My most memorable article, judging by how much readers bring it up, is last December’s article on my mom’s cookie hotel.
Lisa Byrne makes more than 1,400 Christmas cookies every holiday season. She starts on Columbus Day, and stashes them, batch by batch, in the cookie hotel, an industrial freezer my dad bought for her a few years back.
Lisa Byrne cookie trays are recognizable. A tray of them graces a table at every holiday party worth going to, always surrounded by people. Growing up, we’d distribute trays of them to friends, relatives, teachers, bus drivers and neighbors – months of effort put into each tray.
Some of her recipes come from her mom, my grandma, who I never got the opportunity to bake with. Some of the cookies are so good they get the privilege of being made outside of the holiday season, like her famous Oreo balls or peanut butter balls.
Her peanut butter balls are often the first to disappear at family gatherings. She got the recipe from her first principal. You’ve got to get to the tray quickly, or hide one somewhere. They’re like luxury peanut butter cups.
“The recipe came from one of the first principals I had as a teacher,” Byrne said. “She made them for a Christmas event, and I begged her for the recipe, but she refused to give it out to anyone. Finally, the year I got married and was leaving and moving away, as a gift, she gave me the recipe.”
Her jelly cookies, which are covered in a legendary glaze, have notes of newspaper to me. When I was little, I had a tradition. When the cookies were done and checked into the hotel, I would steal the newspaper from under the cooking rack, and lick the extra glaze off it. I suggest you do the same. No one’s looking.
My favorite new cookies in the rotation are cream cheese-stuffed red velvet cookies and cinnamon rolls. I ate the red velvet ones for dinner twice last week.
Regardless of their origin, most of them just taste like Christmas. They taste like the Christmasses when I was little, when I checked the Santa tracker every hour, and Christmas Eve night was so exciting I felt like throwing up glitter.
Even though my brothers and I have grown into weird little adults, I still treasure every weekend I’m able to be her assistant in the kitchen and listen to her “Christmas Cookie Jams” playlist, and I especially treasure the bags of cookies I always sneak back to my little Cortland apartment.
CHEESECAKE-STUFFED RED VELVET COOKIES
Filling
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
⅓ cup sugar
2 Tbs. sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Cookies
1 ⅔ cups flour, leveled
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, leveled
1 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. Kosher salt
¼ tsp. baking soda
1 ¼ cups sugar
½ stick unsalted butter, melted
1 Tbs. buttermilk
1 tsp. red food coloring
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
Confectioners’ sugar for coating
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Make the filling. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Beat cream cheese, sugar, sour cream, and vanilla with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Spoon a little less than a tablespoon of the filling onto the tray, and freeze until the 12 dollops are solid.
Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl.
Whisk together the granulated sugar, buttermilk, red dye, vanilla and eggs in a separate bowl.
Fold the flour mixture into the sugar mixture with a spatula until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Coat your hands in confectioners sugar, and scoop a heaping tablespoon of dough into your hands. Place a dollop of filling into the dough, and place another tablespoon of dough on top of the dollop. Shape the dough around the dollop until it is covered, and then coat it in confectioners sugar.
Place cookies on the baking sheet two inches apart, and bake until they are firm around the edges and can be lifted with a spatula; about 10 to 12 minutes. Let them cook on the tray for 10 minutes, then transfer to a baking rack.
JELLY COOKIES
Cookies
1 cup butter, softened
⅔ cup sugar
½ tsp. almond extract
2 cups flour
⅓ to ½ cup seedless raspberry jam
Glaze
1 cup confectioners sugar
2-3 tsp. water
½ tsp. almond extract
Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Beat in extract, and gradually add flour until dough forms in a ball. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. Roll into 1-inch balls, place 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet, and make a small dent in the middle of each cookie using the end of a wooden spoon handle. Fill dents with jam.
Bake at 350 degrees for 14 to 18 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. Cool on wire racks.
Combine glaze ingredients and drizzle over cookies.
PEANUT BUTTER BALLS
1 cup butter
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups peanut butter
2 pounds confectioners sugar
12 ounces chocolate chips
1-2 tsp. shortening
Mix butter, vanilla extract, peanut butter and confectioners sugar. Roll into balls, freeze.
Melt chocolate chips and shortening together until smooth. Dip balls in chocolate, freeze.
CINNAMON ROLL COOKIES
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
⅓ cup granulated sugar
⅓ light brown sugar, tightly packed
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 ¼ cups flour
2 tsp. cornstarch
½ tsp. salt
Filling
⅓ cup light brown sugar, tightly packed
2 ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
⅛ tsp. salt
2 Tbs. unsalted butter, very soft or melted
Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
4-6 tsp. milk
¼ tsp. vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Combine butter and sugar into a mixing bowl and beat until creamy. Then, stir in egg yolk and vanilla extract.
In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch and salt.
Put mixer on low speed and gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet until everything is combined. Form dough into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
While dough is chilling, whisk together brown sugar, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl.
Transfer dough to a clean, lightly floured surface and roll into a 12- by 10-inch rectangle. Spread melted butter evenly over dough, except a half-inch from the perimeter.
Sprinkle the brown sugar/ cinnamon mixture over butter. Roll the dough into a log and pinch at the seam. Wrap in wax paper and freeze for 15 minutes.
Remove dough from freezer, and use a sharp knife to cut into quarter-inch slices. Bake slices for 10-12 minutes.
Make the glaze by whisking together powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract. Start with 4 tsp. Of milk and then add it splash by splash until it reaches the desired consistency.
Drizzle cookies with glaze once cooled.
