies I now consider myself a madcookie scientist and a cookie artistactually when I first came to New York Istarted making cookie boxes and I justloved picking out different recipes andthen putting them all together in a boxand then giving them to friends thereare a couple in this group that arecompletely addictive I really wanted arange of different kinds of flavorsdifferent kinds of looks everything hasto be rolled together in one littleperfect package I actually have an artbackground so I particularly likeapplying art to cookies this cookie wasinspired by a collage by Ellsworth Kellybrush Chuck’s cut into 20 squares andarranged by chance for me it’s likebecomes just a blank canvas for paintingyou don’t need to have like a big thicklayer of royal icing you can see how theline dissolves into a flat flat surfaceI find it a whole lot easier to just dipthe cookies and it’s okay if my fingersget a little icing on it and then Ishake it back and forth it might take alittle peak flip it over we want to getthe icing right to the edge and alsobreak any air bubbles that might havebeen in the icing and if there’sanything that dripped over the edge youjust clean it upyou really want them to be absolutelybone dry before you start painting on itthen I’m using both petal dust andluster dust which are these beautifulpowdery pigment peppermint extract it’salmost like a watercolor wash and thealcohol just immediately evaporates andall you’re left with is the pigment onthe cookie you’re just gonna paint linesacross the cookies and then we’re goingto rearrange them randomly[Music]maybe my favorite of all of thesecookies definitely the most addictivewhat we’re doing is making honeycombcandy and pouring it right on top of theshortbread so it becomes fused togetherin this two layer I’m not even gonnacall it a bar because we end up cuttingthem up into kind of random shardsworking with sugar is you know it’s alittle dangerous any kind of candy thething you have to be really supercareful about is undissolved sugarcrystals because then like the wholething can crystallize take a brush towash down these sugar crystals on theside of the pan until it comes to a boiland is all clear then you don’t have todo it anymore[Music]sprinkle on the baking soda and justwhisk it like a couple of times just tomake sure it’s mixed in and then stopget it in here as quickly as I canwithout spreading you can do this alittle bit but if it doesn’t go all theway to the edges do not be concerned inthe least so that’s it and then we letit cool we’re gonna break it all up intopieces and put chocolate on it I like tojust take a tip of a paring knife andbreak it into pieces that’s why it’scalled a honeycomb because it actuallylooks like a honeycomb[Music]this one can be a little messy butthat’s part of the fun[Music]my favorite poppy seed blood-orangewindow cookies which are I think inessential part of any cookie boxthe poppy C cookie is so versatile andgoes with really any flavor I theseblood orange marmalade as the fillingbecause the color and the flavor is sobeautiful but you could use orangemarmalade or any other jam that you like[Music]my god what will it a cookie box feetwithout a chocolate cookie I ask you Ihappen to love a combination of gingerand chocolate together which isn’talways the first thing you might thinkof to put with chocolate but it gives itthis really great holiday spin on achocolate cookie it’s got little sliversof candy ginger on top and fresh gratedginger inside and they’re just reallygood[Music]what it was really going for here washave a crunchy not too sweet cookie thatcould be dipped this is a great one tohave like your kids help with becauseit’s just like playing with play-dohmake playdough snakes that is the bestway to describe it a little bit thinnerthan a pencil I’d say but the key withthis one is just not to press down toohard so see like that started to break alittle bit so I just like push it backtogether most of this is gonna be dippedin chocolate and it’s gonna cover up amultitude of sins you might get a littlewonky but then I decided that was reallypart of their charm but they’re reallyreally fun to eat and they’re fun to dippop these in the freezer now just sothey hold their shape a little bitbetter in the oven that’s true for anycookie dough milk chocolate darkchocolate white chocolate with matchaand white chocolate with freeze-driedraspberries kind of put it on and thentake off the excess or else it’ll kindof be laying in a puddle of chocolate soI also kind of scraped them off the backjust so it doesn’t have too much[Music]so even though you want to sprinklethese while they’re still wet it’sactually good to let them set up alittle bit because otherwise the gravityof the nuts or whatever you put on itwill kind of force them to slide offreally nice way to finish off a cookiebox this is like another shortbread typedough which is such a simple dough theseare cookie stamps which are reallypopular these days and they’re reallyfun to use take your dough it should becold but not ice cold because it needsto be pliable enough to use the cookiestamp and you dip the cookie stamp getit kind of centered under this dam youmight get a stiff neck when you’re doingthis because you do have to kind of lookyou want to make sure it’s even on allsides and then you have to just sort ofgently peel it off just by trimming itwith the cookie cutter you get a reallynice clean cookieokay it’s a little off-center but whocares these should be glazed whenthey’re warm from the oven now untilthey’re like cool enough to handle soput the glaze on and I let the excessdrip onto the next cookie that I’m goingto glaze so you want a thin coating ofglaze not one that’s gonna obscure theshapes that you just worked so hard tocreateand these are like really melt in yourmouth shortbread this is a cookie forpeople who do not plan ahead and youneed a cookie fast you can have thisfrom like dough to table in a reallyshort period of time you see how mydough is a little too hard right nowthat is like a great way to get startedif it starts cracking just push ittogether beautiful thing about thiscookie is that it’s supposed to befreeform you can make it any shape youwant it’s one big cookie that we’regonna cut afterwardswe’re going for about a quarter-inchthick here we want to make sure we’removing it while it’s still pretty coldso it’s not sticking so we’re gonna dockthat’s a fancy word for poking it with afork this will let the steam escape asthe cookie is making a new brush it witha little bit of egg white just to makethe topping stick and give it a littlebit of a crunchy finish and if you don’twant out of seeds you could try sesameseeds or even just sugar I like to sliceit into bars what and you have to dothat kind of when it’s pretty warm or itmight like kind of crack and crumble butthe alternative is just let people breakthem see some of those broke but it’sokay this is the other one that I’maddicted to thumbprint cookies pistachiohazelnut and pecan it can take yourchoice or you can make all three it’scompletely interchangeable in thisrecipe I mean some nuts are a little bitoilier and they might make the cookiespread just a tad more I do use my thumbsometimes people like to say use awooden spoon handle the truth is whenthese cookies get some printed they’renot really that hot yeah it’s halfwaythrough the baking time they don’t kindof spread out as much and I like thelittle crikey cracks that happen whenyou stick your thumb there I love thevariety you can make a cookie box ofjust thumbprint[Music]I know that sounds like kind of astrange name it’s named after the coffeehouse drink called the dirty chai whichis an espresso and a tried mixedtogether so redolent with all of thesenutty warm flavors like brown buttercoffee whole bunch of spices and thiskind of cookie that kind of explodesunder a sugary crust is sometimes calledan earthquake cookie so it really has areal holiday taste this cookie it’s likeit’s definitely the spice cookie in thecookie box well first of all I’ve beenplaying around with marbling black andwhite tahini for the last couple ofyears so these wouldn’t have taste andkind of like halva by the time they’rebaked made one dough and then weseparated into 2/3 and 1/3 and we mixsome white tahini into some of it andblack tahini into the other third gonnacut each piece in half and we’re justgonna Pat it out and it’s not reallylike super important that it’s square oranything like that it’s almost likesmearing it you’re just kind of tryingto spread it out more or less what youdon’t want to do when you’re marblingthese two colors together is just turnit into a muddle you want to keep someseparation with the color so you can geta nice swirl take this layered piece ofdough and lightly need it but less thanyou might thinkbecause if you do too much you’ll justlose any sense of marbling you don’twant to chill this dough in advancebefore marbling it you want it softstraight out of the mixer but then whenit’s time to put it in the pan we’rejust gonna very lightlyknead them together and get it in asevenly as possible I want to avoid anyair spaces I really like using the backof my knuckles to do this kind of thingonce this is very chilled brush some eggwhite on all sides of it and I’m gonnause some coarse sanding sugar blacksanding sugar which looks really coolthen it adds that like sugary crunch tothe edge look how easy that is we don’thave to roll out and cookies and use acookie cutter and those are gonna be ourmarble slabs and then we bake them andthen they’re done these are what I calla self decorating cookie the hardestpart of doing this is mixing the coolcolors this time we’re using aconfectioner sugar glaze to get thesesort of muted beautiful tones you mightjust use like a little bit of acomplementary color to kind of dull itdown a little bit so what I’m gonna dois I’m gonna take some of this red justso I don’t overdo it because once youput the color in really hard to take itout and then I’m gonna add some blue tothat and then I’m gonna add some of thatback but as you mix you’re gonna see thecolor just takes on a whole newcharacter yeah I like it dip the cookiesin the very same way that we did theroyal icing[Music]that was really my goal with this cookieis to just make these beautiful solidcolor cookies which is very much in thetradition of this kind of artyou don’t need any special decoratingtalent except for this one basic cookiedipping technique to make these all youneed to do is like sprinkle stuff on andthese you have to decorate them whilethe icing is still wet that you justcrumble everything onto the cookie alittle bit here and a little bit thereand then at the very end just drizzle itwith some pink icing[Music]I really I really put my heart and soulinto these recipes and I’m really proudof them and I hope you like themyou give somebody something like that isthe absolute best gift you can give oneof my friends grandmother is a hundredand six it’s like all right I got asound Grammy some cookies because shewas so excitedit made her whole Christmas grazie Millegrazie Mille fidelity also cannot see atbuona notte Island they were you’re benea science i aside