I have my first Christmas party of the season this evening.
Seriously. It’s not even the last week in November.
So it begins…
In my opinion, Christmas parties in November are really pushing it. Our American cousins haven’t even celebrated Thanksgiving yet and we’re already full tilt on the Christmas train. Still, I guess I can’t complain about an evening of corporate sponsored food and drink…
November has blown past incredibly quickly for me, which is probably why I’m so resistant to Christmas revelry starting just yet. Work has been relentless and now with my ultra cool hobby- this blog– I find myself with very little in the way of spare time. Which brings me to this cookie recipe…
If you’ve been following our blog for a while, you know I’m not much of a baker. Cooking- yes, it’s all about improv. Baking- no, too much chemistry.
Top it all with the fact that I don’t have much of a sweet tooth and I bet you’re wondering why I’m posting a cookie recipe. WELL…
Christmas baking approaches and this cookie recipe is different. It’s a lazy cookie recipe. Sort of.
Yeah, it’s a couple steps, and it requires some refrigeration and waiting, but my favourite part of this recipe is that all those steps can happen whenever you like. Take a weekend in November and get all your holiday baking done! Heck, do half the recipe one night, do the other half a couple days later. After it’s all done, take the dough out of the freezer whenever you need a spread of sweets and ta-daaaaa- insta-cookies!
Bits and bites. Perfect for someone who, these days, rarely has a good chunk of time to devote to kitchen playtime.
Growing up we always called these “Martha Stewart cookies,” since they were based off of a recipe we found in a mid-90’s copy of her magazine, Martha Stewart Living. A couple years later we bought the cookbook which contained said recipe and it was not the same! Did we change the recipe over time or did she? Either way, I would not recommend following her current posted recipe for Neopolitan Cookies– sadly, they unimpressed every time I tried to make them.
Martha Stewart, you know I love you. Patron Saint of the Resting B*tch Face and All Things Wonderful. I mean no disrespect, my Queen. It’s just…
These are superior cookies.
| Mocha & Orange Sablé Icebox Cookies | | Print |
- Chocolate Espresso Dough:
- 1½ cups flour
- ½ Tbsp finely ground espresso beans
- ½ cup cocoa powder
- 1 cup butter, room temperature
- 1 cup icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup walnuts, chopped
- .
- Orange Sablé Dough:
- 1¼ cup whole blanched almonds
- 1 cup icing sugar
- ¾ cup butter, room temperature
- 3 Tbsp finely grated orange zest (~3 oranges)
- 1 large egg
- 1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 1½ cups flour
- 1 cup dried cranberries, chopped
- In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder and ground espresso. In a second bowl, beat together the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and creamy- about 3-4 minutes. Gradually mix in flour mixture. Add 1 cup chopped walnuts and mix. Wrap in plastic and store in fridge.
- For the orange sablé dough, place almonds and sugar in a food processor and process until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal or sand (hey! Sablé! That's the name of the cookie 🙂 and set aside. In a large bowl, beat butter and zest together until light and fluffy- roughly 2-3 minutes. Add the almond mixture and mix until just combined. Add egg and lemon juice and mix to combine. Add flour and mix until just combined. Add cranberries and- you guessed it- mix until just combined. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate.
- Bring the orange sablé dough to room temperature. Line an 8" inch square pan with plastic wrap. Press the orange dough into the bottom of the lined pan, smoothing the top as flat as possible. Cover with plastic and return the dough to the fridge for another hour.
- Bring chocolate dough to room temperature. Remove plastic wrap from the top of your orange dough and press the chocolate layer overtop, smoothing the top as flat as possible and pressing it into the pan.
- Cover the now layered doughs with plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours or as long as overnight.
- Remove the dough block from the pan-mould and remove the plastic wrap from the top and bottom. Cut dough into 2"x8" bricks. At this point you can wrap the 'bricks' up and freeze what you don't want to use right away or you can start this next step right away.
- Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Slice each brick log into ¼" inch thick slices and lay the slices on the parchment, at least ½" inch apart. Bake until firm, roughly 10-12 minutes. Cook on a wire rack with the dough-divide (between the chocolate and orange) laying perpendicular to the wires (I learned this one the hard way, when they're still warm and soft they can break right down the seam!)
I too made those cookies in the 90’s, I did all my Christmas cookies that year from her cookbook and they did suck. A whole lot of work and poor results, she changed something! So glad to see the good recipe here!
Phew, so it wasn’t just me! Yeah, these cookies had so much potential it just took a little tweaking to get them to finally turn out great 🙂
Thanks For Sharing this amazing recipe. My family loved it. I will be sharing this recipe with my friends. Hope the will like it.