Today’s topic:

This is How We Do Christmas

Christmas Cookies, the 2022 edition

I make cookies to give to friends at Christmas time. In recent years, my focus has been more on cookies with an Asian twist. Here’s my post from last year.

This year, I made:

Gochujang Caramel Cookies (recipe from New York Times).

These cookies have a fun slightly spicy aftertaste and a great chewy texture. Instead of using cinnamon, I replaced it with five spice powder. The only thing I found a bit difficult was the way the gochujang is swirled in. I think instead of swirling all of it in, I would just do that for half, then leave the rest to be spread on after you form the dough balls. Be warned that these cookies spread quite a bit! Interestingly, the family that we sent the cookies to said that these were their favourite!

Matcha and Black Sesame Shortbread (recipe from Constellation Inspiration)

I misread this recipe a little, not realising that I should have had three different doughs: matcha, black sesame, vanilla

Instead, I put black sesame straight into the vanilla dough before dividing it into two. So I ended up with two different doughs. Still it was fun and delicious. My younger son keeps asking for these. I am not a fan of matcha flavoured desserts in general, but I really do like matcha shortbread, it makes it less sweet maybe?

These are very buttery and crumbly shortbread. On hindsight, using snowflake-shaped cookie cutters wasn’t the best idea, especially not for packing to send.

Almond cookies (recipe from Bake for Happy Kids)

Oh these are lovely crumbly cookies. There are actually four recipes listed in the post. I gave the first one a try. They do crumble easily though. So I had to make do with these tiny cookie cutters. The kids did enjoy cutting out the cookies.

Miso peanut butter cookies (recipe from New York Times)

I’ve been wanting to make something with miso, but wasn’t sure what to try. I’ve seen some miso chocolate chip cookies but didn’t want to make chocolate chip cookies, so found this one instead. I didn’t have white miso, as I prefer red miso (red miso has a higher percentage of soybean and a longer fermentation period, and so has a stronger taste). So I used red miso instead. I really like the texture of these cookies, but I did wish that it would have a stronger peanut butter and miso taste. I’m not sure if it’s easy to up the peanut butter flavour though, as it probably will change the nice texture of the cookie. I like how you bang the cookie sheet on the counter and it creates that nice crackle look on top.

Matcha checkerboard cookies (recipe from Constellation Inspiration)

My mum used to make checkerboard cookies (vanilla and cocoa) for Chinese New Year treats. I’ve never made them myself before and I think I made my layers too thin. The green of the matcha also didn’t come out as strongly as I would have liked. Definitely needs work!

Neapolitan cookies (recipe from Constellation Inspiration)

I made a matcha cocoa Neapolitan cookie last year but I think I may prefer the look of the strawberry-vanilla-matcha combination. The strawberry flavour dough uses freeze-dried strawberries that are ground up. I usually buy freeze-dried strawberries from Trader Joe’s as my kids love to add that to cereal and yogurt. So I had some on hand.

I’m also posting this to Weekend Cooking