Traditional Christmas and New Year's pastries from different countries. Christmas cookies

Greetings, dear friends! The long-awaited New Year and Christmas holidays will come very soon, and it's time to think about gifts for children and adults. You are unlikely to surprise anyone with souvenirs with the symbol of the year, but Christmas cookies with icing are quite different, which you can cook and decorate with your children.

Such Christmas cookies with icing will be an excellent gift for godchildren, godfathers, educators and teachers, and can also serve as a decoration for the New Year tree. Baking is very tasty, soft and airy. Thanks to spicy spices, the dough turns out to be very fragrant, with a bright and rich honey taste.

Bake the Christmas cookies at a distance from each other, as the cookies rise and expand slightly during baking in the oven. For lighter cookies, cocoa powder can be omitted from the dough. To make the finished Christmas cookies darker brown, you can use brown instead of regular sugar.

Ingredients:

• 300 g wheat flour
• 100 g sugar
• 100 g butter
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp. l. honey
• 1 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom
• 0.5 tsp soda

For glaze:

• 100-150 g powdered sugar
• 1 egg white
• a few drops of lemon juice
• food coloring (optional)

How to make Christmas Gingerbread Cookies:

In a dry bowl, sift wheat flour of the highest grade. Add baking soda to it to make the pastries airy. We also pass ground spices through a sieve: cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and ginger. Additionally, you can use anise, nutmeg, citrus zest.

Stir the dry mixture with a whisk to combine the ingredients.

In a deep bowl, combine granulated sugar and softened butter. Beat the mixture with a mixer.

When the mass brightens, we drive 1 chicken egg into it. Again, beat the ingredients until smooth with a mixer, as required by the recipe for Christmas cookies.

We heat honey a little in a steam bath or in a microwave oven. Pour it into the oil mixture and mix all the ingredients thoroughly.

In two steps, we introduce a dry mixture of flour and spices.

Using a spatula, we combine the dough into a ball, then knead it a little with your hands. If it's too soft and sticky to your hands, add a little more flour. But do not overdo it so as not to score the dough, it should be airy.

Transfer the finished dough to a bowl sprinkled with flour, cover with cling film and put to cool on the shelf of the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes.

Then roll out a piece of dough into a layer 3-5 mm thick. This is best done on parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

Cut out cookies using cookie cutters. Carefully transfer the Christmas cookies to a baking sheet lined with baking paper.

We will bake products until golden brown for 5-7 minutes at a temperature of 180 degrees.

Then we will completely cool our honey Christmas cookies with additives and proceed to decorate it.

When economic news and forecasts of the fall of the ruble make your hair stand on end on New Year's Eve, the only thing left is to start making gifts with your own hands. And if knitting a sweater and felting felt beads all the same takes a lot of time, then holiday cookies can be made in one evening. Moreover, flour, butter and eggs are still on the shelves of supermarkets.

Shelf life

All sweets from this material can be baked in advance. Brownies and coconut balls have the shortest shelf life - after a week they dry out and are not at all as good as immediately after baking. Buttered cookies can easily be stored for a couple of weeks, but buttercream fudge and gingerbread can generally lie in the closet or in the refrigerator forever. Unless, of course, someone eats them.

Inventory

If you decide to swing at a large batch of cookies to give all your friends at once, you can not do without a planetary mixer like Kitchen Aid: it radically speeds up the work time, because it leaves both your hands free while the dough is mixed and the frosting is whipped. However, at home, using ordinary spoons, forks and a whisk, it is quite possible to make cookies. Stock up on the right amount of baking parchment, cling film and containers with lids (they are convenient for storing ready-made cookies).

To decorate gingerbread and other sweets, you will need a pastry bag. The easiest way to use disposable - they are sold in large supermarkets in packs of ten pieces. For the simplest decor, special tips are not needed: the tip of a millimeter-thick bag can simply be cut off. If you decide to seriously get confused and add colored dyes to the glaze, and natural flavors like mint or lemon oil to the dough, then it is better to order these ingredients in advance on sites selling confectionery equipment and ingredients. Delivery in Moscow will take 3-5 days.

Victoria Boyarskaya

Recipe Development Chef
at the Delicatessen restaurant.

Journalist by education. She worked as a radio correspondent, news editor, and then, quite unexpectedly for herself, she turned out to be the editor of the First. Second. Third” and started writing about food. As an editor and food writer, she traveled extensively and learned how to cook from chefs around the world.

Three years ago I decided to leave journalism and "finally get down to business." As a result, she turned out to be one of the first students of chef Ivan Shishkin and ended up in the Delicatessen kitchen. Participated in the launch and worked in the kitchen of the Gifts of Nature and Butterbro projects.

In 2014, together with Ivan Shishkin, she wrote the book “Edible inedible. Big book of giblets”, which was released by the publishing house “Eksmo”.

Butter Cookies with Orange Jam

Cooking

Rub the oil with powder until white, add zest, egg and honey. You can add a couple of drops of citrus oil. Mix thoroughly with a spatula in a mixer or by hand with a fork.

Mix flour with baking powder and salt, gradually add to the oil mass. Knead the dough well, using a spatula or fork, trying to touch it as little as possible with your hands.

roll into a ball, wrap in cling film and place in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Roll out the finished dough very thinly (three to four millimeters) on a table sprinkled with flour, and cut out circles with a glass. Cut a hole in half of the circles with a glass or cookie cutter.

Preheat oven up to 160 °C. Bake cookies until golden yellow (about ten minutes). Remove from oven and let cool completely.

Glue full circles with slotted circles with jam. Cookies can be decorated with melted white chocolate or sugar icing, as for gingerbread.

Ingredients for 35 pieces

Butter - 250 g

Granulated sugar - 100 g

Zest one orange

Egg - 1 PC.

Liquid honey - 1 st. l.

Flour - 410 g

Baking powder - 8 g

Salt - pinch

Orange or any other thick jam - 100–150 g

Optional- 2-3 drops of lemon
or orange oil for flavoring the dough

Chocolate brownies with chili and cinnamon

Cooking

Butter cut into cubes, break the chocolate into pieces and put together in a deep bowl suitable for the microwave. Melt chocolate with butter in defrost mode. It is important not to overheat the mixture so that the chocolate does not curdle. When the butter is completely melted, you can remove the bowl from the microwave and mix the contents.

Let the chocolate butter mixture cool down.. Add eggs, vanilla extract and sugar. Mix thoroughly until completely homogeneous.

Separately mix flour and salt., baking powder, cinnamon and ground nuts. Add to the chocolate mass, knead the dough with a spatula. Gradually add chili sauce, mixing thoroughly and testing for spiciness. For a moderately spicy taste of the finished brownie, you need ten tablespoons of the classic Sriracha.

Lay out the dough on a baking sheet covered with parchment, smooth with a spatula. Bake at 170 °C for 20-25 minutes until the surface is matt. Remove from oven and let cool completely. Do not touch brownies until completely cooled, otherwise the surface will be covered with cracks.

Cut into squares. A quality brownie should be soft and gooey on the inside, but should not smudge and hold its shape. For decoration, you can cut out stencils from paper, put them on cakes and sprinkle with powdered sugar on top.

Ingredients for 30 pieces

Butter - 375 g

Dark chocolate (70% cocoa) - 375 g

Eggs - 6 pcs.

Vanilla extract - 1 st. l.

Sugar - 500 g

Flour - 225 g

Salt - 1 st. l.

Baking powder - 1 tsp

Ground nuts (almonds, pistachios) - 150 g

ground cinnamon - 1 st. l.

"Sriracha" or other hot chili sauce - 810 Art. l.

Powdered sugar
For decoration (50–100 g)

Gingerbread

Cooking

For the dough, combine the flour, all spices and salt. Mix. In a saucepan, combine sugar, cream, honey and butter, melt over low heat. Let the syrup cool and mix it with the egg.

Pour the syrup into the dry mixture and knead the dough with your hands. Roll out on a table generously sprinkled with flour. Ready-made gingerbread cookies are hard and crispy, so it is better to roll out the dough as thinly as possible, 23 millimeters. Ready cookies almost do not change in size after baking.

Cut out gingerbread cookies for cookies, put on a baking sheet.

Oven in an oven preheated to 160 °C about ten minutes and let cool completely before decorating. So the gingerbread will turn out more crumbly. If you want to increase their strength, bake a little longer - about 15 minutes.

For the glaze, beat the egg white to stiff peaks., pour in the powder and mix with a fork or whisk. Dilute crumbly crumbs with lemon juice to a consistency slightly thicker than toothpaste. Transfer the glaze immediately to a pastry bag and store in the refrigerator. After decorating the gingerbread, the sugar icing completely hardens in 23 minutes and is almost impossible to damage.

Ingredients for 30 pieces

For gingerbread:

Flour - 250 g

ground cinnamon - 2 tsp

Ground cloves - 1/4 tsp

Grated nutmeg - 1/4 tsp

ground ginger - 1 tsp

Salt - 1/4 tsp

Sugar - 60 g

Cream or milk - 10 g

Honey - 50 g

Butter - 50 g

Egg - 1 piece, shake in a glass with a fork

For glaze:

Egg white - 1 PC.

powdered sugar - 200 g

Lemon juice - 2–3 tbsp. l.

Cream fudge with green tea

Cooking

Brew leaf green tea 60 milliliters of hot water and let it brew.

Mix dry milk and condensed milk, add matcha tea and knead thoroughly with a spatula.

Put on a small fire. Add butter (soft), strained strong green tea and continue kneading over low heat for about 25 minutes, until the mass thickens and begins to peel off the walls. There is no need to try to speed up the process by adding fire, otherwise the fondant will burn to the bottom of the pan. If this does happen, carefully remove the top layer and remove the burnt crust. Transfer the remaining fondant to a clean saucepan and continue heating over low heat.

Remove the brewed fudge from the heat Allow to cool, continuing to stir for another five minutes. Lay out on a silicone mat.

When the mass cools down to a comfortable temperature to touch it with your hands, grease your hands with vegetable or coconut oil and knead the mass for a while, like dough.

Roll out into a thin layer on a silicone mat and cut out the shapes with a cookie cutter. The remaining fondant can be collected into a ball and rolled out again.

While the figurines are warm, they can be decorated with any confectionery decorations, sprinkled with chopped nuts or coconut flakes. In order for the fondant to finally harden, it can be removed for a couple of hours in the refrigerator.

Ingredients for 30 pieces

Condensed milk with sugar -
1 can (380 g)

Powdered milk - 225 g

Butter - 115 g

Matcha green tea 2 tbsp. l.

Leaf green tea - 1 tsp

Confectionery decorations - optional

Coconut snowballs with white chocolate

Cooking

Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks. Pour in citric acid, half of the powdered sugar and continue to beat, gradually adding the remaining powder. Achieve solid peaks.

Gradually add almonds, salt, coconut flakes and add cream, stirring the mass with a spatula. Let stand for about half an hour so that the chips absorb moisture.

Lubricate your hands with vegetable or coconut oil. Put one teaspoon of coconut mass on the palm, flatten, put a piece of chocolate on top, cover with another spoonful of mass and form a ball with your hands. Thus form cakes from the entire coconut mass.

Bake at 170 °C 15–20 minutes.

Ingredients for 30 pieces

Egg white - from two eggs

Lemon acid - 1/4 tsp

powdered sugar - 100 g

ground almonds - 30 g

Salt - 1 pinch

Coconut cream - 2 tbsp. l.(it is better not to shake the jar and take the thickest part of the "cream")

Coconut - 200 g

White chocolate - 50 g, broken into very small pieces (half a centimeter)

Photos: Mark Boyarsky

In a small saucepan, combine brown sugar, honey, salt and other spices. Put the container on the stove, turn on the fire. Bring ingredients to a boil, stirring constantly.

As soon as the mixture in the saucepan boils, remove it from the heat. Pour in soda, quickly mixing everything. Then add a piece of butter, stir until it is completely dissolved. Finally, add a lightly beaten egg. When the mass in the saucepan has already cooled down a bit (as the egg can curl at a high temperature), stir everything again.

Sift the flour through a sieve several times and add in portions to the saucepan, slowly kneading the dough. Lay it out on a work surface, roll it out into a layer about half a centimeter thick.

Take special New Year's cookie cutters in the form of Christmas trees, snowmen, deer and other things. Use them to squeeze figures out of the dough. Transfer them to a baking sheet. Preheat the oven to one hundred and eighty degrees, bake the cookies for about twelve minutes. Remove the finished cookies and cool.

While the cookies are baking in the oven, prepare the frosting. To do this, beat the chilled raw egg whites with a mixer into a strong foam with the addition of a pinch of citric acid. Then add the icing sugar to the whites in portions, while continuing to beat the whites.

The holidays are rapidly approaching, the streets are decorated with snow, garlands are lit in the houses. In the evenings, the unique aroma of freshly baked pastries wafts from the kitchen…

We bring to your attention 5 favorite recipes and 30 ideas for New Year's cookies, choose, take note, fantasize and be sure to involve all family members in this exciting activity!

Enjoy watching and have a cozy December evenings!

1. Easy M&M's Christmas Cookie Recipe

You will need:

• 1 cup M&M's
• 2 cups of flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup softened butter
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• ½ cup sugar
• ¾ cup cane sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 eggs

Cooking method:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees.
2. Lay a baking sheetparchment paper.
3. Mix butter and vegetable oils, sugar and cane sugar.
4. Add vanilla and eggs.
5. Mix flour, baking powder and salt.
6. Combine everything and mix.
7. Carefully add M&M's.
8. Spoon the mixture onto a baking sheet - one spoon = one cookie
9. Bake for about 10 minutes until the edges are browned.
10. Cool on a wire rack.

2. Another recipe for simple cookies with filling

You will need

• 1 cup softened butter
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 cups of flour
• filling, e.g. cherry jam
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1-2 teaspoons of milk
• ½ teaspoon vanilla

Cooking method:

1. Preheat oven to 180.
2. Mix butter and sugar.
3. Mix the flour (the dough should be crumbly).
4. Roll out the dough into round balls and place on a baking sheet (do not grease it).
5. Make prints in each ball of dough and fill it with filling.
6. Bake for 15 minutes until the edges of the cookies are browned and set.
7. Let the cookies cool on the sheet for 15 minutes.
8. Make the frosting: mix the icing sugar with milk and vanilla.
9. Decorate cookies with icing.

3. Christmas gingerbread

You will need:

• 175 gr flour
• 1/4 tsp soda
• a pinch of salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 65 gr. butter
• 75 gr. powdered sugar
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 yolk

Cooking method:

1. Sift and mix all dry ingredients (except powder).
2. Very finely and quickly chop the ice-cold butter into 5 mm cubes and pour it into the dry mixture.
3. Mix the dough with your hands and add powder, honey, and yolk.
4. Stir again. You should get a very cool smooth dough. If it crumbles, add honey.
5. Roll the dough into a ball and, wrapped in cling film, put in the refrigerator for an hour.
6. Roll out the layer with a thickness of 3-6 mm and cut out the molds.
7. Preheat oven to 170 degrees.
8. Bake 8-10 minutes.

4. Vanilla crescents

You will need

• 400 g wheat flour
• 300 g butter
• 100 g sugar
• 150 g almond flour
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla (can be replaced with 3 sachets of vanilla sugar)
• Zest of 1/2 lemon
• 3 tbsp powdered sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla for decoration

Cooking method:

1. Mix wheat flour with almond flour and add vanilla.
2. Cut the butter into pieces, mix in a food processor with sugar and lemon zest.
3. Add the egg, then stir in the flour, mix and bring the dough until smooth with your hands.
4. Wrap the dough in cling film and leave in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
5. Preheat oven to 175 degrees.
6. Roll the dough into sausages and shape them into crescents.
7. On a baking sheet lined with baking paper, lay out the crescents.
8. Bake for 20 minutes.
9. Sprinkle the hot cookies with the icing and vanilla mixture.

5. Cookies "Christmas reindeer"

You will need:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 100 g butter
• 1 egg yolk
• a pinch of salt
• soda - on the tip of a knife
• 50 g mastic
• 50 g chocolate
• 2 tbsp. l. cream
• M&M's - 50 g

Cooking method:

1. Beat the egg yolk, add the sifted flour, salt, powdered sugar, soda and mix everything thoroughly.
2. Grate the butter on a coarse grater and add it to the flour mixture.
3. Knead the dough.
4. Roll out the cake with a thickness of 7 mm, make circles with a cookie cutter and spread them on a baking sheet.
5. Preheat oven to 200 degrees
6. Bake cookies for 15-20 minutes.
7. Bring cream to a boil, remove from heat, add chocolate and stir until smooth.
8. Pour hot chocolate into a pastry syringe and decorate cookies.
9. Make spouts out of mastic and M&M's.

And a few more ideas for inspiration!

1. Melted Snowman Cookies

2. New Year's chocolate cookies

3. Christmas shortbread cookies "Fir-trees"

4. Figured gingerbread with lemon glaze