Holiday Recipes

The macaron. These are probably one of the most intimidating cookies out there. I’ve made them before, but it was in the summer, and humidity was raging. I guess the extra moisture in the air attributed to my macarons ending up with no feet. They tasted wonderful, but they were pitiful flat little cookies. 🙁

I sort of forgot about these little treats until my sisters and I visited Sucre in New Orleans. It was love at first bite. Pistachio was my absolute favorite out of all the flavors we tried.

That evening, I was asked to bring all desserts for Christmas. I knew that I had to give these macarons another attempt. I mean, dew point was in the 30s and that’s SUPER rare in Louisiana. So, bye bye to the humidity for this attempt!

That first picture….yep, those were the macarons that I made! I was yelling in excitement to the hubs as I stared into the oven, watching those little feet happen. I totally had my first macaron success!! Best of all? My family thought they tasted just like the ones from Sucre! Win! 🙂

This was also my first time making some form of a meringue buttercream. Seriously y’all, I thought this was a massive fail, but I remember reading on blogs that it does take a while to come together. After several minutes, just like that, it went from a separated mixture to a gorgeous frosting! I’m in shock that a frosting with so little sugar tastes so much better, too! Definitely making a meringue-type frosting again soon! I ended up filling a few with plain buttercream to see how it would taste (as you can see in the bottom row), but after tasting both, I felt that the spiced eggnog frosting was the way to go here.

Eggnog Macarons
Source: Tartelette

For the macarons:

Ingredients:

• 90 gr egg whites (use eggs whites that have been preferably left 3-5 days in the fridge)
• 25 gr granulated sugar
• 200 gr powdered sugar
• 110 gr almonds (slivered, blanched, sliced, whatever you like)

Directions:

1. In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites to a foam, (think bubble bath foam) gradually add the sugar until you obtain a glossy meringue (think shaving cream). Do not overbeat your meringue or it will be too dry.
2. Place the powdered sugar and almonds in a food processor and give them a good pulse until the nuts are finely ground.
3. Add them to the meringue, give it a quick fold to break some of the air and then fold the mass carefully until you obtain a batter that falls back on itself after counting to 10. Give quick strokes at first to break the mass and slow down. The whole process should not take more than 50 strokes. Test a small amount on a plate: if the tops flattens on its own you are good to go. If there is a small beak, give the batter a couple of turns.
4. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip (Ateco #807 or #809) with the batter and pipe small rounds (1.5 inches in diameter) onto parchment paper or silicone mats lined baking sheets. Let the macarons sit out for 30 minutes to an hour to harden their shells a bit. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 280F.
5. When ready, bake for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on their size. Let cool. If you have trouble removing the shells, pour a couple of drops of water under the parchment paper while the sheet is still a bit warm and the macarons will lift up more easily do to the moisture. Don’t let them sit there in it too long or they will become soggy.
6. Once baked and if you are not using them right away, store them in an airtight container out of the fridge for a couple of days or in the freezer.

For the eggnog filling:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (100gr) sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 1/2 sticks (180gr)(6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Directions:

1. Put the sugar and egg whites in a large heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes. The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like marshmallow cream.
2. Pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat the meringue on medium speed until it cools and forms a thick shiny meringue, about 5 minutes.
3. Switch to the paddle attachment and add the butter, one tablespoon at a time, beating until smooth. Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.
4. Add the cinnamon and nutmeg to the buttercream.. Fill he shells with the buttercream and enjoy!

I’m so excited that I can pull out the Christmas tree, blast my Christmas Pandora station and start the holiday baking (without getting judgey stares from others)! It’s officially CHRISTMAS SEASON!

I pretty much sang Christmas carols the whole time while making these. My sous chef, aka my four legged friend who just lays on the cold kitchen floor as I work, probably was not very pleased. I will say that the sous chef really couldn’t care less about the Christmas tree so far…whew! 🙂

Back to the cookies. The hubs LOVES a good chewy sugar cookie, so when I saw this recipe on Christen’s blog, I couldn’t wait to make these happen! The ingredients sound a little weird at first (cream cheese in sugar cookies?!), but trust me, it works. The hubs said these were probably the best cookies I’ve ever made! SCORE!

Chewy Sugar Cookies
Source: mildly adapted from Cooks Illustrated (Nov/Dec 2010 issue), as seen on Cooking with Christen

Ingredients:

•  2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1.5 cups sugar, plus extra for rolling the cookies in
• 3 oz cream cheese, cut into small pieces
• 6 tbsp butter, melted and warm
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 large egg
• 1 tbsp milk
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Line a baking sheet with silicone mat.  Whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together in a medium-sized bowl.
3. In a large bowl, place the 1.5 cups sugar and the cream cheese, then pour the warm butter over it and whisk to combine.  It will be slightly lumpy.  Whisk in oil, mix well then add the egg, milk and vanilla and whisk until smooth.  Add flour mixture and mix with a scraper spatula until dough forms.
4. Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop cookies onto a baking pan, leaving adequate space for baking. Using the bottom of a drinking glass, gently flatten each cookie to make them uniform in size. Sprinkle additional sugar on top of each cookie (and sprinkles, if you’d like).  Bake 11-13 minutes, until edges are just set. (This step is much different from Cooks Illustrated, because I found the resulting dough to be too sticky to work with.) This made about 30 cookies.
5. Cool on wire rack.

Gingerbread is one of those cookies that is just a standard to have during the holidays. They are spicy, chewy and can be cut in cute holiday shapes! My siblings and I used to get the Little Debbie gingerbreads and fight over them at the house. 🙂

I decided to include these in my coworker’s baked goodies tins because they looked easy and it was something new to bake. Being that I’ve never worked with molasses, I have to admit, I thought it was going to smell like brown sugar or something similar. No way folks…this has a very different smell than imagined. In fact, I thought I had a batch of bad molasses, but I kept going with the recipe and it turns out that molasses do indeed smell unpleasant normally.

This recipe is easy to work with and yields a delicious gingerbread cookie. You will not be disappointed at all.

Rolled Gingerbread Cookies
Source: Cookie Craft

Ingredients:

• 5 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda (if using this recipe to make a gingerbread house, omit the baking soda)
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• zest of one orange
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup molasses

Directions:

1. Cream together the butter and sugar for 2 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add the egg and molasses and mix until blended.
2. Put the flour, spices, baking soda, salt and orange zest in a medium bowl and whisk mixture together.
3. With the mixer on low, gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture until the two are well blended.
4. Put the dough in 3 even portions, formed into a rough disk and chill the dough in the fridge for a few hours.
5. When you are ready to bake the dough, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
6. Cut the dough into desired shapes and place on a parchment/Silpat lined cookie sheet. ( I dipped one side of the cookie in sprinkles before placing on the cookie sheet.)
7. Bake in the middle rack of your oven for 12-16 minutes for larger cookies; 7-9 minutes for smaller cookies or until the dough darkens a little along the edges.
8. Cool cookies completely for decorating.

Makes about 36 3″ sized cookies, which equates to almost one double batch of sugar cookies.