Soft Gingerbread Squares with Rum-Butter Glaze

January 6, 2020 By Korena in the Kitchen 4 Comments

It’s already the first week of January, and as usual, I missed the boat on posting about all the Christmas cookies I made – because somehow this year, I ended up doing three separate rounds of cookie baking madness: one for the Food52 Holiday Swap (which I actually *did* manage to post about, whew!), the second a few weeks before Christmas to take to a family celebration in Vancouver, and the third in the days before Christmas when I decided I wasn’t happy with my existing cookie selection. This third bout of cookie baking madness included these soft gingerbread cookies from Tartine, which is a recipe I’ve had bookmarked for ages. Last year I made a similar cookie from the book Sweet which included a rum-butter glaze that was absolutely to die for, however the gingerbread itself wasn’t my favourite. So I kept the glaze and instead put it on the Tartine cookies, and holy cow, these cookies won Christmas! Nate and I both loved them. The spice level is perfect – cinnamony and gingery with a hint of molasses and black pepper – and they have a lovely soft texture. And that glaze! *heart eyes*

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Black Sesame-Espresso Shortbread Pinwheels

December 2, 2019 By Korena in the Kitchen 1 Comment

I first made and loved these black sesame-espresso shortbread pinwheel cookies months and months ago and knew I’d be including them in my 2019 Christmas Baking, which, now that it’s December, has begun! I made these as part of the Food52 Holiday Swap – swirly cookies have a special place in my heart at Christmas (see these chocolate peppermint pinwheels), as does shortbread (see here, here, and here), and these are a sophisticated take on both with their smoky black sesame and espresso flavours and perfectly crisp, light texture.

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Lemon Cream Pistachio Sandwich Cookies

December 31, 2018 By Korena in the Kitchen 2 Comments

I realize I’m posting Christmas cookies a week after the event, but I can never seem to find time to blog about anything in the midst of my annual pre-Christmas baking madness. And it’s still technically Yuletide until tomorrow, January 1, so it’s not too late for Christmas cookies! Especially when they are as good as these ones.

About eight Christmases ago I made a lemon-pistachio sandwich cookie filled with lemon frosting that Nate particularly liked, and he’s been asking me to make them again ever since. I remember being less impressed with them: I found them too sweet, not lemony enough, and their roll-and-cut construction meant they were finicky as heck to make. But I agreed that the concept had potential, so this year I set out to re-engineer them into the cookie of my dreams.

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Tahini Chocolate Shortbread Bars

December 15, 2018 By Korena in the Kitchen Leave a Comment

Shortbread is one of those quintessential Christmas cookies, and while traditional shortbread is always delicious, I like finding recipes with interesting flavours. I came across these tahini chocolate shortbread bars in this year’s Canadian Living Holiday Baking magazine while searching for some delicious-yet-study cookies to send in the mail for the Food52 Holiday Swap (I also made a dark-chocolate-almond-orange version of my favourite biscotti, because biscotti ships well). I love that tahini is showing up in baked goods everywhere (tahini swirl brownies, anyone?) – it’s like peanut butter but a little more grown-up – and I had a feeling it would be excellent in shortbread. Spoiler alert: it is!

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White Chocolate Cranberry Almond Biscotti II

February 14, 2018 By Korena in the Kitchen 1 Comment

Confession: these white chocolate cranberry almond biscotti were in fact part of my Christmas baking. I make them every year for holiday gift-giving, and they are by far the crowd favourite. I personally only bake them at Christmas, but there’s no reason they can’t be made at any other time of the year. For example, Valentine’s Day. Because homemade biscotti is a sure-fire way to say “I love you”.

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Hungarian Kifli

December 31, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 7 Comments

Christmas took me by surprise this year – December flew by in a blur of work projects and deadlines, and then suddenly it was December 25 and just as suddenly, it’s now the last day of 2017. Not that this stopped me from my regularly scheduled annual Christmas Cookie Madness – it just stopped me from telling you about it until now. These Hungarian Kifli were a new addition to my Christmas cookie menu, brought about by the twelfth and final instalment of Around the World in 12 Plates, destination (you guessed it) Hungary.

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Zimtsterne {Cinnamon Stars}

January 1, 2017 By Korena in the Kitchen 4 Comments

I woke up this first morning of 2017 to a pretty dusting of snow outside, which reminded me of these snowy white meringue-topped Zimtsterne cookies that I promised to post about before the New Year… oops. That strep throat I mentioned in my last post has hung on through two rounds of antibiotics and also morphed into laryngitis and a fun nighttime cough, rendering me unable to speak above a whisper and totally unmotivated to do anything but binge watch Gilmore Girls on Netflix. But sickness aside, these cookies are worth knowing about, so here they are!

Zimtsterne are a traditional German Christmas cookie made of meringue and ground nuts, usually almonds and sometimes hazelnuts, cut into star shapes and topped with more meringue. This particular recipe comes from Classic German Baking by Luisa Weiss (which I got for Christmas after having lusted after it for months!). The literal translation of Zimtsterne is “cinnamon stars”, but a more accurate one would be “finickiest cookies in the universe” because – well – they are: the dough is sticky and soft and challenging to work with, you have to cut out hundreds* of individual cookies and frost each of them by hand, and then you have to dry the cookies overnight before finally baking them while keeping the meringue on top from browning. I managed to come up with a few techniques to make things a little easier, which I will share below, because while these cookies are certainly a project, they are also worth it: nutty, chewy, not too sweet, lightly spiced, and easy to eat by the handful if you’re not careful. Definitive proof that the Germans know their Christmas cookies!…

Joulutortut {Finnish Christmas Tarts}

December 27, 2016 By Korena in the Kitchen 2 Comments

Christmas has come and gone, and I have managed to come down with a case of what might be strep throat… but in all honesty, I don’t mind that much because it gives me a legitimate excuse to lie on the couch and do nothing for a few days! The lead-up to Christmas, what with all the prepping and shopping and baking and traveling to visit family while still working full time, is absolutely exhausting, and I’m ready for a break, sick or not. But I wanted to tell you about these beautiful little Finnish Christmas tarts before the holiday is too long past, because they were extremely delicious and pretty fun to make, not to mention fun to say (in your best Swedish chef accent): “YO-lou-TOR-tou”.

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Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheels

December 23, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 3 Comments

I took these photos at 8:30 pm on December 21, literally the darkest day of the year. It’s awfully difficult take take natural light photos when you never see your house in the daylight during the week. Blogging is such hard work!

I plunged into the Christmas cookie madness with both feet last week and spent every evening after work baking cookies. I think I was averaging two recipes a night in preparation for our annual pre-Christmas trek to Vancouver to see family, which coincided this year with my remarkable grandfather’s ninety-eighth (!!) birthday. These cookies in particular are a re-make of a childhood favourite that I remember asking my mum to make every year. Something about the spiraled layers of different coloured dough mixed with the flavour of peppermint and chocolate makes me feel all nostalgic.

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Lemon Pistachio Biscotti

December 16, 2015 By Korena in the Kitchen 2 Comments

I had a jarring realization this past weekend that we were less than two weeks away from Christmas and that I hadn’t started any Christmas shopping – or worse, any Christmas baking. But then I remembered that I had actually baked and sent off holiday cookies for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap several weeks ago, so all was not lost. I participated in the Cookie Swap in 2013, then missed the sign-up deadline last year, so I was pretty excited to be part of it again this year. Participants pay a small entrance fee to raise money for the Cookies for Kids Cancer campaign, and then are matched up with three food bloggers to send cookies to. In return, you receive cookies from three other bloggers. These are the goodies that I got in the mail:

Vegan candy cane shortbread from Kacey of The Cookie Writer
Vegan snickerdoodles from Lisa of The Viet Vegan
Three different kinds of brown sugar cookies from Allison of The Bacon Eating Jewish Vegetarian

Merry Christmas to me, indeed!

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