Here we are, at the end of 2024! What’s in your oven?
I have half a batch of the Mokonuts Rye-Cranberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies chilling in the fridge overnight, as directed, and will bake off tomorrow.
I’ve been curious about these for a while. I panic-bought rye flour during the pandemic and then stashed in the freezer with no plan, so I brought it out for this recipe. I admit I also took it easy on the poppyseeds, which seem incongruous with the rest of the ingredients. I did put about half the quantity into the batter, however.
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Nothing baking yet, but after sifting through “favorites”, I still have a list of 17 cookie and bar ideas and am working to pare it down further to reasonable size. Top 6 are decided: pecan tassies, oatmeal raisin, cookie press snowflakes, cranberry spirals, apricot fold-overs, molasses/ginger. Now that I’ve typed that, I should just start baking and see what energy remains before planned Dec 9 or 10 mailing date. The last 3 are likely to be something with peanut butter, something with chocolate, and something with cardamom.
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“Cookie Monster” time
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CRANBERRY spirals, color me intrigued!
I’ve got a couple cookies on my list and have managed to cancel a cross-country business trip next week that was bound to put a serious dent in my baking plans this year (hooray!) Sitting here this morning surrounded by cookbooks, with my cookie spreadsheet open!
For sure:
- Camilla Wynne’s fruitcake cookies from “Nature’s Candy”
- Dorie’s caramel crunch-chocolate chunklet cookies
- Family recipe for Pennsylvania Dutch sand tarts
- Decorated wreaths - I’ve made a couple versions of these. This one is lavender, this one is meyer lemon.
The contenders:
- Molly O’Neill’s lemon-pistachio bars
- Shortbread logs dipped in chocolate
- Luisa Weiss’ pfeffernusse from Classic German Baking
- Biscotti TBD
- A jam cookie. My absolute favorite are (I think Martha’s?) linzer sandwich cookies, but they are quite a pain to make. I had Martha’s recipe bookmarked in several places, but they’ve taken it down. I think I originally got it from one of her special-edition cookie magazines.
- Something confectioners’ sugar-covered.
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Yesterday I made an apple galette. I pretty much just made up the filling using a combination of some kind of red apples I received from Misfits Market and Granny Smiths. I used Pillsbury pie dough. I did make Mark Bittman’s caramel to drizzle over the top. It is good! I’ve already eaten half of it. Apples are a breakfast food, right?
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Reminder re holiday baking:
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I made Martha Stewart’s Cranberry-Pistachio biscotti once, adding some crystallized ginger. They were shockingly successful considering I am not a baker at all. We all loved them. Could be your easy-peasy recipe to balance out the time-consuming ones. Although we all know you love a project!!
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Thanks for that link, Saregama. Final decisions and results will get posted over there.
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@mig Cranberry spirals/pinwheels recipe link - I make a full recipe of the vanilla dough and fill it with the orange cranberry sauce recipe she provides (that sauce gets made for T-Day and about 1.5 cups set aside for the multiple batches of cookies). Shaping/baking instructions for the cookie are here https://www.ourlifetastesgood.com/2014/12/cranberry-pinwheel-cookies.html
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Many thanks !!
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Thanks for that - I am pretty sure I’ve made these. That’s my fave flavor profile. I find biscotti extremely annoying to slice, especially with nuts in. But that’s what makes them good! It’s a dilemma.
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Me too! I bought a bread knife with fine serrations just for that purpose, but even that wouldn’t do it.
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Huh, I have no recollection of any slicing difficulty. Maybe rookie luck? I did use a good bread knife and pistachios are fairly soft, as nuts go.
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Fuji Apple Tarts , one thinly sliced apple with caramel, the other cubed apple with a little walnut streusel. I love having a stack of premade tart crusts in the freezer, pie on demand! Pear and blackberry coming up in the next day or so.
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beautiful! Which did you prefer?
Oh yea, I’ve tried everything. I just hate wasting cookies to breakage.
Hot from the oven! This is the first time with Fuji apples, WLYK!
I cut mine after the first bake while they are still slightly warm. Then stand them upright on a rack on the baking sheet and do the second bake which takes much less time. This has worked for me , I don’t know if you have tried this method.
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