Recipes: These holiday cookies are as fun to make as they are tasty to eat ...Middle East

To my way of thinking, most folks love cookies. In the case of holiday cookies, for many it’s not just for their splendid taste and texture. Fondness is often linked to memories of warm kitchens and pleasant family times. Baking cookies is old-fashioned holiday fun.

Of course, those cookie treasures can be sealed up in zipper-style plastic bags for enjoying at home or given as gifts (I like to keep one or two bags in the freezer for emergency cookie raids). There are a wide variety of cookie tins available in marketplace that are welcome containers for gift packaging.

Cookies come in all shapes, sizes and flavors. Some are crisp, while others are chewy. I’ve chosen recipes for three crisp beauties that I love to bake and share.

Tillie’s Brown Sugar Shortbread Buttons

My old friend Tillie loved to prepare these easy-to-make cookies. They look like buttons and are loosely bound together with a holiday ribbon. If making these with children, they may opt to top the cookies with a judicious amount of sprinkles, avoiding the holes that are created with a chopstick.

Yield: About 2 dozen

INGREDIENTS

Nonstick spray

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted cold butter, cut into about 16 pieces

2/3 cup light brown sugar (packed)

2 cups all-purpose flour, divided use

1 chopstick

DIRECTIONS

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 2 baking sheets with nonstick spray.

2. Place butter pieces and brown sugar in food processor fitted with metal blade. Pulse until creamy. Add 1 cup flour to processor; pulse to combine. Add remaining flour and pulse to combine and form ball. Stop the processor just as soon as it forms the ball.

3. Remove from processor and pat dough into flat disk on dry work surface. Break off walnut-sized pieces of dough, form into a ball and place on prepared baking sheet. Spray bottom of a flat-bottomed glass with nonstick spray. Flatten dough with bottom of glass to make round cookie. Using a chopstick, make 4 holes in each cookie so that it looks like a button. Repeat to make about 1 dozen cookies on sheet. (The cookies don’t spread much during baking.) Repeat on second baking sheet.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 7 to 9 minutes or until golden around edges. Remove from oven and immediately repeat punching holes with a chopstick. Cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet. Transfer to cooling rack. Cool completely.

4. Run narrow ribbon through 1 hole of 2 or 3 cookies. Tie loosely so you have string of shortbread cookies.

Christmas Gingered Shortbreads

Shortbread is a traditional Scottish treat usually made from one part granulated sugar, 2 parts butter, and three to four parts flour. Often associated with Christmas, this version boosts both candied ginger and chopped dried cranberries or golden raisins or dried cherries. The dough is formed into a disk and baked, then when cooled for 15 minutes, cut into triangular wedges. Those wedges are often called “petticoat tails” in Scotland.

Yield: 24 cookies

INGREDIENTS

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar, superfine sugar preferred; see cook’s notes

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup coarsely chopped dried cranberries, golden raisins OR dried cherries

Cook’s notes: Baker’s Sugar from C & H is the brand of superfine sugar most found in local supermarkets. If you don’t have superfine sugar, you can make it at home by processing granulated sugar in a food processor about 30 seconds.

Crystallized or candied ginger is ginger that has been cooked in sugar syrup and coated with coarse sugar. It’s sold in Asian markets and many supermarkets. It’s also sold at specialty markets, such as Trader Joe’s.

DIRECTIONS

1. Preliminaries: Adjust oven rack to middle position. Line 1 large or 2 small baking sheets with parchment paper. Fifteen minutes before baking, preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. In large bowl of electric mixer, add butter and sugar. On medium speed, beat, scraping down sides when necessary, until creamy.

3. In separate bowl, stir together to combine flour, cornstarch and salt (a whisk is good for this). Add about 1 cup of flour mixture to butter mixture. Beat on medium-low speed to combine. Add remaining flour mixture and beat to combine.

4. Add cranberries (or raisins or dried cherries) and ginger. Stir to combine, mixing just until crumbly. Transfer to lightly floured work surface. Knead gently until it just comes together. Divide dough into 3 balls and transfer to baking sheets, pressing each into 6-inch round. With sharp knife, cut each round into 8 wedges. Do not pull sections apart. With a small knife, score edges of each round to create scalloped edge. Insert tines of a fork in shortbread to make tiny holes at 1 1/2- to 2-inch intervals. Chill 15 minutes.

5. Bake in preheated oven, 25-30 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool 15 minutes on baking sheet. Transfer to cooling rack. Shortbread can be cut into wedges (along cut lines made before baking) while warm or kept in rounds to be cut at serving time.

Hence then, the article about recipes these holiday cookies are as fun to make as they are tasty to eat was published today ( Monday 01/12/2025 - 09:16 PM ) and is available on The Orange County Register ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.

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