Holiday cookie recipe roundup

By: Maxwell Gawlick, Gabrielle McLaren, Sakina Nazarali, and Natasha Tar

Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookies (from Ben & Jerry’s)

Traditionally added to ice cream raw, this fabled recipe also produces some of the softest and most flavourful baked cookies you’ll ever have. Plus, there’s the added benefit of asking people if they want some of your “BJs’”.

For 12 cookies.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

1)     Preheat oven to 350°F.

2)     Beat egg and sugar until fluffy; add vanilla.

3)     In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients (except for the chocolate chips).

4)     Fold flour mixture into batter until thoroughly combined.

5)     Fold chocolate chips into batter.

6)     Use a tablespoon to form balls of dough, press flat onto ungreased cookie sheet.

7)     Bake 11–14 minutes, or until just golden. Let cool 5 minutes before serving. – MG

Chocolate crinkles (my Mom gets her recipe from a Company’s Coming book that I don’t own, so this one is from Simply Recipes)

These cookies look complicated and delicate, and always stand out in a box of dainties. They’re also super fun to make, so whip out this recipe to simultaneously wow your relatives AND entertain the little ones so that you become the Cool Cousin.

For 50 cookies.

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cups white granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (feel free to use butter or another oil — I bake with canola).
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder (optional, but it will deepen the taste of chocolate if you have it on hand)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Beat the first three ingredients, by hand or with a mixture. Heads up: your dough will look gross at first.
2. Mix in vanilla and eggs, one at a time and thoroughly beaten.
3. In another bowl, mix the the next three ingredients.
4. Mix the dry ingredients into your gross black dough mix.
5. Chill the dough for 4 hours or overnight. You can wrap it in plastic wrap, or chuck the whole bowl in the fridge if you can cover it.
6. This is the fun step, which you’ll want to get your family’s younger and funner cousins involved with. Roll the dough into small balls with your hands (use an ice cream scoop or spoons to portion out balls for young bakers if needed), and then drop them in the confectioners’ sugar. Make sure to coat them well before placing them on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. Make sure not to crowd the cookies, 12–16 per sheet.
7. Before baking, push down on the cookies with a fork genty. This will give the finished cookies more of a crinkle. Once that’s done, throw your cookies in the oven at 350°F for 10–12 minutes. – GM

Nutella Stuffed Cookies (from Delish)

Nutella lovers, these cookies are essentially therapy.

For 24 cookies.

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cup of Nutella
• 1 cup of softened butter
• 1 cup of packed brown sugar
• ½ cup of white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tablespoon of milk
• 2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 cup of unsweetened dark cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of kosher salt (can be substituted with coarse sea salt)
• Flaky sea salt

Directions

1. Cover your baking sheets with parchment paper and scoop out 24 1-tablespoon size balls of Nutella. Place in the freezer for an hour.
2. Use a hand mixer to beat butter and both sugars until you get a light and fluffy mixture. Add eggs, milk, and vanilla and beat until combined smoothly. Then add the remain ingredients and continue beating. Refrigerate your dough once whisked and blended.
3. Preheat oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment/baking paper.
4. Flatten a heaping tablespoon of cookie dough on some parchment paper. Throw one of your frozen Nutella balls on top, then place a second pancake on top of that. Pinch around the dough to seal.  When this is done, move the cookie to the covered baking sheet.
5. Repeat step four until you’ve used up all your ingredients. Leave 2 inches of space between each cookie
6. Sprinkle your sea salt over the cookies, and bake until your cookies have puffed up, around 15 minutes.
7. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving. – SN

Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Cookies (from The Busy Baker)

Pumpkin spice doesn’t stop being delicious once December hits! These cookies will make your home smell soooo good the neighbours might come over.

For 24 cookies.

Ingredients

• ½ cup of melted butter
• ¼ cup of brown sugar
• ½ cup of white sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 6 tablespoons canned pureed pumpkin
• 1 ½ cups of all-purpose flour
• ¼  teaspoon of salt
• ¼ teaspoon of baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 ½ teaspoons of cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon cloves
• ¼ teaspoon allspice
• ½ cup chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Use a hand mixer (or whisk) to combine the melted butter, brown sugar, white sugar, vanilla and pureed pumpkin. Add the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and spices to the bowl and continue whisking until combined.
3. Scatter the chocolate chips within the cookie dough.
4. Roll tablespoons of dough into balls and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Use a fork to flatten out the balls of cookie dough before baking.
5. Bake at 350°F for about 10 minutes, just until the tops of the cookies start to brown. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5-7 minutes before serving. – SN

Raspberry shrewsburys

You didn’t know you could make something this fancy, did you? These will be your new jam.

For 20 large cookies.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 ½ sticks butter
• ½ cup and one tablespoon white sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• Raspberry jam (or another jam of your choice!)

Directions:

1) Put the flour and butter in a food processor and process until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Alternatively, use your fingers. Add the sugar and egg yolk and process/mix with your hands or a spoon until the mixture starts to form a dough. On a lightly floured surface, knead the dough until it comes together. Shape into a ball, wrap in baking parchment, and chill for at least 30 minutes.

2) Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to about 3 millimetres /⅛ inch thick and cut out using your favourite cookie cutters (I suggest hearts, trees, and stars, but make sure you cut out two of each shape). Keep cutting shapes until you have an even number (probably 40). Use a piping nozzle or large straw to remove the centre from 20 of the shapes (or half of the even number of shapes you created).

3) Bake for 10–12 minutes or until lightly golden. Allow to cool slightly before transferring to a wire rack or plate. Cool completely.

4) Spoon jam onto the cookies that do not have a hole in them. Place the cookies with their centres missing on top of the other cookies and press until the jam is visible through the hole. Done! If you’re using tree cookie cutters, you can cut multiple holes in the top cookies so the jam makes them looks like baubles. – NT

Shortbread Candy Canes

If you thought shortbread was Christmassy enough, you were wrong. Shortbread dough is notoriously fickle and fragile, so this will take some patience, a good attitude, and a lot of flour to dust your hands and countertop. I maintain that these delightful cuties are worth it.

Amount of cookies depends on size — but aim for small cookies here.

Ingredients

• Feel free to use your favourite shortbread recipe, or find one online. If you don’t have one, this one from AllRecipes is pretty standard. You need:
  • 2 cups of butter
  • 1 cup of white sugar
  • 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
  • 4 cups of flour
• Red food colouring

Directions

1. Prepare your shortbread dough as directed in your recipe, and then seperate the dough in two.
2. Put half of the dough aside. Mix in red food colouring into the other half.
3. Roll out your red and white cookie doughs in strand, and twist them together. Remember the preface of this recipe: be gentle and patient. Working with shorter strands takes longer, but it ultimately easier. You’re also going to want to keep your hands and counter clean to avoid colour contamination.
4. Once you’ve twisted together your red and white strands, cut them as big as you’d like your cookie to be, and twist the top of it to give it a candy cane’s hook.

Bake your cookies according to your recipe. – GM