5 Christmas Cookie Recipes
At the end of December, everyone usually buys or bakes gingerbread cookies. It has become boring to us, and we asked Marina Pustilnik, the hostess of the bakery Marik's Kitchen, to come up with worthy alternatives for us.
Best Cheese Crackers
When I studied in the USA, there was a sandwich shop in the student center (let's call it that), in which besides coffee, sandwiches and fries, other sweetheart foods were sold to brighten up evenings with textbooks. One of these products was goldfish cheese crackers, in the form of - as the name suggests - small fish. These crackers are addictive and addictive. Making them, it turns out, is very simple: the main thing is not to feel sorry for good cheese. In addition, they can be made simply with black pepper, can be made with sharp red, you can add masala-spice mix there, as I do, and you can - finely chopped fresh rosemary or some dry herbs to taste.
Ingredients:
240 g cheese (cheddar, gouda) 60 g butter at room temperature 120 g flour salt, pepper, spices, spices - to taste and desire
Cooking:
Rub the cheese on a fine grater, mix it with flour so that it covers the whole cheese, add spices to taste (or limit to salt and pepper), mix and add soft butter chopped into pieces. Hands knead the dough. It will take several minutes to do this, the main thing is not to give up and use a couple of tablespoons of water if it turns out that the dough is rather dry. After kneading the dough, you need to send it for a couple of hours (or all night) in the refrigerator. If you do not want to spend time trying to roll out the dough and cut the biscuits into shapes, you can immediately form it into a sausage box before being sent to the fridge. Then, taking it out of the refrigerator, you can just cut it into pieces, put it on a baking sheet and send it to the oven. Bake at 180 degrees for about 15 minutes.
Brownie with salt
These, of course, are not real brownies (there is too much flour in them) and not enough for brownie eggs and chocolate. But you do not have to lick sticky fingers and suffer from the fact that one piece is a lot, but you want two. Salt in combination with chocolate gives an unexpected taste. The bonus of this cookie is that you can safely store the ready-made dough for several days in the refrigerator and bake just as many cookies for yourself as you do not feel sorry for the diet.
Ingredients:
120 g butter room temperature 150 g sugar (brown is better, of course) 30 g of cocoa powder (not "Nesquik"! And better and not "Golden label") 1 egg vanilla essence 180 g flour baking powder coarse salt
Cooking:
Beat soft butter with a mixer with sugar, two or three minutes. Add cocoa powder, beat, to avoid lumps. Add the egg and a little vanilla essence (optional and if available), beat again. Mix flour with baking powder and add to oily mixture. Knead the dough with your hands, form into a ball and, wrapped in a film, put into the fridge for an hour, a night or a few days. Before baking, roll out the dough on a floured surface. Do not feel sorry for the flour, it will disappear in the baking process. You can roll out the dough thinner, then the cookie will be dryish, it can be thicker - then it will be closer to the sensations to the brownie. Cut cookies, put them on a baking sheet lined with parchment (baking paper). Put on each cookie several crystals of coarse salt. Bake at 180 degrees for 11 minutes (less if the cookies are thin).
Christmas biscotti
Surprisingly, but a fact: almost everything that you see in the window of a coffee shop or a pastry shop can be cooked at home, and it will be tasty and simple, and most importantly, you can experiment with flavors and fillings. When I bake, I always really appreciate the recipes that can be mixed in one bowl, without messing with any other dishes, and in the process of working on recipes, even if I’m initially offered to mix different parts separately, I experiment to make the recipe "for one bowl" . Biscotti for this are great.
Ingredients:
60 ml of olive oil 50 g sugar (remember that brown sugar is our friend in terms of taste and health) 2 eggs 210 g flour baking powder and salt candied orange peel, walnuts, cinnamon
Cooking:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Whip olive oil and sugar with a mixer, add eggs, whisk more. Next come baking powder, cinnamon and salt (as it should be mixed), then flour. At this stage, the mixer may have to be abandoned and go to work with a spoon, as the dough will be thick, although not the way to work with it with your hands. Add coarsely chopped walnuts and chopped candied orange zest and stir so that the filling is evenly distributed over the dough. Pasting baking sheet baking paper. Since the dough is sticky, it is best to wet your hands before working with it. Take about half of the dough, transfer it to a baking sheet and give it a log shape. Once again wetted hands and repeated the operation with the second part of the test. Place the baking sheet in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes, until the dough is baked and a golden crust appears. We take out the baking sheet, let the biscotti cool down a bit (5-10 minutes so that you can work with them). After that, carefully cut the log into the bars, turn each bar on its side and send it to the oven for another 10 minutes. The most patient can do the third step: get the biscotti, turn it over and bake for another 10 minutes.
Curd bagels with any fillings
I share the recipe of my mother, who turned out to be the simplest in the world. Approximate proportions - as indicated, but, of course, it all depends on what kind of cottage cheese you have: dry from the store or fat from the market. Curd mass, by the way, can also be used.
Ingredients:
200 g flour 200 g sugar 200 g of cottage cheese jam or nuts for the filling
Cooking:
Mix flour and sugar, add the curd and start kneading the dough with your hands. As it is necessary to report the cottage cheese, so that you get an elastic, non-sticky dough that can be rolled. Spread out half the dough on a floured work surface and roll it out in a circle. Lubricate the circle with a thin layer of jam (most of it should be not at the middle, but at the edges). Cut into 8-12-16 parts (depending on how large the circle is), and moving from the edges to the center, we roll the tubes. Put on a baking sheet lined with baking paper and put in the oven at 180 degrees for about 20-25 minutes. To create a particularly New Year's mood, you can search for the tangerine jam filling.
Lemon Gingerbread Cookies
Since we have almost Christmas and New Years in the courtyard, it seems to me to completely dispense with ginger cookies in preparation for these holidays. Accustomed to ginger men with the scent of cinnamon and cardamom? Let's try to diversify them.
Ingredients:
120 softened butter 200 g brown sugar 1 egg 3 tablespoons sour cream single lemon peel 210 g flour baking powder, salt, ground ginger candied lemon peel
Cooking:
In a large bowl, whip butter and sugar. Add egg and sour cream. Beat in the salt, baking powder and ground ginger. Gradually add all the flour to the liquid mixture. The result is a soft dough, which can be scooped up with a spoon and spread on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. On top, each cookie can be decorated with a couple of candied lemon peel for extra flavor. Bake at 180 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
PHOTOGRAPHER: Lena Butko