Christmas Cookies 2012

The kitchen was taken over!

Cheese Crispies & Chocolate Ginger Snaps cooling

Plates of cookies ...
before they get baked

bags and bins

Packed and ready to go!

Last year I had an idea for a cookie.  It was Chocolate Ginger Snap Sandwiches with Nutella Filling.  It turned out...  AMAZING!  And I realized I didn't make enough.

This year - those went down like this:

Almost 900 of the little guys!  Sandwiches require the MOST cookies.

This year the cookie that took hold of my brain was:

Sriracha Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies.



I was thinking saté sauce for dessert.  But when the cookies aged for a few days, the spice took over the cookie.  It went from an interesting spice to TOO HOT!  Where's the cookie?  How is this dessert?

What - what to do?  So I poked around the internet.  After my Turkey Pot Pie Empanada adventure I was sure it had to be out there - some other ideas about Sriracha peanut butter cookies.  And there were.

Glut Life made an ice cream sandwich with Sriracha Peanut Butter cookies filled with Thai Basil ice cream rolled through toasted cocoanut.

And then I realized that I had definitely left the coconut out.  And the bitterness.  When you get saté, if it has been done right, it will have a char on it.  And the bitterness of those crispy burnt edges are balanced with the sweetness of the saté sauce.  The chili and the coconut and the saltiness - it all has to be there the make the magic.

The result?  Hundreds of cookies dipped in 60% bittersweet chocolate and rolled in sweetened coconut:

Bet you want the recipe!
Here: Sriracha Peanut-Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
dipped in Bittersweet Chocolate and Sweetened Coconut  

The secret to my cookie success - the bulk bins at Central Market.  I was able to get a bit of different kinds of chocolate, different types of coconut and test them out.  And then go back and get a bunch of the right stuff.
The Russian Tea Cakes were back...  

The ground walnuts are still essential for the correct texture and sweet/bitter balance.  And this year I had a 1 Tbs disher that made scooping out perfect tea cake shapes a breeze.

Speed Cookie dishing this year.
This 1 Tbs size is too big for the bite size cookies...
next year I need a 1 or 1.5 tsp size one!
(The almost 2T size one is perfect for muffins and abelskivers!)

And Cheese Crispies.  I left out the rice crispies this year (the right decision) and left out the garlic powder (the wrong decision).  Look for my 3rd try next year!