Holiday season again, and again another cookie box! I love how the cookie box combines a series of smaller projects into something more substantial and very festive. I started thinking about the cookie box as soon as it was December, and one at a time, pieced together the components through some late night baking sessions a couple times a week. And while it’s tempting to have more (my brainstorming list is always far too long), you can always stop at whatever point you like – maybe four, maybe two, maybe just one.
Last year the cookie box was not entirely a cookie box per se (it is far more of a veritable cookie box this year), and due to different moisture level and storage requirements, all of the components were stored separately. Unfortunately, I found that the cookies fared much better when kept individually! Even when moisture content isn’t an issue, it prevents flavours from seeping from one cookie to another. I may have been in denial about this – in previous years, after several days or so, the remnants in the box usually tend to taste indistinctly of cinnamon, regardless of what flavour they initially started as. Validated by the cookie storage advice I read in this excellent blog post, I decided to keep it up this year, and store all the cookies separately, just assembling into a mixed box for family (and blog post photos). This isn’t necessary in all cases, such as with a more uniformly flavoured set (which still room for lots of fun: think variations in shape, texture, complementary flavours, or different nuts and jams). But for maximal freedom in cookie flavour, moisture and style, I advise individual storage.
There are two spice cookies in this box, the speculoos and lebkuchen, but they couldn’t be more different! The speculoos are thin, crisp and tender and taste of mostly just butter and spice. On the other hand, the lebkuchen are cakey with a bit of chew, and spiced with the addition of honey, rye, citrus and almonds. For more classic holiday flavours, I’ve tried to cram as much stollen inspiration in the stollen cookies as possible – a lightly spiced cookie dough flecked with candied peel, rum-soaked raisins and toasted almonds, plus a marzipan centre and a generous roll in icing sugar.
For a take on classic shortbread, inspired by Nova Bakehouse, I made a striped tri-grain shortbread composed of three doughs using different whole grains. As shortbread is not nearly as structurally demanding as bread or cake, they’re an easy way to experiment with different whole grains and compare the flavours side-by-side. Another take on a classic are the pretzel-shaped cardamom kringler cookies, made with a barely sweetened dough and covered in crunchy pearl sugar. I worked off of the recipe in Beatrice Ojakangas’s The Great Scandinavian Baking Book making a few adjustments for a crispier cookie, and also added in coarsely ground cardamom.
The piped genmaicha butter cookies are a repeat from last year, one of my favourites from the 2022 box. Also something I first made a few years ago are the toasted coconut marshmallow cookies, an homage to my grandma’s favourite toasted coconut-covered marshmallows, though they never quite made it onto the blog until now.
The fregolotta, or jam tart slices, were a simple and flexible (and delicious) way to use jam – I mashed together little bits of leftover jam from the fridge to layer into this tart. The malt tuiles came about after some experimentation – they started as a piped malted milk powder cookie, and then a malted milk powder shortbread, neither of which really turned out. Then I settled on tuiles – which also a very different cookie from an otherwise shortbread-heavy box!
recipes are below
speculoos – genmaicha butter cookies – toasted coconut marshmallow cookies – lebkuchenherzen – tri-grain shortbread – cardamom kringler cookies – stollen cookies – malt tuiles – fregolotta
Note: I like my cookies to have a good amount of salt! Just note that all these recipes use coarse kosher (specifically Diamond brand) and so if you use finer kosher salt or table salt, be sure to reduce the volumes accordingly. This goes for all the recipes here!
speculoos
genmaicha butter cookies
toasted coconut marshmallow cookies
lebkuchenherzen
These are lovely soft and cakey gingerbread cookies. There is just so much going on in them from the spices to the rye flour, nuts, and citrus! Recipe from Anja Dunk’s Advent, made with only minor adaptations.
- 120g honey
- 100g dark brown sugar
- 65g butter
- 115g whole wheat flour
- 115g dark rye flour
- 75g finely ground almonds
- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp coarse kosher salt
- 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon
- 50g candied citrus peel, drained and chopped into small pieces (optional; I love the addition of peel, but if you live in a dry climate and you want the cookies to last for longer, you may want to leave out the peel – it is the first thing to go hard in these cookies after a week or so.)
- 1 large egg
to top the cookies,
- 1 egg white, to brush on top
- almonds, to top the cookies (usually blanched almonds are used, but I think its nice with the skin on!)
In a small saucepan, combine the honey, brown sugar and butter over medium low heat until melted and combined.
In a large bowl whisk together the flours, ground almonds, spices, salt, cocoa powder and baking soda. Add the lemon zest, candied peel, egg and the honey/sugar/butter mixture to the bowl and mix to form a soft dough. Cover and let rest 1 hour (this rest will make the dough less sticky to work with later).
Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two baking trays with parchment paper.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to about 0.5cm thick. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter/other cutter of choice to cut out cookies and transfer to the prepared tray – the one I’ve used is about 5 wide. The cookies will puff, but not spread and so they can be placed close together. Ball together the scraps and roll out as many times as you wish to cut additional cookies.
Once all the cookies are cut, brush with a bit of egg white and optionally top each cookie with an almond.
Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes or until browned and firm to the touch. Rotate trays partway through baking for an even bake. Let cool on the tray, then transfer to a airtight container.
tri-grain shortbread
Inspired by Nova Bakehouse’s shortbread! Choose three interesting grains, or include your usual supermarket flour for comparison. I used rye, spelt and red fife wheat for comparison.
per flour (x3)
- 56g (1/4 cup) butter, softened
- 20g granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp coarse kosher salt
- 85g whole grain flour of choice
Cream the butter, granulated sugar, and salt together until mixed. Add the flour, keeping back about 10g. If the dough is coming together well and isn’t too dry and crumbly, add the last 10g. If it is very soft, you can add a bit more flour. Use your shortbread instincts (and see note at the end). Repeat twice more with different flours to make three shortbread doughs.
Lay out a piece of plastic wrap. Form each dough into a rectangle about 20cm long, 3cm tall and 1.5cm wide. Place the three rectangles of dough next to each other on the plastic wrap. Wrap and gently mold together into a rectangle.
Place in the fridge and chill about 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until firmed. (I find after this amount of time the dough will be firm enough to slice, but not completely chilled, making it a bit softer and easier to cut. If you chill completely overnight, you can leave the dough out on the counter for a few minutes to slightly soften to make it easier to cut the cookies.)
Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Slice the log crosswise into cookies 1 cm thick and transfer to the prepared tray. Pop the tray into the fridge or freezer for at least another 15 minutes to fully chill the cookies.
Bake for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. Let cool on the tray as they are quite delicate when warm.
Note: In experiments, I found that my grocery store whole wheat was quite dry and I needed to hold some flour back – this made a drier, crumblier shortbread which did not spread much. On the other hand, the spelt, rye and red fife flours were all similar, making much softer doughs to which I actually added a bit of extra flour. If in doubt, don’t worry too much and just stick to the stated proportions – the different doughs may spread slightly more or less, but they will all taste fine.
cardamom kringler cookies
Adapted from the kringler or Danish sugar pretzel recipe in Beatrice Ojakangas’s The Great Scandinavian Baking Book. These cookies grew on me a lot – with the crunchy pearl sugar, they’re also so fun texturally!
This dough is a little unique with quite a bit of additional moisture from the egg and cream, and makes a slightly bread-y cookie. I like them baked quite well so they become crisp. The original recipe also contains no sugar except for the pearl sugar on top, but I’ve added a bit into the dough so the cookies don’t taste too austere if they’re not completely coated in the sugar. That being said, the pearl sugar topping is still the main source of sweetness, so be sure to get them well-coated. It may look like too much, but it’s not.
My other addition to the dough is cardamom. Freshly ground cardamom seeds are so good in baking! I like to keep it ever so slightly coarse so sometimes you get little specks and hits of cardamom. I found the flavour quite mild right after baking, but after the cookies sat in a container a couple days, they became more fragrant!
Lastly, the pretzels take a while to shape, so compared to the original recipe I’ve made the cookies bigger so you don’t need to make quite so many of them...
- 113g butter, softened
- 25g granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp coarse kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp green cardamom seeds, freshly ground in a mortar and pestle (this is a pleasant amount of cardamom; you can increase this if you really like cardamom!)
- 186g cake flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 large egg
- 35g whipping cream
- pearl sugar, for topping
Cream the butter, sugar, salt and ground cardamom in a bowl until just mixed. Add the flour, baking powder, egg and cream all at once and mix together to form a soft dough. Cover the bowl and chill 30 minutes.
Line 1-2 baking trays with parchment paper. Pour some pearl sugar into a small bowl.
Scoop out about 1/3 of the dough into a bowl and leave the rest in the fridge to stay cool. Divide the dough into ~13g portions.
Working with one portion of dough at a time, roll out the dough into a thin rope about 23cm/9″ long. (You can use a little bit of flour to help keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or your hands – I found dipping my fingertips into the flour before working with each piece of dough is just enough to keep things from getting too sticky.) Form into a pretzel shape: place the dough into a U shape, twist the two ends together, and flip over so they cross the bottom of the U. Dip the top of the cookie into the pearl sugar and place, pearl sugar side up, onto the prepared tray. If you use too much flour, the pearl sugar will not stick too well. If needed, you can pat the top of the cooke with a damp paper towel or tissue before dipping the cookie.
Repeat with the remaining portions of dough. Place the cookies in the fridge to chill completely.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350F. Bake the cookies for about 20 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges. As the dough has very little sugar, these take a bit longer to brown – I like also like getting a good bake to ensure the cookies are crisp!
stollen cookies
This year perhaps my favourite cookie of the box! (Though they are a cookie that is on the sweeter side.) Lightly spiced butter cookies with dried fruit, candied peel and nuts, and a ball of marzipan in the centre. I think they really capture the flavours of stollen. I also think they were nicest a day or two after baking – let the marzipan and cookie get to know each other. Cookie base recipe is vaguely adapted from Emma Laperruque’s pecan cookies.
- 2 tbsp raisins
- 2 tbsp chopped candied citrus peel
- 1 1/2 tsp rum
- 113g butter, softened
- 35g icing sugar
- 1/4 tsp coarse kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
- pinch nutmeg
- 135g all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp (18g) chopped roasted almonds
- about 60g marzipan, divided into about twenty 1/2 tsp (3g) sized balls
- icing sugar
A day or two before making the cookies, combine the raisins, peel and rum in a small jar. Let sit for a day or two, shaking occasionally.
Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Cream the butter, icing sugar, salt and spices in mixing bowl. Add the flour and mix to form a soft dough. Stir in the raisin/peel mixture and the almonds. If the dough is very soft, chill a bit to firm the dough.
Scoop 1 tbsp (17g) sized balls of dough. Make an indentation in the middle and fill with a ball of marzipan. Cup the edges of the dough around the marzipan ball to seal it in the middle of the cookie. Roll into a ball and place on the prepared tray. Repeat until all the dough is used.
Chill the tray of cookies about 15 minutes to slightly firm them.Bake for about 15 minutes or until firm to the touch and lightly browned on the bottom. Let cool a few minutes, then roll in icing sugar while still warm, and again a second time once completely cool.
malt tuiles
Tuile recipe adapted from King Arthur Flour. This has a bit of malted milk powder in it for extra flavour. I like the tuiles as is, but I dipped half of them in dark chocolate for my cousin who is a chocolate person! If you’re anything like me, expect to spend the first few/several getting a hang of shaping and baking.
- 56g butter, melted
- 2 egg whites, at room temperature
- 1/4 tsp coarse kosher salt
- 50g icing sugar
- 50g all-purpose flour
- 25g malted milk powder (I used horlicks original)
- 2 tsp milk
- melted dark chocolate, for dipping (optional)
Whisk together the melted butter, egg whites and salt in a bowl. Add the icing sugar, flour and malted milk powder and whisk until a smooth batter is formed. Place the batter in the fridge to rest for 1 hour.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400F. Place a silicone baking sheet on a baking tray. If you like, make a stencil (see note 1) or if your silicone sheet is translucent, draw two 10cm/4″ circles on a sheet of parchment and place it underneath. Also have two pencils ready to roll the cookies on (see note 2).
Dollop about 1 1/2 tsp of batter on one side of the tray and spread into a 10cm/4″ circle. Repeat on the other side of the tray for two cookies – as the cookies need to be rolled right after baking, do only two at a time. Bake the cookies for about 5 minutes or until the edges are golden.
Remove from the oven and immediately start rolling the cookies. Loosen the edge of a cookie with a spatula and place a pencil over the edge. Roll the cookie onto the pencil. Repeat with the second cookie. They will be quite hot so be careful! Once you’ve go the roll starting, you can finish rolling the cookie by just rolling the pencil to save your fingers. Once the cookies have had a couple minutes to firm up, they can be slipped off of the pencils. (For efficiency, you can have two trays going at once – see note 3).
Repeat with the remaining batter. If desired, dip one end of the tuiles in melted dark chocolate and place on a parchment lined tray to let the chocolate set.
Note 1: I found using a stencil made it faster to spread the batter, and a bit easier to get it more even. To make a stencil, trace a 10cm/4″ circle on a piece of paperboard from a cereal box/cracker box/other food box. Cut out the circle from the centre. To use, place it on the silicone sheet and spread the batter inside the circle. Hold down the edge as you spread the batter towards it to make sure the batter stays inside the stencil and doesn’t spread underneath it. It will get pretty soggy and start to warp, so it’s best to make 3-4 so you can switch to a new one.
Note 2: Recipes for rolled tuiles usually use a wooden spoon handle. Really, feel free to use whatever circular rod you have on hand. I found that pencils were a good size for rolling smaller cookies on, while the spoon handle was a bit wide. Also, I have more than one pencil, which is handy when there are two cookies to roll per batch, and they need a few moments to firm up before removing from their template. Furthermore, it’s a bit clunky to roll something on a spoon due to the spoon end – using a pencil, you can roll the cookies right on the tray which helps keep the cookies warmer and malleable for longer. Yay pencils!!
Note 3: If you have two silicone sheets and baking trays, you can make the process a bit more efficient. Here was my workflow. While batch one is in the oven, spread the batter for the second batch (its okay if the second pan is still hot, just be careful not to burn yourself!). Take out batch one and roll the cookies. Then place batch two in the oven and set the timer for 5 minutes. While this batch bakes, transfer the rolled cookies to a plate or board, freeing up the pencils, and spread more batter on the now free pan. Repeat.
fregolotta
This is a lovely one, and is just how it sounds – soft shortbread-like cookie, jam and nuts. Adapted from Cindy Mushet via Food52. I was inspired to include these in the cookie box after reading this lovely post from the blog Lottie + Doof.
- 170g butter, softened
- 60g granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp coarse kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp almond extract
- 210g all-purpose flour
- 1/3 – 1/2 cup not too sweet jam of choice, such as apricot (I mushed together leftover bits of different jams from the fridge with a small squeeze of lemon juice to up the acidity)
- sliced almonds
Preheat the oven to 350F. Have a 10x33cm (4×13″) rectangular tart pan ready (or use a 23cm/9″ diameter circular tart pan).
In the bowl of a stand mixer, place the butter, sugar, salt and almond extract. Cream with the paddle attachment for a few minutes until very light and fluffy. Scrape down the paddle and then add the flour, mixing until just combined. Take about half a cup of the dough and put it in the fridge. Scatter the rest of the dough into the bottom of the tart pan and press into an even layer, with the edges slightly higher than the middle.
Spread a thin layer of jam over the tart, leaving a 1cm border around the edges. Crumble the chilled dough over top and scatter with sliced almonds.
Bake the tart for about 40-45 minutes or until nicely browned. Let the tart cool completely in the tart tin before slicing. Slice into 16 angular slices (cut the tart into 8 slices, and then cut each in half diagonally)
tentimestea 