Tag Archives: Christmas cookies

Between the temple and the kitchen.

church, feasts, food and cooking, Nativity, , , , , ,

For the last week or so, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the kitchen, and an equal amount in church. It was quite the experience to attend Divine Liturgy three days in a row: First for Sunday, the usual Resurrectional Liturgy — though the cathedral had been so brightly decorated on Saturday, it was far from the usual visually. Plus, at the end of the service the choir sang several carols with great zest. We returned for a short Festal Matins in the evening, and sang the glorious “God is With Us!”

Then Monday, which was Christmas, the Nativity of Christ, and the church was full again, with lots of families with babies. My baby goddaughter has had stranger anxiety for several months but that morning she was okay with me carrying her up for Communion, after which I toted her around for a while and showed her off to everyone.

Today is the Synaxarion of the Mother of God, she who was so essential to the event we celebrated yesterday. Of course, the church was not as full of people as on Christmas Eve and Day, but it was surprising how many of us came back for more of the rich spiritual feast — and there was certainly more than we could take in, more than enough to fill our cups to the brim, with a holy elixir.

Cranberry Jellies

My cookie tins have been filled to their brims, too, with more worldly contents, and then partially emptied as I give them for gifts, and then filled again. I made several kinds of cookies before the First Day of Christmas, and I am continuing now on the Second Day, and have plans for a few more, days and flavors.

Salty Licorice Brownie Cookies

I have friends who will be celebrating according to the old calendar, which means they won’t have Christmas until January 7th, which means more opportunities for gifting cookies that I bake “late.”

So far I have made:

Cranberry Jellies
Apricot Macaroons
Ginger Spice Cookies
Salty Licorice Brownie Cookies
Chocolate Almond Macaroons
Fruity Meltaways
Rolled Gingerbread Cookies
Lemon Poppyseed Sandwich Cookies

 

The end of Christmas Dinner

And I’ve started on:

Flourless Mandarin Almond Cookie (my invention)

…and still plan to make:

Salted Anise Butter Cookies and
Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

I’d like to replenish the supply of Ginger Spice Cookies, because the first batch I made with einkorn flour, and I didn’t know one needs to use more of that type than of regular wheat flour; the cookies came out flat flat flat. Still yummy, but they don’t present so nicely…

None of my own family were able to come spend Christmas with me this year, except for my grandson Pat and his wife who spent Saturday with me. But I have other guests for a month, a family with three children, and the children do not speak more than a few words of English. It’s surprising how little one needs to talk, to bake cookies together. I added the rolled gingerbread cut-out cookies to my list for their sake, and well, for my sake, too, because it’s a lot of fun to help them have fun.

Fruity Meltaways

So… today I boxed up some more cookies on Boxing Day, and put them out in the garage to stay cool. Tomorrow is St. Stephen’s Day, and if I weren’t ironing altar cloths (we are going back to gold now, after the Christmas red) I would consider driving to our sister parish where they will commemorate the first Christian martyr with another Divine Liturgy.

But, I will stick closer to home, and hopefully bake a few more cookies, and/or help the children to decorate the gingerbread with Royal Icing. And I will visit some dear church friends to share some Christmas cheer, which may or may not include — cookies!

Happy St. Stephen’s Day!

 

Lemon-Poppyseed Sandwich Cookies

Christmas, food and cooking, ,

My story from 2012, about the wonderful Glad cookie from that Christmas:

Last week I finished baking the last of the Christmas cookies. Encouraged by the happy eaters of the Lemon-Poppyseed Sandwich Cookies at previous holiday gatherings, this year I had made a double batch, and then ran out of time to complete more than half of them. The remaining dough and filling waited in the fridge until I got back some strength, and a plan for where to send the finished product so that I wouldn’t eat them all myself.

With so many young, even teen-aged, folk around here at Christmas, I expected to see the cookies go faster than they did. But never during the week of feasting did I spy anyone who might vie with me for the Cookie Monster title, and there are certainly no other contenders remaining in this house now. So when I found a willing person to be my delivery man, I sent them to Soldier and Joy.

The recipe (based on one not longer on the Epicurious site) starts with sugar cookies that are heavy with poppyseeds and two sources of lemon flavor, and finishes with the crunchy cookies enclosing an also lemony cream cheese filling.

At the epicurious.com site one can read comments from many readers detailing what happened when they tried the recipes, and the various changes that we daring cooks insist on making.

Most people who had made these cookies thought there should be more filling than planned for in the recipe as given, and I also ran out of filling at my first trial, so this year I doubled the cookie part, but tripled the filling. Not that it’s a problem to have leftovers of either. The cookies are wonderful by themselves, and the filling would be awfully nice spread on toast.

The majority of bakers also liked the cookies better after they had sat in the refrigerator and softened up, though the original recipe said to fill them not long before eating to keep the cookies crisp. I prefer them soft, as did most of the people I fed them to. They are good straight from the freezer, too, I found out!

Here is my version with the extra filling, and a couple of other changes, cut in half so that no one has to assemble 60+ cookies to find out if she likes them.

Lemon-Poppyseed Sandwich Cookies

COOKIES:

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
4 teaspoons grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract

FILLING:

12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

FOR COOKIES:

Mix flour, salt and baking powder in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light. Gradually beat in sugar. Beat in egg, then poppy seeds, lemon peel and extracts. Mix in dry ingredients. Gather dough into ball, divide into two parts and flatten each into a disk. Wrap in plastic and chill at least 2 hours. If wrapped well, it will last in the refrigerator over a week.

Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter 2 large baking sheets. Roll out 1 dough disk on floured surface to 1/8-inch thickness. Using 2-inch-diameter cookie cutter, cut out cookies. Arrange cookies 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheets. Gather scraps; reroll and cut out more cookies.

Bake cookies until edges just begin to color, about 18 minutes. (If you use insulated sheets as I did they might take longer.) Cool cookies on sheets 3 minutes, then transfer to racks and cool completely. Repeat rolling, cutting and baking with remaining dough. (Can be made ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature up to 2 weeks or freeze up to 1 month.)

FOR FILLING:

Beat all ingredients in large bowl until light and fluffy. Spread 2 teaspoons filling over bottom of 1 cookie. Press second cookie, bottom side down, onto filling. Repeat with remaining cookies and filling. (Can be made ahead. Cover and chill.)

Some of the cookies in this later batch are a bit wrinkly, a result of the dough having dried out a little. I did add a few drops of water when I re-rolled the scraps and that helped them look better. But the wrinkly cookies were otherwise fine.

After my last post featuring a photo of lemons, Jody asked how I like to use these fruits. I consider myself a good person to ask, because my father raised not only oranges but lemons, and until a few years ago when someone very stupid — yes, I mean it — took out the two large trees that remained from ten acres of lemon grove, I used to have as many lemons as I wanted for free.

Lately I’ve been using a lot of lemons just to add the juice to hot water for drinking on cold days. But of more elaborate recipes, some that I’ve loved over the years are Lemon Curd, Greek Egg-Lemon Soup, Lemon Chicken, and Lemon Pudding Cake. And now — Lemon-Poppyseed Sandwich Cookies!

St. Andrew — and then December.

Christmas, church, saints, , , , ,

Attending Divine Liturgy on the feast of St. Andrew — what a life-giving way for me to start the day. It was a long and busy day that had me driving back and forth and all over, which is why I am only now getting to the computer to tell about it, now that we are, liturgically, in the following day.

It was a chilly morning, in the middle of the week; the little church was cold in its bones and for the first half hour I stood so close I was almost touching the wall furnace. Who would come on such a morning for a relatively unimportant commemoration? The rector came, of course, with joy. The choir director led a choir of four singers, including a nun from the monastery in the next county.

Two men named Andrew and Andrei were there, because it is their saint’s day, and who would want to miss that? One mother of an Andrew came to remember her son’s saint.

St Andrew's Day is a day of celebration in Scotland (Getty Images)Saint Andrew, the first of the men whom Christ called to be His disciples, eventually became the patron saint of Scotland, and Mrs. Anderson came in her tartan plaid skirt to remember that aspect. She also pointed out to me that her married name means Andrew’s Son.

I myself like to participate for the sake of the Scottish ancestors that both my late husband and I have; not only that, but two of my grandsons were born on this day, and that makes it special to me. Six or eight more people were present who weren’t obviously tied to this specific feast, but I’m sure all of us were happy to receive the Eucharist and be united to Christ in that way.

Mrs. Anderson had yet another reason to be there: She was very close to a very dear parishioner named Constantine, who died on this day more than ten years ago, and every time we celebrate the feast of the Resurrection with Divine Liturgy on November 30, we also sing memorial prayers for him. She made a small portion of the memorial dish of boiled wheat, called koliva, for us to eat together in his memory at the end of the service. You can’t see the wheat in this picture because she topped it with lots of dried fruit and fresh pomegranate seeds. It did make a good breakfast.

By then, the church was warmed up, but we could not linger as long as we might have liked. Out we went into the sunny day, and to all of our responsibilities. One of mine was going to the dentist, and I’m glad to get that out of the way. Afterward, I had the fun of shopping for special ingredients — and more butter– for baking Christmas cookies. The boys at the checkout stand got to talking about how they used to put out cookies for Santa. And here it isn’t even December yet! Although it likely will be before you read this.

So I wish you a December that is peaceful and bright.
(And don’t eat too many cookies before Christmas!)

The most wintry Christmastime.

Christmas, crafts, family, weather, , , ,

Last night, before the snow and piercing wind arrived, and after the children had gone to bed, the two men decided to take a walk, with the thermometer showing 3 degrees. They bundled up to the max, and set out with beers in hand, just for the fun of it. I turned in before they got back, but this morning they said it had been a fine outing.

I’ve arrived in Colorado at the home of my son “Soldier” and his family. Kate and her family are also here, which adds up to six grandchildren, four parents and one grandma. We knew it was going to get very cold, especially today, so we went on our outings the days before.

First a trip to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, where before we took in a planetarium show, we looked at statues of historic airplanes, and one uncle set the older boys to racing.

In the evening yesterday we all went caroling in the neighborhood. The thermometer was dropping fast toward zero, so we started out at dusk and sang at several houses in the neighborhood, where at least two people came out and stood to listen to us, in spite of the frosty air. Joy had baked sugar cookies, springerle and gingerbread men, and we had an all-family session decorating the sugar cookies, which she added to boxes for certain neighbors.

Kate’s and Soldier’s families haven’t ever lived close enough to each other for the cousins to know each other. The four-, five- and six-year-olds have especially enjoyed each other. All the kids received matching pajamas at their first bedtime together, which provided a lot of fun. They were all happy!

This morning when I woke it was -16. I understand that the middle regions of the nation generally are experiencing similarly extreme weather; many of you have your own stories to tell. In the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains where we are, it’s fairly dry at 7,300 ft elevation, but more snow did fall and added to what was lingering.

It’s really fun to participate in all the lively activities that I didn’t have to plan or prepare for, and even just to watch the other groupings playing chess, making decorations, building with magnatiles, assembling a jigsaw puzzle or practicing their drawing skills together. Of course we have been doing a lot of reading aloud, and all the children watched “The Snowman” video with Grandma.

Decades ago I helped my children to do a “baby-Jesus-in-walnut-shell” craft, and this  week Joy had all the ingredients for a new and improved version, which all the children enjoyed immensely.

Soldier baked a new kind of cookie for Christmas this year, a flourless meringue with figs, orange zest and almond paste, which are fantastic. I’m planning to bake them myself and I will share the recipe.

Many more fun and Christmasy things are planned in the next few days, which I hope to tell about here, but I wanted to put up this post on the coldest day I’ve ever known.