It's the best week of the year for food writers.
Every holiday season, we run a Let's Eat section devoted (almost) entirely to cookies. We hope the readers look forward to it, because we certainly do.
It's cookies, right? Cookies. Life does not get better. The only question is: Which cookies should we make?
This year, we decided to take a scientific approach to the cookie conundrum. We asked a bunch of our colleagues what kind of cookies speak of the holidays to them. What cookie do they absolutely have to have for it to truly be Christmas?
In our world, this counts as a scientific poll.
Not surprisingly, the results were pretty much what you would expect. Our scientifically selected respondents turn out to crave some of the most popular cookies of the season.
We're talking gingerbread men, sugar cookies, those cookies with a Hershey's Kiss in the middle (but an especially good version). All the classics: haystacks, spritz cookies (it's a German thing) and chocolate chip.
You could argue that chocolate chip cookies aren't particularly related to the holidays. It's not a bad argument, but I have a riposte: They're chocolate chip cookies. Q.E.D.
As it happens, columnist Joe Holleman _ he's the oner who suggested them _ has an excellent recipe for chocolate chip cookies that he worked on and tweaked until he got it to have a crisp outside but a soft center, and also so it does not spread out too much on the tray while baking.
It's just the way he likes it. Now that I've made them, it's just the way I like it, too.
I believe he began with the Toll House recipe, which is in itself perfection. But then he gilded the perfection with a handful of extra steps. So I guess the recipe is perfecter than perfect.
He begins by toasting walnuts or pecans and then grinding them to a near-powder, which he adds to the dough. He also triples the called-for amount of vanilla, melts the butter, stirs the liquid ingredients three times and chills the dough before cooking it.
He tried one and said it was even better than the ones he makes. I was pleased, but then he explained it was better because he didn't have to make it.
If the chocolate chip cookies take a lot of time and effort, the haystacks were the fastest and easiest.
Melt chocolate. Add chow mein noodles, nuts and salt. Let them dry, and serve. They're crispy, chocolatey, salty and nutty. Basically everything you want in a sweet snack.
Gingerbread cookies can be made two ways: thick and chewy or thin and crispy. I prefer thin and crispy, because I like their bite, their crunch, their satisfying snap.
When I bite the head off a gingerbread man, I want him to know it.
The difference in making the two is fairly small. I just rolled the dough thinner, to one-eighth of an inch, and baked them a bit longer in a slightly cooler oven. I also added a touch more ginger than the recipe originally called for, because I like ginger.
The thin and crispy gingerbread men can also be used as Christmas-tree ornaments to delightful effect.
Sugar cookies can be made two ways, thick and chewy or just as thick and crisp. I prefer thick and chewy because they're so nice and soft and welcoming.
The ones I made are also spectacular (some of our ravenous taste testers liked them the most of all). The recipe comes from "The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion," and those people know something about making cookies. Or at least sugar cookies.
What makes them so good? I can't quite tell for sure. Maybe it's the use of baking powder and baking soda, to give them just enough rise. Maybe it is the combination of granulated and brown sugars, with extra sweetening from corn syrup. Maybe it is the hint of nutmeg, or just the right amount of vanilla.
Perhaps it is the proportion of all the ingredients mixed together that makes them so flavorful. But if I had to guess, I'd say it's the butter. These cookies use a lot of butter. Butter is pretty much the answer to every culinary question.
Cookies with a Hershey's Kiss in the middle are a standard, but the Chocolate Candy Cane Kiss Cookies I made are a real standout.
The cookies themselves are chocolate, which is an improvement on most of the other versions I have had, and they are softer and chewier, too. I suspect the addition of a small amount of Greek yogurt is the secret to that texture.
And then there is the Kiss itself, which in this case is a peppermint-flavored candy-cane Kiss. The peppermint of the Kiss, combined with the chocolate of the cookie, is a mouth-pleasing mixture that is sheer indulgence.
A colleague with Czech heritage requested that I make spritz cookies, and I'm glad she did. They are nicely buttery (I've heard that butter is the answer to every culinary question, but don't quote me on that) with more than a hint of almond.
Best of all, they come in fanciful holiday shapes. These treats require a cookie press, which is basically the same idea as a caulk gun, but with almond-flavored dough. You tighten the press, which forces the dough through disks of varying shape. I made Christmas trees, clusters of stars and pinwheels.
These cookies taste as good as they look. And they look marvelous.
