Mr. Snowman and Mrs. Snowman watch over the Chocolate Crackle cookies.
‘Tis the season to bake cookies, but let’s cut ourselves some slack and make it easy on ourselves. Of course, I have more complex cookie recipes in my baking arsenal, like macarons, but the holidays are hectic enough without spending all day in the kitchen. Let’s save macarons for another day.
The cookie recipes I’ve selected for you today have the following in common: First, they are delicious. Second, they’re easy. Third, they all are made from rolling cookie dough into balls and baking them as is. No smashing down with a fork. No rolling pins required. Just your hands. Finally, all these cookie doughs can be made ahead, then refrigerated until you’re ready to bake. I like to take a few hours and make one dough after another, washing out the mixing bowl and the paddle with scalding water in between each batch — no soap needed. In the end, it’s like having money in the bank to have four bags of cookie dough at the ready in the refrigerator for when you want to bake.
Oh, and one more thing: All these recipes can be doubled without any problem whatsoever.
Let’s get right to them.
First, behold, Chocolate Crackles. They taste like rich brownies, but they’re covered in powered sugar that “cracks” as the cookies bake, hence the name, Chocolate Crackles. Super simple. It’s funny, these cookies are not exactly a holiday cookie, but for me, this is the only time of the year when I make them.
Chocolate Crackles
1 cup melted semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil (or coconut oil, if you prefer)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
Mix the chocolate, brown sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla in the standing mixer’s bowl with a flat beater (also called a paddle attachment) until everything is combined and a single color.
To that wet mixture slowly add the following sifted, dry ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup walnuts (optional) or white chocolate chips
Still using the paddle attachment, slowly blend the wet and dry ingredients together until completely combined. Chill the cookie dough for a few hours, or until the dough can be easily rolled into walnut-sized balls without leaving your hands a chocolate mess.
Roll the Chocolate Crackle dough balls in powdered sugar. Place on a buttered or parchment-paper covered cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for between 8 to 12 minutes on the oven’s center rack.
As with brownies, do not overbake. When the cookies come out of the oven they will look somewhat under baked, and will be soft to the touch. But as they cool they will have that rich brownie texture.
Note: The raw dough and the baked cookies freeze well. This recipe can be easily doubled.
Next, I bring you my favorite Molasses Ginger Cookies, a recipe I’ve been making since I was pregnant with my first child and I bought the La Leche League Cookbook and found this recipe many, many decades ago. Many! Let’s just leave it at that.
I have literally baked thousands of these cookies. The recipe you see here in the original version, but I always double the spices. Plus, I sometimes like to roll them in turbinado sugar, instead of granulated sugar, because turbinado sugar has brown, bigger crystals that have hints of molasses, which are perfect for these Molasses Ginger Cookies.
I use my standing Kitchen Aide to make all my cookie doughs, but what’s unique about this recipe is that you can allow little kids to mix everything with their bare hands, and just squish everything together. You just add all the ingredients in one bowl and let the kids get mooshing. (If you need to finish off the dough in the mixer, that’s fine.)
Molasses Ginger Cookies
3/4 cup margarine or shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon ginger
Mix thoroughly at one time all the ingredients. Form into balls. Roll in sugar. Place wide apart on slightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. Makes 3 to 4 dozen.
For a chewy cookie, bake for the minimum time; for a crisp cookie, bake for the maximum time.
From Mother’s in the Kitchen; the La Leche League Cookbook, 1971
Shelly’s Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies. Photo courtesy of Shelly Shively.
In our family, my twin Shelly is known for her culinary artistry in making exquisitely decorated rolled-out cookies, hand-carved marzipan fruit bowls and intricately detailed gingerbread houses that she and son Joe have been known to work on for days. Days! Me? I drizzle some royal icing, hit it with some sprinkles, call it good, and go to bed.
However, she’s also known for her Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies, and it just wouldn’t be the holidays without them. As you might have guessed, these are peanut butter cookies topped with a chocolate kiss, sort of like as if a Reese’s peanut butter cup changed its mind and became a cookie.
Her recipe hails originally from The Joy of Cooking, and are known by several other names, like Peanut Butter Blossoms. Shelly’s added a few of her own instruction tips, which is why I think her version is best, of course.
Shelly’s Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup firmly brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy, your choice)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 to 1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
61 unwrapped chocolate kisses, set aside.
Preheat oven to 350. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Eat one chocolate kiss. (Only if you want.)
Cream together the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Beat in the egg, peanut butter, salt, baking soda and vanilla. Add the flour and mix until combined. Roll dough into balls about the size of a walnut. If desired, roll in granulated sugar or turbinado sugar and place about 2.5 inches apart on the cookie sheet.
Bake just until you just start to see slight cracks appear on the cookies, usually about 7.5 minutes or so. The instant you remove the cookies from the oven, while they’re still on the cookie sheet, push a chocolate kiss firmly into each baked peanut butter cookie.
Makes about 60 1 1/2-inch cookies.
Snowball Cookies with 3 small Christmas trees.
We can call these Snowball Cookies, or Mexican Wedding Cookies, or Russian Tea Cakes, or maybe it’s Mexican Tea Cakes and/or Russian Wedding Cakes. Whatever. By any name they’re fantastic. They’re pretty, and light and buttery. Because their basic ingredients consist of butter, flour and sugar, they have a taste similar to shortbread, which is just 1-2-3 ratio of 1 part sugar, 2 parts butter and 3 parts flour. The worst thing you might say about these Snowball Cookies is that you need to hold a napkin beneath you when you eat one to catch any falling powdered sugar. Not a huge deal.
Just like the Chocolate Crackles, the Molasses Ginger Cookies and Shelly’s Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies, this dough is rolled into balls about the size of a walnut. And like the Chocolate Crackles, they feature a powdered-sugar coating. However, while Chocolate Crackles are rolled in powdered sugar before baking, Snowball Cookies are rolled in powdered sugar right after they are removed from the oven (but not too hot to touch), when they’re still warm (so the powdered sugar will stick).
This modified (by me) recipe was inspired by one I found decades ago in an old Betty Crocker cookbook. That recipe called for chopped walnuts, which I almost never include in any recipe anymore, unless I’m making baklava, because of so many people’s nut allergies. The old recipe also called for “oleo” — an old-timey word for margarine, which I don’t recommend, because then you lose the classic butter taste.
I hope you enjoy these cookies and add them to your holiday baking.
Best Snowball Cookies
1 cup softened butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Powdered sugar
Optional: 3/4 cup finely chopped nuts. (I’ve also added chopped toffee-covered peanuts that have been pulsed in a food processor.)
Mix the first three ingredients in a large bowl. (Ideally you can mix this dough with standing mixer, if not mix by hand with a sturdy wooden spoon.) Once the butter, powdered sugar and vanilla are well incorporated, add the flour and salt and mix until the dough is uniform. (It will be thick.)
Use your hands to roll the dough pieces into 1-inch balls, and place at least 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet. They won’t spread, but you don’t want them touching one another.
In a 400-degree oven bake for 9 to 12 minutes, until firm to the touch, but not brown. When cookies are cool enough to hold in your hands gently roll each ball in powdered sugar.
Makes about 4 dozen cookies.
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