Like Magic

As people have been so kind to point out, Christmas is 19 days away. That just snuck out of nowhere didn't it? If you are anything like me, you have completely neglected all Christmas baking and instead have been leaving all studying and essay writing for the last minute possible. This procrastination is not typical of me and is a terrible habit to get into, in case you were wondering. Last week, after an intensive 4-day essay writing stint in the basement, my brain turned entirely to mush and I completely forgot basic sentence structure and how to compose an essay. It was horrifying and resulted in me breaking down in tears and babbling on about how I had finally gone on and broke myself. Another thing you should know if you do decide to leave your work for the last minute: Breaks are mandatory. For your sanity's sake.

You know what is a great way to set your mind at ease and use your break time productively? Turn on Vince Guaraldi Trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas and crank some holiday cookies out of your oven. See, I wish someone had told me this last week.

This time of year is pretty magical and I am so excited because I have some really beautiful, sweet, and wonderful treats to share with you. There will be lots of butter and sugar involved, but you aren't allowed to complain about that because it's December, for goodness sake! I promise, come January, I'll go to the opposite extreme and we'll get all healthy again, at least for a while. But for now... lets just enjoy the magic of now.

Chocolate Hazelnut Crinkle Cookies

Adapted from Gourmet, December 2006

More chocolate? What is going on here? I make no apologies for this trend. I first tried this recipe a year ago and fell in love. They are quickly becoming a Christmas tradition around here. Rich and chewy, these cookies are seriously addictive. Good luck eating just one.

Please note, these do need a couple hours to hang out in the fridge! So, for all you busy bee's out there: take a break!! make the dough and put it in the fridge! then get back to work! then take a break! and bake these up!!

2/3 cup hazelnuts

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

6 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (no more than 60% cacao if marked), finely chopped

2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened

1 ½ cups packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs

¼ cup whole milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

¾ cup confectioners sugar

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.

Toast hazelnuts in a shallow baking pan in oven until skins split and nuts are pale golden brown, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven (turn oven off), then wrap hazelnuts in a kitchen towel and rub to remove any loose skins. Cool nuts completely. Pulse nuts with granulated sugar in a food processor until finely chopped.

Melt chocolate in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water or in top of a double boiler, stirring until smooth. Remove bowl from heat and set aside.

Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

Beat together butter and brown sugar in another bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until creamy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in melted chocolate until just combined. Add milk and vanilla, beating to incorporate. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture, mixing until just combined. Stir in nut mixture. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill dough until firm, 2 to 3 hours.

Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Sift confectioners sugar into a bowl. Halve dough and chill 1 half, wrapped in plastic wrap. Roll remaining half into 1-inch balls, placing them on a sheet of waxed paper as rolled. Roll balls, 3 or 4 at a time, in confectioners sugar to coat generously and arrange 2 inches apart on lined baking sheets.

Bake, switching position halfway through baking, until cookies are puffed and cracked and edges feel dry (but centers are still slightly soft), 12 to 18 minutes total. Transfer cookies (still on parchment) to racks to cool completely.

While first batch is baking, roll remaining dough into balls. Line cooled cookie sheets with fresh parchment, then coat balls with confectioners sugar and bake in same manner.

Top Secret

Once upon a time, from 1992 to 1994, my family resided in a frighteningly cold city called Edmonton. Upon our arrival in August it snowed. My mom cried, my dad shrugged, and we all tried not to think of how long it would be until we could go back home to Vancouver. My dad was finishing off his PhD at the University of Alberta, while my mom stayed at home and desperately tried to protect us from frost bite. My brother and I loved to play in the snow and there were only two rules: 1. Balaclavas were manditory. And 2. If the temperature dipped below -20 we weren't allowed outside.

We lived in a modest apartment just off of Whyte Ave. I don't remember it much, except that in the few months of warm weather we got a year, the garden out front was filled with bright bulbous, red flowers that smelt like dirt. Also, one time a skunk decided to make itself a home right underneath our apartment building. That was unfortunate. The one and only thing I remember clearly about that apartment was a wonderful woman named Linda Chorney who lived on the same floor as we did. Linda was a friend of my dad's from school. She was an artist who had hair down to her bum and an apartment full of masks. I loved to go to her house because it was full of toys and sometimes, if I was lucky, Linda would french braid my hair. I vividly remember my brother and I running down the hall to her apartment to visit with her. She would make us butterscotch pudding and we would sit in the middle of the kitchen floor spooning that sweet creamy pudding slowly into our mouths.

When our first Christmas in Edmonton came around, Linda presented us with a gift that would change our lives forever: a box full of innocent-looking Gingerbread men. "Oh how cute!" was probably the first reaction. But my how we were caught off guard by the first bite- these certainly weren't the gingerbread we had previously known. It was the texture that threw us for a loop. You see, Linda's gingerbread are soft, tender, and slightly chewy. Our love for these cookies was instantaneous. We were hooked.

Lucky for my mom, we never had to endure another snow storm in August again and we didn't stay in Edmonton forever. In 1994 we said goodbye to Linda and moved back to Vancouver. Linda promised to keep in touch and that she did. Nearly every holiday of the year Linda would send us a package. It would be loaded with all sorts of goodies: festive stickers, little toys, and a batch of her soft little gingerbread men. We looked forward to these parcels with the approach of every season. We quickly came to realize that no distance could keep us from our gingerbread friends.

Linda eventually grew tired of Edmonton and moved to Victoria. The packages became fewer and fewer and eventually stopped all together. Surprisingly the world kept spinning and the holidays still came and went the same. We nearly forgot about the famous gingerbread altogether until...

It was Christmas time last year. I was shuffling through my dad's very unorganized, very large, very messy recipe book looking for something inspiring. A little brown envelope caught my eye. "Recipes" was scrolled delicately across the front of the envelope. Curiosity got the better of me then, and I am sure glad it did. Inside lay that top secret, highly-coveted recipe for Linda's gingerbread. Right then and there I stood in the kitchen and started screaming. This is true. And if this doesn't give you an idea of how incredible these gingerbread are, then I don't know what will. I had uncovered the top secret recipe that I thought was lost forever. It was some kind of miracle. I baked a batch that very afternoon. We sat around the dining room table slowly eating our gingerbread men with blissful looks on our faces. It had been a long time since our last rendezvous, but things still felt the same. It was comforting and oh-so familiar, like and old friend you haven't seen in years. We sat there, nibbling on arms and legs, wrapped up in memories of snowfalls in the middle of summer and the woman who started it all.

Linda's Gingerbread

The key to soft gingerbread, Linda writes, depends on three steps:

1. Make the dough soft (just firm enough so that you can transfer it from the work surface to the pan)! If the dough is too stiff, she suggests that you add a bit of milk. I however have never had this problem... you should be fine :-)

2. Cut the cookies thick!

3. Remove the cookies from the oven just before they are fully cooked. They will be soft when they leave the oven but they'll harden as they cool! I have found that 9-10 minutes does the trick for me.

1 ½ cups butter

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

½ teaspoon baking soda

2 cups molasses (I use just under two cups of cooking molasses)

3 tablespoons vinegar

7 ½ cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 ½ teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons ginger

2 teaspoons cloves

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¾ teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cream together butter and sugar. Then dissolve baking soda in molasses. Add molasses mixture to creamed mixture along with vinegar.

Sift together next seven ingredients and add to creamed mixture. Combine thoroughly.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and roll to about ¼ of an inch thick. Cut dough with cookie cutter and transfer shapes to a parchment-paper-covered pan.

Bake cookies 9-10 minutes.

Yield: Makes a lot of gingerbread men. Fear not, for they freeze beautifully and make lovely, "life-changing" treats for all your friends.

It's Begun!

It's December now, and whether you like it or not, the Christmas season is upon us. Last week I took it upon myself to climb into bed with a massive stack of old December issues from Bon Appetit and Gourmet, in pursuit of the perfect Christmas cookie. I am practically giddy at what I found, and so far I've made three different batches of exquisite holiday cookies.

I've heard that as you get older traditions such as Christmas and birthdays become less exciting, but for me, each year I get more and more into things. This year, for example, I had a birthday party for the first time since I was 16. As far as Christmas this year goes, I actually had a sit down conversation with my mom about what she wants me to bake for her parties and, of course, for our family. These are the conversations I dream about. The ones where people are asking me to bake them excessive amounts of sweets. I don't know exactly what it is but it's a fact: I just keep becoming more involved, more enthusiastic, and more excited every year.

Just the mere mention of Christmas baking should put a smile on your face and a burning desire in your heart because between me and you, I have some AMAZING treats to share.

I thought I'd start things off with something simple and sweet. Essentially you are going to make a buttery, slightly crunchy, sugar cookie and then top it with semisweet chocolate, crushed candy canes, and a modest drizzle of white chocolate. It is the kind of recipe you are going to make when you are home alone with your brother and sister, left to your own devises for dinner. It's a straightforward recipe and the result is wonderfully festive. This recipe isn't anything fancy really, just a twist on a holiday favorite, but there is something about these cookies that is ridiculously addictive. Perhaps is the added crunch from the candy canes. Or maybe it's the buttery, crumbly sugar cookie crust. Whatever it is, you won't be able to keep yourself from grabbing just one more piece.

Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies

Adapted from Bon Appetit, December 2009

I think it kind of goes without saying that the higher the quality of the chocolate you use, the better the overall result is going to be. I generally go for, and highly recommend Callebaut chocolate, but Lindt or Perugina will do just fine.

Nonstick vegetable oil spray

2 cups all purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg yolk

6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

½ cup finely chopped peppermint candy canes (about 3 ounces)

2 ounces high-quality white chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray 13 x 9 x 2- inch metal baking pan with nonstick spray. Line bottom of pan with long strip of 9-inch-wide parchment paper, leaving overhang on both short sids f pan. Whisk four and salt in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until creamy, about 2 minutes. Gradually beat in sugar. Continue beating until mixture is light and fluffy, stopping occasionally to scrape down sides of bowl, about 3 minutes. Beat in vanilla, then egg yolk. Gradually add flour mixture, beating on low speed just to blend.

Drop dough by tablespoonfuls into prepared baking pan, spacing evenly. Using moistened fingertips, press dough to form even layer over bottom of pan. Pierce dough all over with fork.

Bake cookie base until light golden brown and slightly puffed and edges begin to come away from sides of pan, about 30 minutes. Place pan on rack; immediately sprinkle bittersweet chocolate over. Let stand until chocolate softens, about 3 minutes. Using small offset spatula, spread bittersweet chocolate over top of cookie in thin even layer. Immediately sprinkle chopped peppermint candies over.

Stir white chocolate in medium metal bowl set over saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove from over water. Using fork, drizzle white chocolate all over cookies. Chill until white chocolate is set, about 30 minutes.

Using paper overhang as said, lift cookie from pan and transfer to work surface. Using large knife, cut cookies into irregular pieces.

Store in refrigerator in airtight containers between layers of waxed paper.

Yield: Makes about 36 cookies