Gourmet Live Blog

Photo by Romulo Yanes

We’re celebrating a very merry Christmas with the third exclusive recipe from The Gourmet Cookie Book, which features the single best cookie recipe for every year from 1941 through 2009.

Bake up a batch of this week’s featured cookie, Old-Fashioned Christmas Butter Cookies (December 1947), then order your copy for the ultimate collection of holiday sweets. You can also bake up two other exclusive recipes for Cranberry Turtle Bars and Mocha Cookies.

Old-Fashioned Christmas Butter Cookies

Copyright 2010 by Condé Nast Publications, Photographs by Romulo Yanes. Buy it now.

By 1947, memories of the war were beginning to recede and the country had relazed into a more lighthearted mood. That’s evident from the cover, which boasted a Christmas tree with gifts piled beneath it. Inside were stories about “Truffles and Trifles,” “Gilding the Goose,” and, for the first time ever, an article about gingerbread men. As if slightly embarrassed by such frivolity, the editors also included these cookies, which they insisted on calling the “pride of the thrifty housewife.” That is definitely underselling them. The cookies are made with modest ingredients, and they keep for weeks, but we were taken with the old-fashioned technique, which calls for blending sieved hard-cooked yolks and raw yolks into the dough, and then perfuming it with lemon zest or a dash of brandy. What you end up with are cookies that are incredible crisp and so flaky they almost seem to float away.

Photo by Romulo Yanes

Enjoy the holiday sugar splurge with the second of three exclusive recipes from The Gourmet Cookie Book, which features the single best cookie recipe for every year from 1941 through 2009.

This week’s featured recipe is for Mocha Cookies from the October 1990 issue. Bake up a batch then order your copy for the ultimate collection of festive sweets.

The nineties were the chocolate decade in America. This recipe – from the Bakery on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles – has no subtlety: it revels in its rich chocolate decadence. The fact that it is remarkably easy to put together is a bonus. You begin with melted chocolate, a ton of chocolate chips, and a spot of espresso powder – and you end up with a cookie that everybody adores. Make these cookies once, and you’ll be making them for the rest of your life.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, cut into bits
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon double-acting baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1½ cups sugar
• 1½ tablespoons instant espresso powder
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Photo by Romulo Yanes

It’s cookie season! And what better way to launch into holiday baking then with our first of three exclusive recipes from The Gourmet Cookie Book, which features the single best cookie recipe for every year from 1941 through 2009.

Bake up a batch of this week’s featured cookie, Cranberry Turtle Bars (November 2001), then order your copy for the ultimate collection of holiday sweets.

Beautiful, tart cranberries contain a great deal of natural pectin. That quality means that when they are mixed with sugar and pecans and set onto a buttery crust, they turn into a wonderful candied topping. Add a few chocolate streaks, and it’s easy to understand why this cookie has gained such a passionate following. It’s an unexpected – and unexpectedly delicious – combination.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ cup packed light brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1½ sticks (¾ cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch cubes