Friday 23 December 2011

Snickerdoodles and Jam Thumbprints

I do love a bit of festive baking. Not so much as a practitioner as a consumer, though. I deeply admire all the bloggers who post dozens of cookies, cakes and candies throughout December, and talk about holiday cookie trays with ten varieties, and the victory when Granny Vera Myrtle finally passes on *the* recipe. Unfortunately, we don't do a lot of entertaining, so I don't usually have an opportunity for doing my own Christmas baking.

This year, however, my friend Helen is in the UK showing her new babies off to their English grandparents. On Monday she gathered her ex-pat schoolfriends at a pub in Oxford for lunch, so I seized the opportunity to do some baking and palm the results off on other people's thighs.

I made cranberry cream cheese snickerdoodles, using this recipe, and adding 100g dried cranberries to it. I also, for a little festive sparkle, dusted a little red edible glitter on top of the cinnamon sugar topping. Mine didn't spread out as much as the picture, or as much as the last time I made them, maintaining a sort of rock-cake shape. However, they were delicious, like a fruit-filled cinnamon doughnut.

I also made Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's jam thumbprint biscuits. These got their festive pizazz from the jam I used. I had a jar of cherry & kirsch conserve left over from July's Forging Fromage challenge. I'd found it too sweet to eat as jam, but as a boozy, mincemeaty filling for a cookie it was absolutely ideal. My other variation to the recipe was that as I was 25g short of butter (how does one run out of butter?!) I made up the quantity with cream cheese, left from the snickerdoodles.

I thought both these cookies were extremely successful, but Paul maintains that the jam thumbprints are superior. The little bit of lemon zest in the cookies really complements the mixed peel in the conserve. He thinks they are so successful, in fact, that I might have to make another batch just for us. So you know they are good.


13 comments:

Anonymous said...

love the more traditional snickerdoodle, like yours, as compared to the grocery store, flattened, lifeless types you find stateside.

best to you and yours this holiday season!

alexandra said...

I love jam thumbprints! This is taken me back to my childhood, when I made them every Christmas! I need to revisit this recipe.

Andrea the Kitchen Witch said...

Jam thumbprints take me back to being a kid, those were some of my favorites! Merry Christmas!

Suelle said...

I'd happily eat either of those, but I think your cranberry snickerdoodles sound divine!

Choclette said...

That's very good of you to spread out the thigh love ;-) Both sound delicious. Haven't used cream cheese in biscuits before so will have to try it.

Hope you enjoy the break and have a really good Christmas.

Alicia Foodycat said...

Steve - I've never had a snickerdoodle made by anyone else, so I am not sure how they are *supposed* to be, but these ones are good!

Ali - they are such an old-fashioned treat, but that is a good thing, right?

Andrea - I'll be blogging about your molasses cookies soon!

Suelle - They are really very good.

Choclette - yeah, I am generous that way!

Caroline said...

They both look and sound great. I do love a good biscuit.

For info, those Cornish Fairings in the HFW Guardian link are delicious too. I had been wondering about the jam thumbprints, good to hear they're successful.

Arlene Delloro said...

I am pinning the cream cheese snickerdoodles for next year's baking. I've never had any kind other than the traditional cinnamon variety. Haven't made thumbprints in years. I've cut way back because the results generally end up on MY thighs! Have the merriest of Christmases and a Happy and healthy New Year.

~~louise~~ said...

Hi Alicia! I'm sure I'm a bit late wishing you a Happy Holiday but I just had to drop by to say Hi!

I haven't been blogging lately because I'm under doctor's care for my eye but it seems I should be fine in a couple of weeks. We don't entertain much around here and I must say, I do miss it sometimes.

I'm sure your friends enjoyed the cookies, they look lovely. I think I too would be partial to the thumbprints although...snickerdoodles are good too.

I do hope you enjoyed your festivities. Hope to be seeing you come January, Louise.

Deb in Hawaii said...

I love the idea of the snickerdoodles with the cranberry--although I wouldn't turn down a thumbprint or two of course. ;-)

Rachel said...

Edible glitter? I'll have to seek this stuff out. Where does one buy it?

Have a very Merry Christms!

Alicia Foodycat said...

C - thanks for the recommendation, I'll have to try the fairings!

Arlene - I saw a bunch of recipes for the cranberry ones, but they all seemed to use packet mix. Traditional is better.

Louise - Merry Christmas! And I hope your eye gets better soon.

Deb - of course you can have a couple of each!

Rachel - I got it off eBay, but most cake supply places sell it. Your mum's book arrived today!

Tia said...

wonderful cmas classics. hope you had a good holiday!

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