On Monday, I made the two kinds that are basically ground nuts and butter, rolled in sugar. The Mexican wedding cookies – or Russian teacakes, or pecan balls, or crescents. One year I even made a family cookie recipe that had been contributed to Gourmet that was called puckle warts. They were really delicious but really fragile. They have a little honey added in addition to the usual nuts, sugar, butter & flour. I made mine with pecans and hazelnuts this year, and my secret ingredient – a little bit of coffee, added with the vanilla. When I roll them in the powdered sugar, I always remember my mother bringing home similar cookies from the fancy food counter at one of the department stores in downtown Pittsburgh, Kaufmann’s or Horne’s, and rolling them in extra sugar.
And the Rose’s crescents, or boomerangs. Ground almonds, butter, flour and sugar, rolled in cinnamon sugar. My story about these is I’ve been making them since I got my Rose Levy Berenbaum Rose’s Christmas Cookies book, in something like 1993. We started calling them boomerangs because one of John’s soccer teams was called the boomerangs. When one of the team moms saw these cookies at one of the cookie parties when we still lived in Westmorland, she said they should be the team cookie, and so they became boomerangs.
Mexican wedding cookies
Rose’s crescents
Rose’s crescents
On Tuesday, I had class, so got a later start – I only made hazelnut truffles, but two kinds. One is from Gourmet, that I’ve made a bunch, from December 2001, one of those issues that somehow has more than its share of good recipes. The hazelnut truffle is one of those recipes with flame wars in the comments – “these are NOT truffles, they’re brownies with ganache on top …” And even though I got burned with the pistachio cookies, I decided to try a hazelnut shortbread bar that Martha has in the December 2014 Living. No pics yet, but I think it’ll be nice to have both kinds on one tray. The Gourmet recipe has the nuts in the crust, and the crust is chocolate, while the Martha has the nuts in the ganache, and the crust is brown sugar.
Only two more kinds to go – fig bars, which I should get to later on Wednesday, and the rainbow bars, that I’m not sure when I will do, but probably Thursday. They have to baked, layered, and then chilled under a weight, then glazed with chocolate, that has to set, and then finally cut. They’re often the ones I do last.
