Holiday Cookie Redux

It turns out that I got so excited about my gingerbread trees with lemon icing, I forgot to talk about the other cookies I made for the holidays!

I made a new kind of swirl cookie, trying to top last year's orange-nutella pinwheels. I instead made Alton Brown's Chocolate Peppermint Swirl Cookies, but they weren't quite as good. The peppermint candies get too hot in the cookie and the carmelized sugar can overbake the cookie itself.

The chocolate crinkle cookies, or what my family always called "wagon wheel cookies," is just a recipe I make every year.  I absolutely can't celebrate December without them.

The best cookie, pictured up in the right corner, almost bland looking, may have been the best one!  Since it is a tweak on a Martha Stewart recipe, I'm including it here for your baking pleasure.

Cranberry Pistachio Icebox Cookies
 
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup pistachios, shelled (measure after shelling)
3/4 cup dried cranberries

Directions

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Beat butter and granulated sugar with a mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture, and beat until combined. Stir in pistachios and cranberries.  Divide dough in half.  Form each half into a log, either a round or triangular shape.  Chill several hours.  Slice dough crosswise slightly thicker than 1/8 inch. Reshape if needed. Bake at 350 degrees on parchment-lined baking sheets until firm, 12 to 14 minutes.  DO NOT OVERBAKE!  The color will not change drastically when they are done.