How the Cookie Crumbles - Eileen Talanian's Recipe Guidelines

Making Your First Batch of Marshmallows

It should take you about 45 minutes to make your first batch of marshmallows, and less time as you become more familiar with the process. Basically, marshmallow making is broken down into these parts:

• Marshmallow Syrup: A homemade invert sugar syrup that helps to control crystallization. (You can use light corn syrup instead, if you prefer.)

• The base: This is the combination of Marshmallow Syrup, cane sugar, water, and occasionally other ingredients, cooked to a specific temperature.

• The bloom: Before granulated gelatin can be used in a recipe, it must first be softened, or “bloomed,” in a cold liquid so the crystals are separated and don’t form lumps. Flavoring ingredients might be added to the bloom in some recipes.

• Additional flavoring: Certain flavorings can’t be included in the cooked base or the bloom, so they’re added at another time in the recipe and are listed separately in the ingredients list.

• The marshmallow batter: This refers to the base and bloom mixture that is poured into the bowl and beaten, then spread into a pan, molded, or piped into shapes.

Please check out the web site for my book, Marshmallows: Homemade Gourmet Treats, for photos and lots of tips about making homemade marshmallows and marshmallow fluff.

Using the Right Tools to Properly Measure the Ingredients

Don’t use dry measuring cups for liquids, or liquid measuring cups for dry ingredients. Be sure to use a straight-edge, like a long spatula, to scrape off a level surface on the dry ingredients. Make sure the liquids are even with the correct measure amount in the measuring cups. Do this at eye level, or use the great new Oxo Angled Measuring Cups to do this effortlessly.

Softening Butter for Successful Results

If your recipe calls for butter at cool room temperature, set your butter out an hour or so before you begin baking. If you have forgotten to do so, you can soften the butter by cutting it into small pieces and letting it sit for several minutes to start to soften. Then mash it with a large fork or rubber spatula to soften it the rest of the way.

Melting Chocolate

Melting chocolate is a fairly easy process if you have a microwave oven. Just be sure the dish you use to melt the chocolate in is absolutely dry, because the chocolate will turn into a hard, grainy lump if even a drop of water gets into the chocolate. This method will work for quantities of one ounce or more. Chop the desired amount of chocolate and place it in a glass dish. Microwave the chocolate, uncovered, for 45 seconds. Remove the dish and check to see that most, but not all, of the chocolate has melted. If most of the chocolate is still solid, return the dish to the microwave oven for another 30 seconds and check it again. When most of the chocolate has been melted, use a small whisk to stir the chocolate until all of the lumps melt. Chocolate burns very easily, so you don’t want to try to totally melt the chocolate in the microwave.

White chocolate needs to be handled more carefully than any other chocolate, because it melts at a lower temperature and burns very easily. To melt white chocolate, bring a kettle of water to boil. Set a wide metal bowl into a baking dish large enough to hold it. Place the white chocolate, broken or chopped into small bits, into the bowl, cover it tightly with plastic wrap, and pour as much boiling water into the baking dish as possible. Let the bowl of white chocolate remain in the hot water for 5 or 10 minutes, then remove it, pull back the plastic wrap, being careful not to get even one drop of water in the chocolate, and stir with a rubber spatula until all of the chunks of chocolate have melted and the chocolate is very smooth. If necessary, tightly re-wrap the bowl and place it back into the hot water for a few more minutes to further melt the chunks.

Quickly Tempering Chocolate

There are many ways to temper chocolate, but if you are using only a small amount, say to dip the edges of a few dozen cookies, this is a simple way to do it: Place at least 4 ounces of chocolate into a microwave safe glass container and microwave the chocolate until it is mostly melted and the chocolate is 108 degrees Fahrenheit. Use an instant read thermometer to check the temperature.

There should still be a few soft lumps in it. Remove the bowl from the microwave and stir it with a fork or small whisk until it is smooth. Add about 1-1/2 ounces of chopped chocolate to the bowl for every 4 ounces of melted chocolate, and stir until it melts, continuing to stir until the chocolate drops to 90 degrees. Wrap a towel around the bowl to help retain the heat, and dip the cookies into the chocolate. Place the dipped cookies on a parchment-lined tray and set them in a cool place for several minutes to allow the chocolate to set. You can also briefly place the tray in your refrigerator for up to 5 minutes. When it is set the chocolate should be shiny and hard. Store the cookies in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

Tempering Chocolate in a Double Boiler

Do not attempt to temper chocolate on a humid day unless you are in an air-conditioned room. It’s best to keep the temperature of the room down to between 60 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

To do this you will need: At least 2 pounds of the chocolate you want to temper, chopped into small pieces; a heating pad; a clean bath towel or two or three clean kitchen towels; a bowl that is fairly narrow (so all of the heat doesn’t escape from the bowl too quickly), but deep enough so it can hold the chocolate easily, and will sit on the rim of the saucepan; a saucepan filled with an inch of water that allows the bowl to sit on the rim of the pan without touching the water and without letting any steam into the bowl; a rubber spatula; a wire whisk; a candy thermometer, an instant read thermometer, or a digital thermometer; parchment paper on which to place your coated items.

NEVER ALLOW EVEN A DROP OF WATER TO GET INTO THE CHOCOLATE during the tempering process, or the chocolate will seize into a hard, ruined mass. Make sure the steam from the water doesn’t reach the chocolate, and use only absolutely dry bowls and utensils.

Here are the tempering instructions: Turn the heating pad on low and cover it with a double thickness of towel(s). Fill the pan with an inch or more of water. Place the bowl on the rim of the saucepan, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water in the pan. Set aside about one-fourth of the chopped chocolate. Put the remaining chopped chocolate into the bowl. (The smaller you have chopped the chocolate, the faster the melting procedure will take place.) Bring the water in the pan to a boil and immediately reduce the heat so the water just simmers; the chocolate will start to melt. Insert the thermometer. Stir the chocolate often with the spatula, until the temperature reaches between 115 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and place it on a counter or other work surface for about 10 minutes.

Add about half of the reserved chopped chocolate to the melted chocolate and stir gently with the spatula until the temperature reaches between 88 and 90 degrees, being careful not to beat any air into the chocolate. As it melts, continue to add small amounts of chopped chocolate, until you have reached the correct temperature. (You may not need to add all of the chocolate.) If the correct temperature has not been reached and all of the reserved chocolate has been used, chop more chocolate and add it as needed to reach the desired temperature. Once the temperature has been reached, use a rubber spatula to stir the chocolate slowly until it is completely smooth.

Move the bowl to the warm, towel-topped heating pad, bringing the towel up and around the sides of the bowl as insulation. You are now ready to use the tempered chocolate. Keep a close eye on the thermometer; take the bowl off the heating pad if it goes up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Stir the chocolate occasionally to keep the chocolate at the correct temperature. If the temperature falls below 88 degrees Fahrenheit, turn the heating pad up to the next setting until the chocolate again reaches between 88 and 90 degrees, then return the setting to low.

Cutting Cream Cheese Brownies

The Cream Cheese Brownies in this issue are very dense and rich. Because of that, you should use a very sharp knife that’s been dipped in water to cut them. If you are using a cookie cutter, you will need to push the brownie out of the cutter from the bottom side, gently pushing around the brownie at different points, until the brownie pops out. This is because the brownies are so dense and tend to stick to the cutter. It also helps if you moisten the cutter each time before you use it.

Decorating Dipped Cookies

You can make your sugar cookies look even more festive by sprinkling them with sparkling sugars, or jimmies or other tiny decorations. Let the dipped cookies sit for 4-5 minutes after dipping before sprinkling them with decorations.

Dipping Cookies in Icing

To get that shiny, smooth surface on cut-out cookies, you need to dip them upside down into icing. The icing should be thick enough that it isn’t drippy, but thin enough that it coats the top surface of the cookies. It sounds trickier than it is. The recipe for Dipping Icing for Cookies has a great consistency for this task. You may want to add a few drops of water, or another tablespoon or so of confectioners’ sugar to get the correct consistency, but the recipe itself will be very close to what you need. Pour the icing into a broad, shallow dish and cover it with damp paper towels if you are not using it right away.

To coat the cookies, drop them face down onto the surface of the icing. Grab the cookie with your thumb and middle finger, and gently sway the cookie back and forth a couple of times to be sure the entire surface is coated. Try not to get the icing on the sides of the cookie. Lift the cookie from the icing and gently shake it so the excess icing drips off. This may take a second or two. You can also use a small icing knife or table knife to help move some of the icing off. Then flip the cookie over and set it onto a cookie sheet or tray to set. The icing will settle into a smooth coating. If you are decorating the cookies with colored sprinkles or sugar, sprinkle it on before the icing starts to dry. It could take the icing an hour or more to completely set, depending on the humidity in your kitchen. Once the icing is set, you can store the cookies in an airtight container.

Freezing and Thawing Cookies

Make sure the cookies are completely cool. Then place them in pairs, back to back, wrapping each pair in plastic wrap. Put all of the wrapped cookies inside a zipper freezer bag, seal the bag, and place in the freezer for up to 2 months. When you want to use them, take out only as many cookies as you need and leave them at room temperature, wrapped in the plastic wrap, for about 30 minutes, until they are thawed. Remove the plastic wrap and serve.

Freezing Cookie Dough

Some people like to make a huge batch of one kind of dough and shape it into many different shapes. That’s fine, but you will get a much more spectacular effect if you actually make different recipes of dough, each with a unique texture, flavor, color and appearance. The most convenient way I have found to bake a wide variety of holiday cookies is to mix, shape and freeze the dough ahead. If wrapped airtight and placed in a very cold (0 degrees F) freezer, the shaped dough will keep for 2 months or more. So every time you have an hour that you can spend on this project, you can make a different kind of dough, shape it and get it into the freezer. You will be surprised at how many kinds of dough you can prepare this way. Then when you are ready to bake them, you just take out what you need, bake and garnish as desired, and you will have a most impressive assortment.

To freeze ahead, just mix and shape the dough, placing the shaped pieces of dough as close to each other on a baking sheet as possible. Then pop the baking sheet, uncovered, into the freezer until the dough is frozen. This usually takes a couple of hours. Remove the baking sheet from the freezer and carefully place the shaped dough into a zip top plastic freezer bag or an airtight freezer container, and return the shaped dough to the freezer, being careful to put it where it won’t get crushed or damaged. When you are ready to bake, you can remove the amount of shaped dough you want, and return the rest to the freezer if you aren’t baking all of the dough at the same time. Bake the dough according to each recipe’s directions. This is so easy, and will make your holidays a breeze!

You can also freeze piecrusts this way. Just mix and roll the crust, fitting it into the pie plate, and place it in the freezer. When frozen, wrap it airtight and keep it in the freezer until you are ready to use it. If you are freezing more than one, you can line a pie plate with plastic wrap before the piecrust is fitted into it, then freeze it. Subsequent crusts can be frozen and stacked inside the previous crust, with the plastic liner between crusts. I find it’s best to have more than one pie plate when you do this: one that holds the first crust and another to freeze each subsequent crust.

Making Lovely Cookie Trays

When you are taking the time and making the effort to bake a lot of cookies, you want it to have the best impact possible. It helps to keep a few things in mind when choosing the cookies you will include. Try to have a variety of shapes: one or two drop cookies, a hand-molded cookie (like a snowball or a crescent – or both), a rolled and cut cookie, a bar or two, a mini tart (like a tassie), colorful cookies that have holiday jimmies or holiday colored candies, cookies with jam (thumbprints), a cookie covered in cinnamon-sugar or confectioners’ sugar, and piped or spritz cookies. Choose varieties that have different dough colors, like one that’s chocolate, one with ground nuts running through it, light colors (like coconut macaroons), dark colors (like spice cookies). Especially for the holidays, it makes an interesting tray if some of the cookies are iced and/or decorated with some of the fun holiday trims that are available at many grocery stores and kitchen shops.

Rolling Cookie Dough

One of the largest mistakes people make when rolling cookie dough is to handle it too harshly. There is a protein in wheat flour called gluten, and moving it around a lot after it has been moistened causes the gluten to strengthen, making your dough tough. So in order to produce tender cookies, you need to handle the dough as little as possible. One way to ensure that you don't have to re-roll the dough too often is by making sure the rolling surface is lightly but sufficiently dusted with flour so the dough doesn't stick to the surface. Another way to keep the handling of the dough to a minimum is to make sure you cut the dough so there is the least amount of waste. Cut the cookies as close as possible to each other, and there will be less leftover scraps of dough to re-roll.

Storing Baked Cookies

You can use the finest ingredients to make your cookies, but unless you store them properly, you've wasted your time, energy, and money. Always cool cookies completely before storing them. To store soft cookies, place them in an airtight container with wax paper or parchment between the layers of cookies. To store crisp cookies, place them in an airtight container.

Never mix soft and crisp cookies in the same container, because the moisture from the soft cookies will cause the crisp cookies to become soft.

Using Cookie Cutters

Select cookie cutters with sharp edges and rolled tops (so your fingers don’t get cut). Dip the cutting edge of the cookie cutter into flour before you cut each cookie. Make sure you have kept a very light sprinkling of flour under the rolled dough (check often to see that the dough isn’t sticking to the rolling surface) so the cut-outs can be easily moved to the baking sheets.

Press the cutter down into the dough, trying not to move it back and forth, so the cookie shape doesn’t get distorted. Remove the cutter, and slip a large offset icing spatula under the cut shape, and move it to a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving an inch between cookies. Try to keep the cookies on each baking sheet all the same size, so they bake in the same amount of time.

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	Here are some tips that will be helpful in making some of the recipes I’ve included in this issue:

	Making Your First Batch of Marshmallows It should take you about 45 minutes to make your first batch of marshmallows, and less time as you become more familiar with the process. Basically, marshmallow making is broken down into these parts: • Marshmallow Syrup: A homemade invert sugar syrup that helps to control crystallization. (You can use light corn syrup instead, if you prefer.) • The base: This is the combination of Marshmallow Syrup, cane sugar, water, and occasionally other ingredients, cooked to a specific temperature. • The bloom: Before granulated gelatin can be used in a recipe, it must first be softened, or “bloomed,” in a cold liquid so the crystals are separated and don’t form lumps. Flavoring ingredients might be added to the bloom in some recipes. • Additional flavoring: Certain flavorings can’t be included in the cooked base or the bloom, so they’re added at another time in the recipe and are listed separately in the ingredients list. • The marshmallow batter: This refers to the base and bloom mixture that is poured into the bowl and beaten, then spread into a pan, molded, or piped into shapes. Please check out the web site for my book, Marshmallows: Homemade Gourmet Treats, for photos and lots of tips about making homemade marshmallows and marshmallow fluff. Using the Right Tools to Properly Measure the Ingredients Don’t use dry measuring cups for liquids, or liquid measuring cups for dry ingredients. Be sure to use a straight-edge, like a long spatula, to scrape off a level surface on the dry ingredients. Make sure the liquids are even with the correct measure amount in the measuring cups. Do this at eye level, or use the great new Oxo Angled Measuring Cups to do this effortlessly. Softening Butter for Successful Results If your recipe calls for butter at cool room temperature, set your butter out an hour or so before you begin baking. If you have forgotten to do so, you can soften the butter by cutting it into small pieces and letting it sit for several minutes to start to soften. Then mash it with a large fork or rubber spatula to soften it the rest of the way. Melting Chocolate Melting chocolate is a fairly easy process if you have a microwave oven. Just be sure the dish you use to melt the chocolate in is absolutely dry, because the chocolate will turn into a hard, grainy lump if even a drop of water gets into the chocolate. This method will work for quantities of one ounce or more. Chop the desired amount of chocolate and place it in a glass dish. Microwave the chocolate, uncovered, for 45 seconds. Remove the dish and check to see that most, but not all, of the chocolate has melted. If most of the chocolate is still solid, return the dish to the microwave oven for another 30 seconds and check it again. When most of the chocolate has been melted, use a small whisk to stir the chocolate until all of the lumps melt. Chocolate burns very easily, so you don’t want to try to totally melt the chocolate in the microwave. White chocolate needs to be handled more carefully than any other chocolate, because it melts at a lower temperature and burns very easily. To melt white chocolate, bring a kettle of water to boil. Set a wide metal bowl into a baking dish large enough to hold it. Place the white chocolate, broken or chopped into small bits, into the bowl, cover it tightly with plastic wrap, and pour as much boiling water into the baking dish as possible. Let the bowl of white chocolate remain in the hot water for 5 or 10 minutes, then remove it, pull back the plastic wrap, being careful not to get even one drop of water in the chocolate, and stir with a rubber spatula until all of the chunks of chocolate have melted and the chocolate is very smooth. If necessary, tightly re-wrap the bowl and place it back into the hot water for a few more minutes to further melt the chunks. Quickly Tempering Chocolate There are many ways to temper chocolate, but if you are using only a small amount, say to dip the edges of a few dozen cookies, this is a simple way to do it: Place at least 4 ounces of chocolate into a microwave safe glass container and microwave the chocolate until it is mostly melted and the chocolate is 108 degrees Fahrenheit. Use an instant read thermometer to check the temperature. There should still be a few soft lumps in it. Remove the bowl from the microwave and stir it with a fork or small whisk until it is smooth. Add about 1-1/2 ounces of chopped chocolate to the bowl for every 4 ounces of melted chocolate, and stir until it melts, continuing to stir until the chocolate drops to 90 degrees. Wrap a towel around the bowl to help retain the heat, and dip the cookies into the chocolate. Place the dipped cookies on a parchment-lined tray and set them in a cool place for several minutes to allow the chocolate to set. You can also briefly place the tray in your refrigerator for up to 5 minutes. When it is set the chocolate should be shiny and hard. Store the cookies in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. Tempering Chocolate in a Double Boiler Do not attempt to temper chocolate on a humid day unless you are in an air-conditioned room. It’s best to keep the temperature of the room down to between 60 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit. To do this you will need: At least 2 pounds of the chocolate you want to temper, chopped into small pieces; a heating pad; a clean bath towel or two or three clean kitchen towels; a bowl that is fairly narrow (so all of the heat doesn’t escape from the bowl too quickly), but deep enough so it can hold the chocolate easily, and will sit on the rim of the saucepan; a saucepan filled with an inch of water that allows the bowl to sit on the rim of the pan without touching the water and without letting any steam into the bowl; a rubber spatula; a wire whisk; a candy thermometer, an instant read thermometer, or a digital thermometer; parchment paper on which to place your coated items. NEVER ALLOW EVEN A DROP OF WATER TO GET INTO THE CHOCOLATE during the tempering process, or the chocolate will seize into a hard, ruined mass. Make sure the steam from the water doesn’t reach the chocolate, and use only absolutely dry bowls and utensils. Here are the tempering instructions: Turn the heating pad on low and cover it with a double thickness of towel(s). Fill the pan with an inch or more of water. Place the bowl on the rim of the saucepan, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t touch the water in the pan. Set aside about one-fourth of the chopped chocolate. Put the remaining chopped chocolate into the bowl. (The smaller you have chopped the chocolate, the faster the melting procedure will take place.) Bring the water in the pan to a boil and immediately reduce the heat so the water just simmers; the chocolate will start to melt. Insert the thermometer. Stir the chocolate often with the spatula, until the temperature reaches between 115 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and place it on a counter or other work surface for about 10 minutes. Add about half of the reserved chopped chocolate to the melted chocolate and stir gently with the spatula until the temperature reaches between 88 and 90 degrees, being careful not to beat any air into the chocolate. As it melts, continue to add small amounts of chopped chocolate, until you have reached the correct temperature. (You may not need to add all of the chocolate.) If the correct temperature has not been reached and all of the reserved chocolate has been used, chop more chocolate and add it as needed to reach the desired temperature. Once the temperature has been reached, use a rubber spatula to stir the chocolate slowly until it is completely smooth. Move the bowl to the warm, towel-topped heating pad, bringing the towel up and around the sides of the bowl as insulation. You are now ready to use the tempered chocolate. Keep a close eye on the thermometer; take the bowl off the heating pad if it goes up to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Stir the chocolate occasionally to keep the chocolate at the correct temperature. If the temperature falls below 88 degrees Fahrenheit, turn the heating pad up to the next setting until the chocolate again reaches between 88 and 90 degrees, then return the setting to low. Cutting Cream Cheese Brownies The Cream Cheese Brownies in this issue are very dense and rich. Because of that, you should use a very sharp knife that’s been dipped in water to cut them. If you are using a cookie cutter, you will need to push the brownie out of the cutter from the bottom side, gently pushing around the brownie at different points, until the brownie pops out. This is because the brownies are so dense and tend to stick to the cutter. It also helps if you moisten the cutter each time before you use it. Decorating Dipped Cookies You can make your sugar cookies look even more festive by sprinkling them with sparkling sugars, or jimmies or other tiny decorations. Let the dipped cookies sit for 4-5 minutes after dipping before sprinkling them with decorations. Dipping Cookies in Icing To get that shiny, smooth surface on cut-out cookies, you need to dip them upside down into icing. The icing should be thick enough that it isn’t drippy, but thin enough that it coats the top surface of the cookies. It sounds trickier than it is. The recipe for Dipping Icing for Cookies has a great consistency for this task. You may want to add a few drops of water, or another tablespoon or so of confectioners’ sugar to get the correct consistency, but the recipe itself will be very close to what you need. Pour the icing into a broad, shallow dish and cover it with damp paper towels if you are not using it right away. To coat the cookies, drop them face down onto the surface of the icing. Grab the cookie with your thumb and middle finger, and gently sway the cookie back and forth a couple of times to be sure the entire surface is coated. Try not to get the icing on the sides of the cookie. Lift the cookie from the icing and gently shake it so the excess icing drips off. This may take a second or two. You can also use a small icing knife or table knife to help move some of the icing off. Then flip the cookie over and set it onto a cookie sheet or tray to set. The icing will settle into a smooth coating. If you are decorating the cookies with colored sprinkles or sugar, sprinkle it on before the icing starts to dry. It could take the icing an hour or more to completely set, depending on the humidity in your kitchen. Once the icing is set, you can store the cookies in an airtight container. Freezing and Thawing Cookies Make sure the cookies are completely cool. Then place them in pairs, back to back, wrapping each pair in plastic wrap. Put all of the wrapped cookies inside a zipper freezer bag, seal the bag, and place in the freezer for up to 2 months. When you want to use them, take out only as many cookies as you need and leave them at room temperature, wrapped in the plastic wrap, for about 30 minutes, until they are thawed. Remove the plastic wrap and serve. Freezing Cookie Dough Some people like to make a huge batch of one kind of dough and shape it into many different shapes. That’s fine, but you will get a much more spectacular effect if you actually make different recipes of dough, each with a unique texture, flavor, color and appearance. The most convenient way I have found to bake a wide variety of holiday cookies is to mix, shape and freeze the dough ahead. If wrapped airtight and placed in a very cold (0 degrees F) freezer, the shaped dough will keep for 2 months or more. So every time you have an hour that you can spend on this project, you can make a different kind of dough, shape it and get it into the freezer. You will be surprised at how many kinds of dough you can prepare this way. Then when you are ready to bake them, you just take out what you need, bake and garnish as desired, and you will have a most impressive assortment. To freeze ahead, just mix and shape the dough, placing the shaped pieces of dough as close to each other on a baking sheet as possible. Then pop the baking sheet, uncovered, into the freezer until the dough is frozen. This usually takes a couple of hours. Remove the baking sheet from the freezer and carefully place the shaped dough into a zip top plastic freezer bag or an airtight freezer container, and return the shaped dough to the freezer, being careful to put it where it won’t get crushed or damaged. When you are ready to bake, you can remove the amount of shaped dough you want, and return the rest to the freezer if you aren’t baking all of the dough at the same time. Bake the dough according to each recipe’s directions. This is so easy, and will make your holidays a breeze! You can also freeze piecrusts this way. Just mix and roll the crust, fitting it into the pie plate, and place it in the freezer. When frozen, wrap it airtight and keep it in the freezer until you are ready to use it. If you are freezing more than one, you can line a pie plate with plastic wrap before the piecrust is fitted into it, then freeze it. Subsequent crusts can be frozen and stacked inside the previous crust, with the plastic liner between crusts. I find it’s best to have more than one pie plate when you do this: one that holds the first crust and another to freeze each subsequent crust. Making Lovely Cookie Trays When you are taking the time and making the effort to bake a lot of cookies, you want it to have the best impact possible. It helps to keep a few things in mind when choosing the cookies you will include. Try to have a variety of shapes: one or two drop cookies, a hand-molded cookie (like a snowball or a crescent – or both), a rolled and cut cookie, a bar or two, a mini tart (like a tassie), colorful cookies that have holiday jimmies or holiday colored candies, cookies with jam (thumbprints), a cookie covered in cinnamon-sugar or confectioners’ sugar, and piped or spritz cookies. Choose varieties that have different dough colors, like one that’s chocolate, one with ground nuts running through it, light colors (like coconut macaroons), dark colors (like spice cookies). Especially for the holidays, it makes an interesting tray if some of the cookies are iced and/or decorated with some of the fun holiday trims that are available at many grocery stores and kitchen shops. Rolling Cookie Dough One of the largest mistakes people make when rolling cookie dough is to handle it too harshly. There is a protein in wheat flour called gluten, and moving it around a lot after it has been moistened causes the gluten to strengthen, making your dough tough. So in order to produce tender cookies, you need to handle the dough as little as possible. One way to ensure that you don't have to re-roll the dough too often is by making sure the rolling surface is lightly but sufficiently dusted with flour so the dough doesn't stick to the surface. Another way to keep the handling of the dough to a minimum is to make sure you cut the dough so there is the least amount of waste. Cut the cookies as close as possible to each other, and there will be less leftover scraps of dough to re-roll. Storing Baked Cookies You can use the finest ingredients to make your cookies, but unless you store them properly, you've wasted your time, energy, and money. Always cool cookies completely before storing them. To store soft cookies, place them in an airtight container with wax paper or parchment between the layers of cookies. To store crisp cookies, place them in an airtight container. Never mix soft and crisp cookies in the same container, because the moisture from the soft cookies will cause the crisp cookies to become soft. Using Cookie Cutters Select cookie cutters with sharp edges and rolled tops (so your fingers don’t get cut). Dip the cutting edge of the cookie cutter into flour before you cut each cookie. Make sure you have kept a very light sprinkling of flour under the rolled dough (check often to see that the dough isn’t sticking to the rolling surface) so the cut-outs can be easily moved to the baking sheets. Press the cutter down into the dough, trying not to move it back and forth, so the cookie shape doesn’t get distorted. Remove the cutter, and slip a large offset icing spatula under the cut shape, and move it to a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving an inch between cookies. Try to keep the cookies on each baking sheet all the same size, so they bake in the same amount of time.