On average, two to four baked goods are produced in my kitchen on a weekly basis. During the Christmas season, that number rises exponentially. Today for instance, had you dropped by for a visit, I could have offered you fruitcake, homemade s’mores with a marshmallow cap torched á la minute, chocolate cake roll with salted caramel buttercream filling, chocolate meringue batons, and pink peppermint meringue kisses to go along with your coffee or tea.

I’ve even ventured into cookie baking territory as evidenced by this weeks “Dreamy Crack Bars” post. Here is the other type of cookie I like to bake during this holly jolly time of year: nubby, crumbly, buttery, sugar-dusted Mexican wedding cakes, festooned and prettied up with Grinch-green pistachios, sunny orange zest, and exotic, floral cardamom.

I took them to the annual Serious Eats cookie swap just last week and will be making a few more batches for people on my “Nice” list.

ORANGE, CARDAMOM, &  PISTACHIO MEXICAN WEDDING CAKES

Equipment: food processor, electric mixer, 2 baking sheets, parchment paper, cooling rack, mixing bowls

Makes about 32 cookies

1 cup roasted, salted, shelled pistachios
1 tablespoons finely grated orange zest
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
¾ plus 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pulse pistachios and orange zest in food processor until almonds are coarsely ground. Set aside.

In large bowl, beat butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Pause mixer and add ½ cup confectioners’ sugar. Beat on low speed until fully incorporated, about 30 seconds. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl with rubber spatula; add vanilla. Mix on medium-high speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds.

Pause mixer. Add flour, ¾ teaspoon cardamom, salt, and nut mixture; mix on medium-low speed until dough comes together, 60 to 90 seconds.

With rubber spatula, scrape sides and bottom of bowl, patting dough down to unify it. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Using a 1 tablespoon measure, scoop dough out onto prepared baking sheets, then quickly roll them between palms into balls and space them ½ inch apart. Lightly press cookies down to ½-inch thickness.

Bake cookies until golden brown on bottom (they will remain pale on top) 15 to 20 minutes.

While cookies bake, whisk together remaining 1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar, remaining 1/8 teaspoon cardamom, and cinnamon in large bowl; set aside.

Transfer baking sheet to cooling rack and cool cookies on sheet for 5 minutes. Gently toss warm cookies in confectioners’ sugar and transfer to cooling rack to cool completely, 30 to 60 minutes.

Cookies will keep in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Admittedly, I am not a very enthusiastic cookie baker. I don’t mind pulling cookies out of the oven halfway through baking to carefully apply chocolate chips with tweezers so they look picture perfect, but that’s strictly for work. For fun, I’d much rather do away with the scooping, rolling, cutting,  decorating, and tweezing.

Enter these bar cookies. They’re actually the first recipe I ever developed at Cook’s Country Magazine, and probably one of my favorite. The base is a nut-speckled, buttery shortbread; the center a gooey pecan-pie-like blanket; and the top, a crisp, caramelized, crunchy crust of coconut.

They were originally titled “Dream Bars,” however after six batches and incessant eating, their highly addictive nature demands to be put in the category of illegal drugs, hence the “crack” in the title.

I’m off to bake another batch now. Wrap them up in cellophane and festive ribbons and ship off to friends and family!

DREAMY CRACK BARS
(Originally published in Cook’s Country, Apr/May 2009)

Equipment: 13- by 9-inch baking pan, heavy-duty foil, food processor, cooling rack, mixing bowls, whisk

Notes:
To toast the nuts, arrange pecans in single layer on baking sheet. Bake in center rack in preheated 350°F oven until fragrant and golden, 7 to 10 minutes, shaking pan halfway through baking to redistribute pecans. Transfer baking sheet to cooling rack and cool pecans completely before chopping.

For the Crust
Cooking spray
2 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour
¾ cup packed dark brown sugar
½ cup pecans
¼ teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons (1 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces and chilled

For the Topping
1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut
1 (15-ounce) can cream of coconut
2 large eggs, at room temperature
¾ cup packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped (See Notes)

For the crust: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350°F. Line 13- by 9-inch baking pan with heavy-duty foil lengthwise with one sheet, then crosswise with a second sheet to create a sling; coat with baking spray.

Process flour, brown sugar, pecans, and salt in food processor until pecans are coarsely ground. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Press mixture firmly into prepared baking pan. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack 20 minutes.

For the topping: Stir together shredded coconut and cream of coconut in bowl. In separate bowl, whisk eggs, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla, and salt until smooth. Stir in pecans, then spread filling over cooled crust. Dollop heaping teaspoons of coconut mixture over filling, then spread into as even a layer as possible with rubber spatula or back of spoon (it will be patchy).

Bake until topping is deep golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan 20 minutes, then, use excess foil to pull out onto wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours.

Once cooled, remove foil and cut into 24 pieces. (Bars can be refrigerated in airtight container for 5 days.)

I had a hankering for chocolate chip cookies the other day so I went online and jotted down the first recipe I came across. The usual ingredients were all present and it looked pretty standard and straightforward, thus giving me no reason to worry. Alas, my blind trustworthiness bit me in the posterior. The cookies were neither chewy nor crunchy, but spongy instead, resembling madeleines more than chocolate chips. Searching for crispness, they went back in the oven, but all I got were cookies that tasted overcooked.

I revisited chocolate chips a few days after the above-mentioned flop, but this time I proceeded with caution and sought a recipe from a more reliable source, Dorie Greenspan, a.k.a. Queen of All Things Baked. For those of you unacquainted with Ms. Greenspan’s work, please, acquaint yourselves! She authored “Baking with Julia” (as in Julia Child), as well as “Baking: From My Home to Yours,” from where I extracted “My Best Chocolate Chip Cookies.”

Following please find the adapted version. I opted to use peanuts in lieu of the more traditional walnuts or pecans because A) I’ve never had a chocolate chip cookie with peanuts, B) I had a can sitting in my pantry begging to make itself useful, and C) when I’m really desperate for an after dinner treat, I fill a teacup with bittersweet chocolate chips and peanuts (following a ratio of about 3 chips per peanut), a sort of deconstructed Mr. Goodbar if you will – and decided it would be great in cookie format.

Anyhow, without further ado, here are Dorie’s just-right cookies.

MY BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
Adapted from “Baking: From My Home to Yours” by Dorie Greenspan

2 C. all-purpose flour
1 ¼ tsp. salt
¾ tsp. baking soda
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 C. granulated sugar
2/3 C. light brown sugar
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
12 oz. bittersweet chocolate, cut into chunks
1 C. chopped walnuts or pecans (*or peanuts!)

-Preheat oven to 375˚F. Place rack in center.

-Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper (not wax paper!).

-Whisk together flour + salt + baking soda.

-In the bowl of a stand mixer beat butter on medium speed one minute till smooth, then add both sugars and beat an additional two minutes, till well blended.

-Beat in vanilla extract, followed by the eggs, one at a time, beating approximately one minute after each addition to ensure complete incorporation.

-Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in three portions.

-Mix in chocolate and nuts.

-Spoon the dough by slightly rounded tablespoonfuls on the baking sheets, leaving about 2” between them.

-Bake one sheet at a time, rotating halfway through baking, 10 – 12 minutes.

-Cool on rack.

NOTE: Always start cookies on a completely cool baking sheet. I know, it can be time-consuming if you don’t have stacks of sheets, but c’est la vie.

If you don’t want to bake everything at once, put your bowl of dough into the fridge for about half an hour, then plop it onto a piece of Saran wrap. Shape the dough into a log (à la Pillsbury supermarket cookie dough) and wrap tightly. Next time you want a cookie, simply cut inch-thick slices and bake.

Save extra dough for a rainy day.

Not too long ago I wrote about a certain food being like Proust’s madeleine, opening up the trapdoors of childhood memories – I can’t quite recall, but it must have been toast with guayaba jelly. Regardless, I am writing this to set the record straight. Whatever that food was was an impostor, taking the madeleine name in vain. For what actually takes me back are polvorones.

Polvorones were cookies of the prepackaged supermarket aisle variety, made by a company called Marinela; the Little Debbie of Mexico, if you will. Marinela also produced pingüinitos (little penguins – clever!!!) – aka cream-filled chocolate cupcakes – you know, the ones with the little doodle of white frosting on top? Polvorones, though, were my favorite. They were rich and crumbly like shortbread, but with a softer mouth feel, and they were dusted with powdered sugar which I greedily licked off my fingertips. Alright, alright, I admit it – I was a junk food junkie when I was a kid. One of these days I’ll write exclusively about all the empty calories I consumed in the ‘80s.

It would be many moons until I would once again have a polvorón. I was at Citarella in New York one day when I came upon a box of Russian tea cookies. Turned out I’d hit the jackpot: these cookies were exactly like Marinela’s. And then as you’d expect I wanted to make them. I simply couldn’t rely on Citarella – God forbid one day they should decide to stop making them. Or I should move to Boston and not have a Citarella.

But it would be even more time till I discovered that polvorones in the U.S. go by the name of Mexican wedding cookies, and that they aren’t a super-secret recipe, as I suspected. Bon Appétit published a recipe in 2003, and I made them today. You should, too:

Mexican Wedding Cakes
Bon Appétit | May 2003

Polvorones
These “cakes” are really festive cookies.
Makes about 4 dozen.

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup pecans, toasted, coarsely ground
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar and vanilla; beat until well blended. Beat in flour, then pecans. Divide dough in half; form each half into ball. Wrap separately in plastic; chill until cold, about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Whisk remaining 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar and cinnamon in pie dish to blend. Set cinnamon sugar aside.

Working with half of chilled dough, roll dough by 2 teaspoonfuls between palms into balls. Arrange balls on heavy large baking sheet, spacing 1/2 inch apart. Bake cookies until golden brown on bottom and just pale golden on top, about 18 minutes. Cool cookies 5 minutes on baking sheet. Gently toss warm cookies in cinnamon sugar to coat completely. Transfer coated cookies to rack and cool completely. Repeat procedure with remaining half of dough. (Cookies can be prepared 2 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature; reserve remaining cinnamon sugar.)

Sift remaining cinnamon sugar over cookies and serve.