First selection of 2025, second selection on the way! These are majority new-to-me recipes this year, and I’m proud of that fact simply because I can be a little bit too set in my ways 
Clockwise:
- Luisa Weiss’ lebkuchen from Classic German Baking, enrobed in 70%. I made the dough in October and let it cure til it was time to bake this weekend.
- Bon Appetit ginger spice cookies
- Lavender sandwich cookies with lemon curd
- Dorie Greenspan’s devil’s thumbprints with Callebaut ruby chocolate center
- Nicola Lamb’s pistachio and lemon amaretti from Sift, and reprinted here
- In the middle: fig and orange sables from Sarah Keiffer
About the amaretti:
This was my first time making amaretti of any kind. The entire recipe was made in the food processor and came together very quickly; it also makes a modest number of cookies, which honestly feels like a bit of a relief at this point.
The recipe called for coriander seeds, and I couldn’t find any, even in the extensive bulk spice section at the natural foods store. I had roasted ground coriander at home, but frankly it had no scent whatsoever, so I didn’t want to use it. I like cardamom and reasoned it would go, so I wound up opening 6-8 green cardamom pods, taking out the black seeds, and pulverizing them in a mortar+pestle, then adding to the nut mixture in the food processor.
I found they baked faster than the instructions specified, so I knocked at least 3 min off the baking time, because burning a cookie this good is a sin. There isn’t much lemon flavor per se, but the cookie is an extremely concentrated little flavor bomb (all nuts, no flour) so I don’t think I missed it. Not with the beautiful pistachio and cardamom flavors going on. I won’t leave it out next time - and there will be a next time - because I’m sure it brightens things in the background. Just know that this isn’t a lemony cookie at all.
The lavender cookies - everybody liked them. I was afraid of overdoing the lavender flavor, partially because my lavender flower was very fragrant. To compensate, I used just shy of the specified amount in this first half-batch. I think I’ll go to the full amount in the next pass.
Also, I rolled out the freshly-made dough before refrigerating, rather than fridging it in a disc and then rolling out, but the whole way I was worried about how dry and crumbly the dough was. Like I said, this was half a batch, so it’s possible the half-amount of liquid in the dough just wasn’t enough. Next time I make it, I will trust my instincts if the dough seems too dry before I get in the fridge.
