Cookies Santa Will Love

Pumpkin Crunch Cookies

These cookies are soft and crunchy all at the same time. And they stay soft, too. So they are a great option for a do-ahead dessert that you can take to any Thanksgiving or Christmas party.     For the pumpkin, I prefer to use fresh rather than canned. But either will work for this recipe. If using fresh, just cut the pumpkin in half, clean out the seeds, and roast cut side-down on a parchment-lined baking sheet at 350 degrees until very tender. Scoop out all the pumpkin flesh and allow to cool. You can then portion the pumpkin into zip top bags and freeze if you’re not going to use it all right away.

• 2 ¼ C unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 ½ tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp fresh grated nutmeg
• ½ tsp kosher salt
• ¼ lb unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 ½ C sugar
• 2 fresh eggs
• ½ C pumpkin puree
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 C pecans (optional)

Crumble: 

• 1 C unbleached all purpose flour
• ½ C sugar
• ½ C raw sugar (can substitute white sugar or brown sugar)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ½ tsp kosher salt
• 6 Tbl unsalted butter at room temperature

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. For the Crumble:  Whisk together sugars, flour, cinnamon, and salt.   Using your fingertips, combine the flour and sugar mixture with the butter until it resembles fine, lumpy sand.  Set aside.    For the Cookies:  Sift together first six ingredients.  Cream softened butter and sugar.  Add vanilla, eggs, and pumpkin one at a time to butter.  Slowly incorporate flour mixture.  Mix until combined. The batter will be rather wet and resemble cake batter.  Using a 1 oz scoop, portion batter onto parchment lined baking sheets. The cookies will spread so leave at least 2 ½” between each cookie.  Sprinkle the crumble mixture generously on the top of each cookie.  Bake 20 – 25 minutes or until golden brown and set.  Let cool.

Shortbread

Shortbread is the quintessential holiday cookie. It’s buttery, lightly sweet, crunchy, and easy to make. It’s a blank canvas for decorating and cookies cutters work perfectly. There is no leavening in the dough, so the cookie will hold its shape during the baking process.     This is a basic vanilla shortbread. You can tweak this recipe any way you like, though, by adding lemon zest, orange zest, dried fruit, cinnamon, or toasted nuts.     For decorating you can coat the cookie with a colored sugar before baking or decorate with icing, sprinkles, or whatever suits your desire. So gather the kids, the cookie cutters, and the sprinkles. It’s holiday cookie time.

• ¾ lb unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 C sugar  1 tsp real vanilla extract
• 3 ½ C unbleached all purpose flour, sifted
• ¾ tsp kosher salt

In a large mixing bowl, beat the softened butter with the sugar until combined.   Add the vanilla extract.  Then add the flour and the salt. Mix until it forms a dough.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and use your hands to shape into a disc. Wrap in plastic. Move to the refrigerator to cool for 30 minutes.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Pull chilled dough from the refrigerator. On a lightly floured surface roll to 1/2” thick. Then cut into desired shapes.   Space cookies out evenly on parchment paper-lined baking sheet.  Bake 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned on the edges.  Let cool then decorate as desired.