As long-time readers here know, we do ten types of cookies to welcome the holidays. We do a mix of old time favorites, with a few new types each year, and have been slowly adding the tastiest of the new cookies to the regular roster. I think this year we’ve hit on the best assortment yet.

Here’s the spread, with links to the recipes (or close equivalents) where available.

1. Peanut Butter. The Joy of Cooking standard, with one household adaptation. We use Teddy brand all-natural chunky peanut butter instead of the more usual and more industrial Jiff or Skippy. It gives a better texture, and a more intense, less kiddy-sweet peanut taste. And because it was a special gift – instead of the traditional fork-press decoration for the top, I use a sun-shaped cookie stamp to celebrate the solstice.
2. Cinnamon swirls. I can’t take credit for this one. Their spiraled perfection is entirely one of Younger Daughter’s specialties. She uses the CIA’s Cinnamon Bun Cookies recipe. It’s a rolled refrigerator cookie that can be made and frozen ahead of time, then defrosted and baked when needed. The frosting is optional, and in my opinion, not needed because the cookie is sweet enough on its own. She leaves it off so the dramatic spiral is better displayed.
3. Orange Marmalade Cookies. New this year, this is a soft cookie with a zingy, fresh orange icing. We are adding this one to our do-again list, for sure. We made these about half the size of the original, to keep with our bite-size cookie theme (with so many kinds, having smaller cookies allows a range of grazing). If you do them as small as ours (about 1.5 inch across) you will have too much icing. Either cut the recipe by about a third, or enjoy the leftover spread on muffins.
4. Chocolate Chips. Pretty much the Nestle Toll House classic, minus the nuts since so many of the other cookies are nut-rich. This year I made them thinner and crispier, by special request.
5. Triple Ginger Cookies. This was my special invention last year. The only difference between last year’s and this year’s is that last year I formed the cookies by rolling the dough in balls. This year I did “wild drop” using two teaspoons. I’m still looking for a really good name for this one.
6. Earthquakes. Well, we call them that. Most people call them Chocolate Crinkles. No clue as to why we had so little seismic activity on the batch this year – very little dramatic cracking. But they taste the same – intensely chocolaty, like a bite size brownie. There are dozens of recipes out there for these. Mine is from Long Time Pal Kathryn, and uses butter, not oil as the shortening. Here’s something similar.
7. Oysters. Another home invention – a sandwich cookie, of hazelnut spritz awith dark chocolate ganache filling. So named because the first time I did these I didn’t grind the nuts fine enough, and they clogged the cookie press, making strange, blobby shapes. We fitted those together as best we could, and named them accordingly.
8. Buffalo Bourbon Balls. Some years we make these with rum, some years with bourbon, but always with pecans. This no-bake cookie was in a circa 1960s edition of the Buffalo News. It is much like this one, although my version uses a bit more cocoa and nuts by proportion, and makes a bigger batch.
9. Mexican Wedding Cakes. Another must-have, this is an intensely rich shortbread, full of ground pecans, rolled twice in confectioner’s sugar (once warm, once when cooled). Our recipe is like this one, but again, scaled up to make a larger batch.
10. Cut-Outs. We start with Rich Rolled Cookies from Joy of Cooking (1964 edition), and add lemon zest to the cookie itself. Then for the icing we dissolve powdered sugar in lemon juice (not milk or water), tint it with food coloring and paint/drip it onto the thoroughly cooled cookies.
11. Ms. Jean’s fudge (not shown because it’s still setting up in the fridge). This year half the batch is with nuts and half is plain, in deference to my nut-adverse friends. Ms. Jean is a family friend, a beloved neighbor and my kids’ honorary Aunt, whose specialty is sharing joy, with a double helping over the holidays. Her’s is a standard quick-fudge, made from chocolate, butter, sweetened condensed milk, a splash of vanilla and a pinch of salt. The one on line most like it is this one from Cooking for Engineers, although Jean’s added a quarter tsp of vanilla and pinch of salt. Save yourself effort though – line your pan with plastic wrap to make getting the stuff out and cut MUCH easier. And have the pan lined are ready to go before you stir the milk into the chocolate.

Now, how do we manage to make all of these? Especially when I work and am not home all day? Over time, and in order. I start early in December, by making the bourbon balls. They need time to mellow, like a fruitcake. The peanut butter cookies are next because with their high oil content, they are a long-keeper. The last ones to be made are usually the Mexican Wedding Cakes because they are delicate and go stale more quickly than some of the others. Most nights that I bake I make a dough and fridge it, to bake on the next evening. On weekends I might do two or three batches in their entirety. As each cookie is finished, it is stowed away in its plastic-wrap lined tin, and its on to the next.

Oh! The holidays do come in a stampeding herd this year.

Happy Hannukah!

Last night was the first candle.

How could I end this post without linking to the latke recipe, too? 🙂