Dreaming of a Sweet Christmas

No amount of planning ever seems to leave me properly prepared for the holidays, despite mustering all the enthusiasm possible and diligently keeping an eye on the calendar. Days mysteriously grow shorter, schedules fuller, and to further complicate matters, those originally simple plans of mine curiously evolve to become more and more complicated. Getting a head start usually means laying out a detailed list of presents to make, recipes to try, and fun activities to participate in… Which is lost or completely disregarded by the time December actually rolls around. After spending one too many of the last mailing days before Christmas stuck in line at the post office, fighting off the other hordes of procrastinators frantic to make the final cut off, it became clear that my approach wasn’t working.

This year, the plan is to plan less. Stick to simple but nice holiday cards, rather than elaborate gifts with complicated shipping requirements and deadlines. Make whatever recipes strike my fancy, whenever that might happen. Enjoy the holidays whenever they allow, without forcing artificial merriment at every turn. “Low-key” is the mantra of the season- No pressure, no anxiety, no self-flagellation when things don’t work out perfectly. Sounds like a much more enjoyable way to pass the next few weeks, don’t you think?

And just like that, I find myself almost on top of the key points that constantly evaded my grasp the previous year. Greeting cards are done and printing, and the first set of festive sweets has already sprung forth from the oven, seemingly without effort. It may be a push to fit that pending manuscript into the festivities, but at least it doesn’t seem like such a great burden to squeeze into the jam-packed holiday game plan.

It needn’t be a grand holiday, or one to remember above others, even. It just needs to be less than torturous, and adding in a bit of sweetness and good company would be a nice touch, too.

Yield: Makes 52 – 60 Cookies; 26 – 30 Sandwiches

Pistachio Praline Linzer Cookies

Name: Pistachio Praline Linzer Cookies
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 52
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 Cup Granulated Sugar; 1/4 Cup Water; 2 Cups Shelled, Skinned and Toasted Pistachios; 3/4 Teaspoon Salt; 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil; 1 Cup Vegan Butter; 1/4 Cup Dark Brown Sugar, Firmly Packed; 1/3 Cup Granulated Sugar; 2 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour; 1/2 Cup Almond Meal; 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder; 1/2 Teaspoon Salt; Zest of 1 Orange; 1 Teaspoon Ground Ginger; 1/3 Cup Vegan Sour Cream; 1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

No Ratings

Caramelized pistachio cream is sandwiched between two crisp shortbread cookies, seen through cut-out windows frosted with coarse sugar. They're as beautiful to look at as they are satisfying to eat.

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 45 minutes

Additional Time 15 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients

Pistachio Praline Paste:

1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/4 Cup Water
2 Cups Shelled, Skinned and Toasted Pistachios
3/4 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

Linzer Cookies:

1 Cup Vegan Butter
1/4 Cup Dark Brown Sugar, Firmly Packed
1/3 Cup Granulated Sugar
2 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Almond Meal
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
Zest of 1 Orange
1 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
1/3 Cup Vegan Sour Cream
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Instructions

To prepare the pistachio praline, place the sugar and water in a medium saucepan over moderate heat. Stir to combine, and bring to a boil. Allow the sugar to cook until it caramelizes to a deep amber color; about 10 – 15 minutes.
Quickly add in the pistachios, stir to coat with the hot sugar, and immediately
transfer everything out to a silpat or piece of parchment paper. Let cool completely before breaking it into chunks, and tossing the pieces into your food processor, along with the salt and oil.
Pulse to break down the brittle to a coarse consistency, and then let the motor run until very smooth. It may take as long as 10 minutes, so be patient. Let cool before using, or store in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to two weeks.
For the cookies, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line three baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. Set aside.
Cream together the butter and both sugars until homogeneous and fluffy, pausing to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the flour, almond meal, baking powder, salt, zest, and ginger, starting the mixer slowly to prevent the dry goods from flying out. Mix briefly before introducing the sour cream and vanilla as well. Mix just until a cohesive, smooth dough is formed.
Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Press the dough into an even round and roll it out to 1/8th of an inch in thickness. Use a 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter to cut out the shapes.
Cut out the centers of half of the rounds with a smaller shape of your choice. Transfer the cookies to your prepared sheets, and chill them for 15 minutes before moving them right into the oven.
Bake for 10 – 15 minutes, until just barely golden around the edges. Let cool.
Assemble the linzer cookies by spreading 1 teaspoon of the praline paste on a whole cookie, and topping it with a cut-out cookie. Repeat with remaining cookies, and enjoy.

Notes

For a quick fix, you can mix 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar with pistachio butter for the filling, or use prepared vegan nutella for a chocolate twist.

Recommended Products

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Nutrition Information:

Yield:

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 155Total Fat: 8gSaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 16mgSodium: 149mgCarbohydrates: 20gFiber: 1gSugar: 11gProtein: 2g

All nutritional information presented within this site are intended for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and any nutritional information on BitterSweetBlog.com should only be used as a general guideline. This information is provided as a courtesy and there is no guarantee that the information will be completely accurate. Even though I try to provide accurate nutritional information to the best of my ability, these figures should still be considered estimations.

Bonus! For a gift that keeps on giving, nothing beats a delicious, tried-and-true recipe from a friend. To share this recipe with someone you love, snatch up the free printable recipe card below. Just set your printer to “scale to fit” your paper, trim the excess as needed, fold down the center, and doodle something on the cover, or paste a photo if you prefer.

November 29, 2011November 13, 2021

Hannah (BitterSweet)42 Comments

To Post or Not to Post?

Perfection is an unrealistic goal, and yet so many blogs attempt to achieve just that. Guilty of that precise crime, it’s difficult to decide what should make the cut when it comes time to make the next post. Should an unreliable recipe go live, potentially frustrating curious readers? Never; that would be an unpardonable offense. But what about the blurry line separating good from great? Should a nice recipe be dumped just because it isn’t quite “perfect”?

Life is quite messy itself, so it only seems fitting to allow a few messier creations in as well. Take for example, cookies that baked up like a dream, with a fantastic chewy texture and sophisticated bitter cocoa flavor, sandwiched together with blueberry creme acting as the luminous violet glue. Summery yet not incapable of bridging the seasonal gap, crowd-pleasing, and an all around delight. The problem? They suffer a bit from ugly duckling syndrome.

You see, it’s mostly the filling that I take issue with. It looks grainy, even curdled in photos, despite tasting silky-smooth on the tongue. Should such a blemish be allowed to go live, presented as the desired outcome? Does one small imperfection ruin a whole recipe? At the end of the day, would you blog about it?

I think my response goes without saying.

Black and Blueberry Sandwich Cookies

Black Cocoa Cookies:

10 Tablespoons Non-Dairy Margarine
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
2 Tablespoon Flax Seeds, Ground
1 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1/3 Cup Black Cocoa Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Plain Non-Dairy Milk
1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Blueberry Creme Filling:

4 Ounces Vegan White Chocolate Chips
3/4 Cup Blueberries, Fresh or Frozen and Thawed
1/4 Cup Non-Dairy Margarine
1/2 Cup Confectioner’s Sugar

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and line two baking sheets with silpats or parchment paper. Set aside.

Using a stand mixer or food processor, cream together the margarine and sugar thoroughly, until homogeneous and fluffy. Add the ground flax seeds, flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt, and mix until mostly incorporated. The dough will be too dry to fully come together, so add in the “milk” and vanilla, and mix once more to combine and create a smooth, cohesive batter.

Scoop out 3 tablespoons or so of dough per cookie, and flatten them just slightly on the baking sheet. Be sure to space them 1 1/2 – 2 inches apart, because they really spread as they bake; arrange no more than 9 cookies per sheet.

Bake for 10 – 13 minutes, until the edges are set and the cookies look barely puffy in the middle. Remove from the oven and let cool on the sheets for 10 more minutes before sliding the silpat or sheet of parchment onto a cooler surface. Allow them to fully cool before applying the filling.

To make the blueberry creme, first melt the while chocolate, either in a double boiler or in the microwave. If microwaving, heat at 30 second intervals, stirring well in between, to ensure that it doesn’t burn. White chocolate can be very temperamental, so keep a close eye on it.

Toss the berries into your blender or food processor, and completely puree. Strain the juice directly into the melted white chocolate and discard the pulp and seeds remaining. Stir thoroughly, reheating gently as necessary if the chocolate beings to solidify or seize. Once smooth, chill the mixture for at least an hour, until cold to the touch and thickened.

Beat the margarine and confectioner’s sugar together in your stand mixer before adding the chilled blueberry mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure that everything is getting incorporated, and whip on high speed for about 5 minutes, until there are no remaining chunks of margarine and the filling only appears to be vaguely grainy. Apply the filling to one cookie, and top it off with a second. Repeat with remaining cookies.

The sandwich cookies keep well at room temperature, covered in plastic wrap, for approximately four days, or in the fridge for seven to eight. Better yet, for this summer heat, stash them in the freezer for up to a month, and you can snack on them while they’re still a bit frosty!

Makes About 14 Large Cookies; 7 Large Sandwich Cookies

Printable Recipe

August 19, 2011

Hannah (BitterSweet)58 Comments

Why Not?

Food in general and sweet treats in particular can become so closely correlated to certain special occasions, that it can suddenly seem as though one can not exist without the other. While I would agree that no, it is absolutely not Hannukah without latkes, or Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie, what can be said for the other side of the coin? What about the non-holiday, any-old-day, random need for latkes or pumpkin pie? Would it throw the Earth off its very axis to indulge that impulse every now and then? Is it selfish? Unnecessary?

One of the many reasons why I love holidays, all holidays, is because they give us a reason to pause and simply celebrate. Much of the time, I couldn’t care less about what the actual significance is, where it came from, or why we remember it, but the mere opportunity to do something fun and special is all I need. Thus, I present to you an any-old-day treat, with no particular import, meaning, or curious back story. They’re just good cookies, and they’d be good today, tomorrow, Mother’s Day if you truly need a good excuse, or whenever. Because really, why not?

Happy Friday- Go ahead, celebrate the weekend!

Yield: Makes 2 Dozen Cookies

Fudge-Mallow Cookies

No Ratings

Super chewy, chocolate, and packed full of gooey marshmallows, these cookies are perfect for any ocassion, and no special ocassion in particular. This crowd-pleasing combination will always be a hit.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 12 minutes

Total Time 27 minutes

Ingredients

1 Cup Vegan Butter
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons Molasses
2 Cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour, or White Whole Wheat Flour (or All Purpose, if You Fancy)
1/2 Cup Dutch Processed Cocoa Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
5 Ounces Vegan Marshmallows, Chopped to About Raisin-Sized Pieces
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375 and line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.
In your stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar, beating thoroughly until fluffy. Add the molasses and mix until fully combined, scraping down the sides halfway through processing as it tends to stubbornly hide in lumps away from the beater.
Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. Toss in the chocolate chips and chopped marshmallows, making sure that everything is coated in flour so that the mix-ins don’t just clump together.
Add the flour mixture into your mixer, and slowly turn the motor back on so that the dry goods don’t go flying. Pour in the vanilla, and turn up the speed to medium-low, mixing until everything is combined. It may take a minute or two because this is a very stiff dough, but be patient and resist the urge to add liquid!
Scoop out about 3 tablespoons worth of dough per cookie, either with two spoons or an ice cream/cookie scoop, and drop them onto your prepared baking sheets, allowing plenty of room for them to spread- No more than 9 per sheet. Trust me, these things end up expanding like crazy.
Flatten the tops lightly with the palm of your hand, and bake for 8 to 12 minutes, until the cookies are no longer shiny and firm around the edges. Remove them from the baking sheet immediately and allow them to cool.

Trading Milk for Cookies

Bloggers are easily the most generous people on the planet. Perhaps it’s a shared gene that includes the desire to write and confide one’s intimate thoughts to complete strangers on the internet, but for whatever reason, I’ve found that those with blogs seem to go above and beyond to share the things they love with the world. All it took was a passing a mention of my jealousy for Marika‘s new found soy creamer, only available in Canada, and I found myself with a parcel containing just that a few weeks later, with a few single serve soymilks thrown in for good measure. I’m still floored by such unhesitating kindness.

Despite her protests that she needed nothing in return, no good deed can go unpunished, so I set to work scheming up an appropriate ‘thank you’ present. Trying to settle on a special treat that would still hold up to shipping across the border, it quickly became clear that the only option would be to trade cookies for milk.

Turning yet again to my Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies as printed in Go Dairy Free, I built an entirely new framework with the help of that solid foundation. Have I given myself away by now? I simply love that darn cookie, any way you slice it (or more accurately, any way you scoop and flatten it.)

This time, seeking to spice things up a bit and liven up the same-old, same-old, I created what I lovingly named Lively Lemon Cookies. Zesty citrus meets spicy galangal, essentially the southeast Asian version of ginger root, for a hot and sweet union. White chips add pops of cooling sweetness, but I can imagine that the bitter contrast of dark chocolate could make for an equally addictive treat. Spiciness is highly subjective, so I erred on the side of caution, dialing it back a bit, but now I feel that I might actually have done better to double the dose. Thus, I’m providing a range so you can suit your own taste buds.

Starting with the aforementioned chocolate chip cookie recipe, use all granulated sugar, add 1/2 – 1 teaspoon ground galangal (or ginger), the zest of 1 lemon, 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, and a pinch cayenne pepper. Finally, switch out the semi-sweet chocolate chips for white chocolate chips, or if unavailable, roughly chopped macadamia nuts.

February 28, 2011

Hannah (BitterSweet)20 Comments

Cut-Out the Frustration

Right up there with piping frosting roses or rolling fondant, cut-out cookies are the bane of many dessert enthusiasts’ existence- At least as much is true for myself. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to fuss over one dough, just to beat it into submission so that it looks like adorable miniature people, or animals, or whatever else those metal torture devices otherwise known as cookie cutters so desire. It would be a whole different story if we were talking about a rich, buttery croissant, but all this hassle purely for aesthetic purposes? No thanks, I’d rather make something ugly but delicious in most cases.

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to one’s tastes, however, and with a holiday as cutesy as Valentine’s Day right around the corner, it suddenly hit me that the time was right to tackle those most irritating cut-out cookies yet again. Because there have been requests, and because I love you guys, consider it an early V-Day gift to share and eat alike. The name of the game is to just keep it super simple.

So simple, in fact, that I didn’t bother decorating them after they were baked. To save time and misery, I piled on the colored sugar and sprinkles before the cookies hit the oven, so once the kitchen timer went off, they were completely done, ready to be wrapped up and given away. It’s a small suggestion, but perhaps it can save a fellow baker an hour or two from an already jam-packed schedule. For that reason alone it seemed worth sharing.

100% frustration-free, there’s no chilling of the dough, and for someone working at a steady clip, they can be ready for sampling within a hour. Go ahead, pull out your most intricate cookie cutters, make your own crazy shapes, slice that dough to within an centimeter of it’s sugary life, because it won’t spread for anything. No more blobby, over-weight looking forest creatures here, as every line stays as sharp and crisp as you originally intended.

However, soft and chewy sugar cookies these are not; for all that ease and speed, there is a small textural trade off. Though I much prefer a delicate, pillowy cookie with the barest toothsome bite, these morsels are Crunchy, with a capital “C”. Think of them more as crisp tea cookies, much like biscotti, and you will not be disappointed.

An unintended bonus of that solid composition? They’re fantastic candidates for shipping to loved ones afar! (Just make sure they’re better wrapped and protected than those pictured above… It’s just for illustrative purposes. Don’t send cookies in plain envelopes, folks!)

Yield: Makes Approximately 30 Cookies (Yield Varies Depending on Size of Cookie Cutters)

Crunchy Cut-Out Sugar Cookies

No Ratings

100% frustration-free, there’s no chilling of the dough. Go ahead, pull out your most intricate cookie cutters, make your own crazy shapes, slice that dough to within an centimeter of it’s sugary life, because it won’t spread for anything.

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

Ingredients

3 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 Cup Vegan Butter
1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
1/2 Cup Light Corn Syrup or Agave Nectar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 – 2 Teaspoons Orange or Lemon Zest
Colored Sugar or Sprinkles (Optional)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350, and line two baking sheets either with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
In either a large metal bowl or a stand mixer, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder. While you can certainly bring this dough together by hand, it will require some vigorous stirring, so I would advise bringing out the big guns for this one if you’ve got ’em.
Meanwhile, combine the butter, sugar, and corn syrup or agave in a small saucepan and set over medium-low heat. Gently cook the mixture and stir occasionally, just until the butter has melted and the sugar granules have dissolved. Pour the hot liquid into the bowl of dry ingredients, and mix well. It will become very thick and hard to mix, but give it all you’ve got and make haste- It will become only stiffer as it cools.
Turn out the smooth dough onto a lightly floured surface, press it into a ball, and roll it out to about an 1/8-inch in thickness. Cut it into your desired shapes with cookie cutters and transfer the cookies over to your prepared baking sheets. Sprinkle with colored sugar or sprinkles as desired, and lightly press the decorations in with the palm of your hand.
Bake each sheet individually for 8 – 15 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies. You should be looking for the barest amount of browning on the edges, but nothing that’s fully golden brown. Let the cookies sit for a minute before moving them over to a wire rack to cool.

The Christmas Cookies That Weren’t

Despite best intentions, holiday gifts always end up as a rushed, last-minute affair. What with the endless waffling over precisely what to make and share, there ends up being little time to actually bake, wrap, and ship those treats off so that they arrive before the appointed holidays have passed. Well, for the first year in recent memory, those sweets never made it to the post office at all, let alone their destinations. To put it simply, it was an “epic fail” on my part.

Still borderline delirious after being taken out by a vicious head cold, perhaps it was not the best idea to leap into a project of such scale. But oh, what false confidence I had! I even did a test run of the recipe, to make sure it was tasty, reasonably mail-able, and all around a solid choice. Shaped as adorable little wreaths and brilliantly emerald green, they were so perfectly festive, too! Glittering with a light sprinkle of coarse sugar, I was certain that these sweet, minty little numbers would be the hit of the holidays. Of course, I tested them as a small batch… And I foolishly believed that this formula could effortlessly be increased, by four times, no less.

No dice. As soon as the mixer started to crank up into gear, I knew I was in deep sh– …dough. Flour and sugar spraying over the sides of my overburdened mixing bowl like a lawn sprinkler on a rampage, those ingredients had no desire to come together and make cookies. Feverishly working to remedy the situation and add more of the dry goods with no rhyme, reason, or measuring, things only got worse with every haphazard addition. The dough was unsalvageable; a depressing lump of lurid green goo that no one in their right mind would want to consume.

So, to all of my friends and loved ones, these are the cookies that you should have received this holiday season:

Can you accept an IOU, and the (successful, small batch) recipe, instead?

Yield: Makes 40 – 50 Cookies

Minted Matcha Wreaths

No Ratings

Shaped as adorable little wreaths and brilliantly emerald green, these spritz cookies glittering with a light sprinkle of coarse sugar for a perfectly festive finishing touch.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 12 minutes

Additional Time 10 minutes

Total Time 37 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 Cup Vegan Butter
4 Ounces (1/2 Package) Vegan Cream Cheese
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 3/4 Teaspoon Matcha Powder
1 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1/2 Teaspoon Peppermint Extract
1 3/4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Garbanzo Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder
Decorative White Sugar Crystals or Turbinado Sugar, as Needed for Decoration

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheet with silicone baking mats or parchment paper. Set aside.
In your stand mixer with the paddle attachment installed, thoroughly cream together the vegan butter, cream cheese, sugar, and matcha, so that the mixture is homogeneous. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed to make sure that everything is incorporated. Add in both extracts, mix to combine, and set aside.
In a separate large bowl, whisk together all of the remaining dry goods for the cookies so that the ingredients are well-distributed throughout the mixture. Slowly add them to the stand mixer, incorporating them in 2 or 3 separate additions. The resulting batter with be very thick, and it may seem like it’s not going to come together, but just be patient; Do not, under and circumstances, add any extra liquid!
Once you achieve a cohesive dough, place a few mounds of it into your spritz cookie gun, which should already have the design you desired installed (the wreath shape, if you want to keep with the intended theme here.) Squeeze out cookies as directed by the manufacturer of the gun, reload when you run out of dough, and repeat. Lightly sprinkle decorative sugar on top of the cookies.
Bake for 8 – 12 minutes, until no long “wet” looking on top and the cookies look solid, with just the vaguest hint of golden color around the edges. Be sure to pull them before they become too brown, or you’ll loose the effect of having pretty green wreaths.
Let the cookies cool on the sheets for at least 10 minutes, and then completely on a wire rack.