Take a Walk on the Sweet Side with a Holiday Cookie Walk

I love Christmas and everything that comes with it, from blow-up lighted lawn Santas to handmade wreaths sprigged with berries and pine cones. I have a few favorite Christmasy things that make me feel all warm and happy just doing them. One of them is to bake cookies and give them away.

Some years it seems I have all the time in the world to whip up the family favorites along with a few new recipes. I find a clever container for them that transcends a simple tray. The season is well organized, a balance of making merry and merrymaking. Cookies, candies, and original recipe Chex Mix for all my friends and family!

Other years, the Christmas season arrives breathless, heart-pounding, racing for the new year. I get dragged along like a stray reindeer tripping over sleigh bells, and trailing holly boughs. I am lucky to make one batch of cookies, never mind share them with anyone besides the kids.

It’s years like this when a cookie walk is an excellent idea. It’s easy enough to organize. Call three or more friends and/or family members (especially if they like to bake), invite them over, and instruct them to bring 2 or 3 dozen homemade cookies.

While everyone sips Christmas cocktails, nibbles appetizers, and catches up, each person fills a plate with three to six cookies from each guest.

When you go home, you’ve got a cookie platter, and all you had to do was make Aunt Mary’s jam-filled crescent cookies. Once.

Keep your eye out for other cookie walks, too. It’s an easy, low-maintenance fundraiser for church, school, and other groups. Members each contribute a couple dozen cookies, bars, candies, small cakes, or bagged goodies, and the organization sells an empty box for patrons to fill either for a donation or a set price.

Once again, you leave with a variety of treats. And this time you didn’t even have to remember to soften the butter.

Since your cookie walk cookies might be the only ones you bake this holiday season, it might be tempting to do your “Great British Baking Show” best. And if you have the inspiration, confidence, and most of all time, why not? It’s just as much a gift for the giver to watch delight (and powdered sugar) spread across the face of a friend.

But a cookie walk is not a competition. Often the cookies snatched up first are the same ones eaten straight from the sheet pan on any old Sunday afternoon. I’ve personally witnessed people snitching kicked up Rice Krispies Treats with a layer of chocolate and butterscotch from each other’s plates. And it’s made (mostly) in the microwave!

Regardless of how you make your cookies this Christmas, when you give from the heart, they all taste like love.

Crescent Cookies

Thanks Aunt Mary. This recipe converts well to gluten-free all-purpose flour, like Bob’s Red Mill 1:1.

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 cup unsalted butter

2 cups all-purpose flour

Dash of salt

Jam, jelly, or preserves of your choice

Confectioner’s sugar for dusting and dredging

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment.

Combine butter and cream cheese. Add flour and salt, and mix to form a soft dough.

Dust work surface with powdered sugar, and roll out the dough. Cut into circles using a biscuit cutter, rim of a glass, or other implement that gives you a circumference of about 3-4 inches.

Dollop each circle with a teaspoon of jam in the middle. Fold half the dough over it and seal to create a crescent.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until very lightly brown. Let cool. Dredge in confectioner’s sugar.

Makes about 2-3 dozen, depending on size.

“GBBS” Best Scottish Shortbread

There is nothing painstakingly perfect in my personal cookbook, but if I ever found myself “in the tent with Paul and Prue,” my go-to “biscuit” would be this one. This recipe is easily doubled, tripled, and quadrupled, but takes forever.

1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 1/4 cup cold unsalted, high quality butter, cut into 8-10 pieces

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment.

Place sugars in a food processor (or blender) and process until fine. Add butter and pulse until sugar disappears. Add flour and pulse until no dry flour remains. It should be moist and crumbly.

Place in a plastic bag and press it together to form a dough. Knead lightly until it holds together.

Chill for 30 minutes.

Remove dough from the bag. Shape into 1-inch balls. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet 2 inches apart. Flatten with a cookie stamp, fork, or the bottom of a glass moistened with water.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until pale golden. Cool completely.

Makes about 4 dozen, depending on size.

Scotcheroos

Recipe courtesy of Taste of Home. I changed the name because it sounds better than “Chocolate Peanut Butter Treats.”

1/4 cup butter, cubed

1 package (10 oz) marshmallows

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

5 cups crisp rice cereal

1 cup butterscotch chips

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Melt butter and marshmallows in the microwave. Stir in peanut butter until smooth. Gradually add cereal. I usually use my clean hands to do this at a certain point when the spoon becomes useless. Press into a greased 9-by-13-inch pan.

Melt chips in the microwave. Spread over the cereal mixture. Cover and freeze for 15-20 minutes or until chocolate is set.

Makes about 12 to 24 squares, depending on how you cut them.

Gluten-free bonus: Christmas Monster Cookie Bars

Bars are an excellent holiday baking choice because you just spread the dough and it goes in the oven. These are even better because they are gluten free with ingredients you probably have in the cupboard. The only thing you might need to hunt for is mini red and green M&Ms. Recipe discovered at togetherasfamily.com in 2019.

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

1 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

3 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup mini chocolate chips

1 bag (11 oz) Christmas mini M&M’s.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment, or spray with butter-flavored cooking spray.

A stand mixer works really well, but a large bowl will, too, as you combine butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and peanut butter. Mix until fluffy and pale (about 1-2 minutes).

Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.

Add oats and baking soda. Blend until combined.

Add mini chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups of M&M’s. Blend until just combined.

Plop onto prepared cookie sheet and spread with a spatula, back of a spoon, or your clean hands. Top with reserved M&M’s.

Bake for 17-20 minutes. Edges should be brown, but the middle will look a bit underbaked. That’s OK. You don’t want to over bake these bars. Let cool for at least an hour.

Makes about 2-3 dozen, depending on how you cut them.