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Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Christmas cookies, a holiday tradition for home bakers. It's difficult to think of a holiday filled with more tradition than Christmastime. From the decorations to gift giving and, of course, baking, the holidays are rich in ritual and customs.
With annual cookie swaps, gifting tins of cookies and leaving a plate of cookies for Santa, the holidays are a high point of the year for home bakers. Just the smell of cookies in the oven can put you in the holiday spirit. But while the holidays are rich in cookie tradition, there seems to be as many ways to make the same cookie as there are varieties.
There's the no cookie-cutter approach to making a chocolate-chip or sugar cookie, arguably the two most popular types. “I must have six different recipes for sugar cookies," says Roberta Blumenthal, a home baker from Somers Point. “Some of them use granulated sugar, some of them use powdered sugar.
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Augustine senior is The Press Boys Soccer Player of the Year “I like to be creative so I get excited when I come up with a new design for a cookie,” says Heidi Toth, of Northfield. Heidi Toth, of Northfield, rolls out dough for her sugar cookies. She believes it's best to chill the dough before making sugar cookies so they retain their shape.
Blumenthal and Toth are serious cookie bakers and they need to be. Both women bake for the annual Christmas Cookie Walk at Grace Lutheran Church in Somers Point, where they will join a small army of home bakers to produce thousands of cookies to be sold on Dec. 9 to benefit the church.
Blumenthal, a retired teacher, says she plans on making between 10 to 12 dozen of each of 10 different varieties of cookies this year. Toth will do the same. “We try to have people bake cookies that aren't your typical chocolate chip, oatmeal and peanut butter," explains Toth.
“So we have different, unusual cookies like Swedish spritz, lebkuchen, pfeffernuss — which is a German little spice cookie — gingerbread, various forms of potato chip cookies, sugar cookies and orange butter cookies.” With so many different variations, many shy away from baking, fearing the process may be too overwhelming. All of our home bakers agreed following the recipe to the letter is paramount to success, so is accurate measuring of ingredients, and maintaining the proper baking time and temperature.
“With baking you need to be more accurate in your measuring and the temperature,” advises Blumenthal. “It's a more accurate science than cooking.” Peppermint kisses made by Roberta Blumenthal.
Tip: If you freeze the candy first, then it doesn't melt, it keeps it's shape . “All the ingredients should be at room temperature before you start,” adds Peggy Apice, of Absecon. “If not, you can really mess up your dough.
” She uses a spoon to add ingredients to a measuring cup and then uses a knife to level off the excess. She says it's a more exacting way to get the proper amount of flour, sugar or whatever the ingredient. Chocolate chip cookies, made by Peggy Apice, of Absecon, who says it’s an easy cookie to make, Monday, Nov.
13, 2023. Apice, a retired teacher, taught young student how to make the cookies and they loved them. “It’s a drop cookie and you just need to follow the directions.
” Apice and fellow Absecon resident Roe Snyder bake cookies for their family, as gifts for others and for the Christmas bazaar at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Absecon, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Snyder, a retired nurse, has a personal best of making 29 varieties of cookies in one holiday season.
And one of her family favorites is pizzelles, the delicate and crispy disc-like Italian cookie with a hint of anise. She makes them every year Her advise for making great pizzelles: “You have to have a good pizzelle iron.” She says while the process is relatively easy, it can get tiresome since she can only make two at a time.
Apice's favorite cookie is the classic spritz, a German, relatively soft cookie, that is produced using a cookie press gun that gives the baker a choice of shapes. While many bakers suggest chilling the dough before baking, she says you can’t refrigerate the dough since it needs to easily flow though the cookie press gun used to make them. She also suggests measuring carefully so the dough is smooth and fluffy.
Chilling the dough is one of several techniques many bakers do not agree on. Yummy balls made by Roberta Blumenthal Toth believes chilling the dough is an important practice that gives the cookie a better quality of taste and texture. And it also keeps the shape of the dough and prevents it from spreading.
Chewy almond bars made by Roberta Blumenthal Other areas of dispute include using salted or unsalted butter, and using granular salt over Kosher and sea salt. Our bakers say when in doubt, go with the recipe. One thing they do agree on is time and temperature.
Not every oven is the same, so even if you follow the recipe to the letter, your 350-degree oven may not be the same as the author of the recipe. To get around that, all of our bakers suggest checking the cookies while they're baking at the low end of the suggested baking time. If it says bake for 10 to 12 minutes, check them at the 10 minute mark.
They also agree homemade cookies are the better than store bought. “The bakery cookies are delicious, but it's those homemade cookies, with the butter that are mmm delicious,” says Toth. “Everything is s'mores anymore,” says Roberta Blumenthal, who found this recipe and sticks with it.
She says they're easy to make and kids love them. She suggests following the recipe for them to turn out with that chocolate and marshmallow combination. "I follow the recipe.
I was a kindergarten teacher. I taught kids to follow rules. I'm a rule follower.
" Makes: 60 cookies INGREDIENTS 1 cup butter, softened 1⁄2 cup packed brown sugar 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla 11⁄3 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup finely ground graham cracker crumbs (16 cracker squares) 1⁄8 teaspoon salt 120 miniature marshmallows (about 11⁄4 cups) 60 rectangles milk chocolate (from 4 1.55-ounce bars) DIRECTIONS Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar with mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy.
Add egg and vanilla; beat until blended. Add flour, cracker crumbs and salt; on low speed, beat about 1 minute or until stiff dough forms. Shape dough by heaping teaspoonfuls into 60 balls.
On ungreased cookie sheets, place ball 2 inches apart. With thumb, make indentation in center of each. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until cookies are firm and edges are just beginning to brown.
Lightly press 2 marshmallows in center of each cookie; bake 2 to 3 minutes longer. Top marshmallows on each cookie with 1 rectangle of chocolate; let stand 2 to 3 minutes. With tip of knife, gently spread chocolate over marshmallows.
Let stand until chocolate is set. Roberta Blumenthal says this is a fun cookie to make. Make the dough, roll a ball, and as soon as it comes out of the oven smash in a Reese's Cup.
It's an easy cookie to make that she found it on the bag of candy. INGREDIENTS 48 mini peanut butter cups (unwrap) 1⁄2 cup butter or margarine 1⁄2 cup white sugar 1 egg 11⁄2 cup flour 1⁄2 teaspoon salt 1⁄2 cup peanut butter 1⁄2 cup brown sugar 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla 3⁄4 teaspoon baking soda DIRECTIONS Cream well butter/margarine, peanut butter, white and brown sugars. Beat egg and vanilla.
Blend in flour, baking soda and salt by hand. Dough will be soft. Shape into 1-inch balls.
Place into paper-lined mini muffin pans. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. Immediately upon removing from oven, press a mini peanut butter cup into the center of each cookie so only the top shows.
Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. Thumb print cookies are relatively easy to make, says Roberta Blumenthal, and the recipe is true to what it will produce. "The recipe says you'll get three dozen and that's exactly how many you get.
You roll the dough into balls, then roll them in egg white, then put your thumb in it, bake it, then fill it with either icing or jelly,” she says. Makes: About 3 dozen cookies INGREDIENTS 1⁄4 cup butter or margarine (softened) 1⁄4 cup shortening 1⁄4 cup brown sugar (packed) 1 egg, separated 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla 1 cup flour 1⁄4 teaspoon salt Finely chopped nuts Jelly or icing DIRECTIONS Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix thoroughly butter, shortening, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla.
Work in flour and salt. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Beat egg white slightly (use a fork).
You may need to use more egg whites. Roll ball in egg white then into finely chopped nuts. Place on ungreased baking sheet, 1 inch apart.
Press thumb into center of each ball. Bake about 10 minutes. Immediately remove from baking sheet.
Cool completely, fill thumbprint with jelly or icing. “My mother called them butter balls because they're made with lots and lot of butter," explains Roberta Blumenthal. "You can use walnuts or pecans.
It's easy to make. You need to put the powdered sugar on them when they're warm, not hot." Makes: About 4 dozen cookies INGREDIENTS 1 cup butter or margarine (softened) 1⁄2 cup powdered sugar (plus additional for coating) 1 teaspoon vanilla 21⁄4 cups flour 1⁄4 cup finely chopped nuts 1⁄4 teaspoon salt DIRECTIONS Heat oven to 400 degrees.
Mix thoroughly butter, sugar???? and vanilla. Work in flour, nuts and salt until the dough holds together (by hand). Shape the dough into small balls.
Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set, but not brown. While warm, roll in powdered sugar.
Cool and roll in powdered sugar, again. Yummy balls are a 50-year old recipe Roberta Blumenthal got from her mother. "It's easy because it's no bake.
You just mix it up in a bowl, make the little balls and roll them. You don't need any talent. You don't have to watch for time or temperature," she says.
INGREDIENTS 3 cups graham cracker crumbs 1 bag mini marshmallows 1 cup maraschino cherries, chopped into small pieces 1 can Eagle brand milk 1 box (or container) chopped dates 1 cup chopped walnuts Coconut DIRECTIONS Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl with a wooden spoon. Roll into small balls. Roll the balls in coconut Roberta Bumenthal found the recipe for these chewy toffee almond bars in a magazine and her family loves them.
She said the recipe is adaptable in that she includes coconut with some and not for others to please her two daughters. She says it is a bit complicated to make in that you need to make a crust, and there are several steps in the process. Makes: About 36 bars CRUST INGREDIENTS 1 cup butter, softened 1⁄2 cup sugar 2 cups flour DIRECTIONS Beat butter and sugar until fluffy.
Gradually add flour, beating until well blended. Grease bottom and sides of a 13-by-9-by-2-inch baking pan or dish. Press dough into pan and slightly up the sides (not all the way up).
Bake 15 to 20 minutes until edges are slightly browned at 350 degrees. Meanwhile make topping. TOPPING INGREDIENTS 13⁄4 cups (10 ounces) Skor bits, Hershey bits or brickle 3⁄4 cup light corn syrup 3⁄4 cup coconut, divided 1 cup sliced almonds, divided DIRECTIONS Combine toffee bits and corn syrup in a medium saucepan.
Cook over medium heat stirring constantly, until toffee bits are melted. This takes 10 to 12 minutes. When toffee is melted, add 1⁄2 cup of almonds and 1⁄2 cup of coconut.
Stir. Spread to within 1⁄4 inch of edge of crust. Sprinkle remaining nuts and coconut.
Bake for an additional 15 minutes or until bubbly. Cool completely. Cut into bars.
Heidi Toth offered her family recipe for potato chip cookies, which are similar to a sugar cookie but are light and soft in the center. While she is a believer in chilling the dough before baking, this is one cookie that is best made with dough at room temperature. For her potato chip cookie, chilling the dough would lead to a soggy center.
And if you want to keep your cookies crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, she suggests storing the cookies in a tin container, cover with tin foil and placing a slice of white bread over them. “What that does,” she explains, “the cookies absorb the moisture of the bread and they keep moist.” INGREDIENTS 1 cup unsalted butter, softened at room temperature 1⁄2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 cups flour 1⁄2 cup finely chopped pecans 1⁄2 cup finely crushed potato chips Colored sugar or powdered sugar (for decorating) DIRECTIONS Beat butter with sugar until creamy and well blended.
Add vanilla and beat again until blended. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well until blended. Shape into 1-inch balls and place 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment (see note).
Squish the balls into rounds. Can either be decorated with colored sugar before baking or sprinkled with powdered sugar after removing from oven and cooled a bit. Bake at 350 degrees until golden around the edges, about 10 to 12 minutes.
Note: Do not freeze or refrigerate the unbaked dough or the potato chips will lose their crunch. At the Toth house they started a tradition of Cookie Day at the start of December when the whole family gathers to help make and decorate cookies from morning to night. And this crowd favorite let's everyone, toddlers to grandparents, have their chance at creating a masterpiece with their choice of decorations from sparkles to candy and everything in between.
Heidi Toth finds that when you're baking for several hours and the oven is hot, along with the cookie sheets, the cookies will get done quicker. So keep your eyes on the edges for that golden brown color that let's you know they're perfect. INGREDIENTS 11⁄2 sticks (3⁄4 cups) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature 3⁄4 cups superfine sugar (if you don't have superfine, you can put regular sugar in a food processor) 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla 21⁄2 cups flour 1⁄4 teaspoon baking powder 1⁄4 teaspoon salt Sugars, sprinkles or royal icing, for decorating DIRECTIONS Beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy.
Add egg and then vanilla. Add the remaining ingredients and mix until completely incorporated. Divide the dough into two equal portions, wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
(I just leave mine in the bowl and put the lid on it.) Remove from refrigerator and let sit for a few minutes to soften. Roll out in between parchment paper or wax paper to a thickness of 1⁄8 inch.
Use cookie cutters to cur out shapes and either decorate with sugars, sprinkles and decorations prior to baking or bake as is and use your favorite recipe for royal icing to ice cookies when cooled. Bake at 350 degrees until golden around the edges, about 10 to 12 minutes. Heidi Toth found her love for baking when she spent time with her aunt in Germany when she was 12 years old and learned to bake from her.
“I just fell in love with baking cookies,” she says of that experience. This German cookie is a variation on a thumb print cookie which can be made in different flavors and is light and fluffy. INGREDIENTS 1 stick (1⁄2 cup) butter, softened at room temperature 1⁄3 cup sugar 1 egg 2 cups flour 1⁄3 cup finely chopped hazelnuts, toasted and chopped Raspberry jam (see note) DIRECTIONS Beat butter with sugar until fluffy.
Beat in egg and gradually add flour until blended. Spread hazelnuts on a cookie tray and toast in 350-degree oven until light golden. Meanwhile, shape the dough into 1-inch balls and place 2 inches apart on baking sheet lined with parchment.
Squish the balls with the back of a rounded teaspoon size measuring spoon until a slight indent forms. Fill indent with raspberry jam, careful not to overfill as the jelly tends to spill out when baking. Sprinkle with toasted hazelnuts.
Bake at 350 degrees until golden around the edges, about 15 minutes. Note: We have also used apricot, peach, blueberry and strawberry jam. Roberta Bluemthal says this cookie is relatively easy to make and adds festive holiday color to a Christmas cookie platter.
Makes: About 48 cookies INGREDIENTS 1⁄4 cup soft butter 1 Betty Crocker chocolate fudge cake mix 1 egg 2 tablespoons water Peppermint Hershey's Kisses DIRECTIONS Cut butter into cake mix with pastry blender until mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Stir in egg and water until combined. Shape into small balls.
Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 11 to 12 minutes. Place peppermint Hug in center of cookie as soon as it comes from the oven.
Remove to wire rack and cool completely. Tip: If you freeze the candy first, it doesn't melt and it keeps its shape. Roe Snyder started making pizzelles for the Italian side of her family.
She believes she received her pizzelle iron as a gift so she could make the cookies. She says making them is "easy, but tedious." "It takes a long time.
You can only put two in an iron at a time. It takes 30 or 40 seconds to cook, lift the iron off and and put them on a rack to cool, then putting more dough on the pizzelle iron. Meanwhile, while they're cooling you sift some powdered sugar on them.
Let them finish cooling. I like to store them in stacks of 12 and put them in aluminum foil to keep them crisp." Makes: About 72 cookies INGREDIENTS 6 eggs 11⁄2 cups sugar 1 cup butter melted then cooled 2 tablespoon anise extract (or 1 teaspoon anise oil) 31⁄2 cups flour 3 teaspoons baking powder 11⁄2 teaspoons anise seed Confectioner’s sugar to decorate DIRECTIONS Beat eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add butter and anise extract. Combine flour and baking powder, then stir in anise seed gradually to the dough. Dough will be sticky.
If it is too thin, add a tablespoon or two of flour. Preheat pizzelle iron then drop a teaspoon of dough onto the iron. Bake about 30 seconds until light brown.
Remove to wire rack to cool and sift confectioner’s sugar on top. Note: A pizzelle iron is needed to make this cookie. Roe Snyder says this is a bit of a process to produce but is relatively easy.
She uses a food processor to grind up the walnuts. "It's an old Betty Crocker recipe. You have to grind the walnuts fine, then make it into a dough, roll them out and I have a little circle to cut them out.
Ninety-six circles later you bake them." Makes: 45 sandwich cookies INGREDIENTS 1 cup unsweetened butter softened 2 cups flour 1⁄2 cup sugar 1 cup finely chopped walnuts 10 ounces seedless raspberry jam Confectioner’s sugar to decorate DIRECTIONS Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix first 4 ingredients together.
Split dough into 2 balls and roll dough to 1⁄4-inch thickness on lightly floured board. Cut out 11⁄2 circles and place onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until lightly browned on the edges.
Cool then spread jam on half the cookies and add a cookie on top to sandwich and press lightly to seal. Sprinkle cookies with sifted confectioner’s sugar on top. "Chocolate chip cookies are easy," says Peggy Apice.
"They're a drop cookie. Basically you just follow directions." Apice, a retired family science teacher, taught her students to make these cookies during one 42-minute period.
She adapted a recipe she found on the back of the chocolate morsels bag for her students, reducing the amount it produced and the kids loved them. “All the ingredients should be at room temperature before you start. If not you can really mess up your dough," she says.
Makes: About 48 cookies INGREDIENTS 1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened 2⁄3 cup granulated sugar 2⁄3 cup brown sugar, packed 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 21⁄3 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 2 cups chocolate chips DIRECTIONS Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In large mixing bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar on medium speed of electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.
In separate bowl, stir together flour, baking soda and salt. On low speed gradually add to creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.
Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned on edges. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.
One of Peggy Apice's favorite cookies is the spritz. On a scale of easy to difficult she says this is medium since you do need to get the hang of using a cookie press. “It has a lot of butter in it so it's more like a butter cookies.
I like the spitz cookie, but they're too easy to pop them in your mouth. There's a lot of fat there." She says this is one cookie where measurement is really important.
"It all comes down to measuring the ingredients. If you scoop the flour out it clumps it together and it's not as light and fluffy. If you spoon it into your cup and level it off you get a lighter consistency.
And when you add the flour you want to add it on low speed otherwise it develops the glutton." Makes: 6 to 7 dozen INGREDIENTS 11⁄2 cups butter (3 sticks), softened 1 cup sugar 1 egg 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 31⁄2 cups all-purpose flour Colored sugar or sprinkles, optional DIRECTIONS Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar on medium speed of mixer about 3 minutes or until creamy, scraping down sides, as necessary.
Add egg and vanilla; beat well. Add flour; mix on low speed, just until blended, scraping down sides, as necessary. (Dough will be soft; do not refrigerate.
) Fit cookie press with desired disk; fill with dough. Press dough onto cookie sheet, 1 inch apart. Decorate cookies with colored sugar or sprinkles.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Cool cookies 2 minutes on cookie sheet; remove to cooling rack. Variation: For chocolate spritz cookies.
increase sugar to 11⁄4 cups. Decrease flour to 3 cups. Combine flour and 1⁄3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder in medium mixing bowl; blend well.
Proceed as recipe directs. Homemade cookies, pies, scones and hot cocoa along with crafts and vendors. Where: Grace Lutheran Church, 11 E.
Dawes Ave., Somers Point When: 9 a.m.
until sold out Dec. 9 Info: 609-432-7069 Satisfy your cravings With our weekly newsletter packed with the latest in everything food..
