Kitchen Project #92: Christmas biscuit bonanza

Back for 2022. Ovens at the ready!

Hello,

Welcome to today’s edition of Kitchen Projects. Thank you for being here!

I am SO thrilled about today’s edition because it’s all about one of my fave subjects ever: BISCUITS. And not just any biscuits, it’s a bumper Christmas biscuit selection edition, perfect for home made gifts. In todays newsletter, we’ll be deep diving three from the selection. The rest I’m sharing over on KP+ - click here to read!

What’s KP+? Well, it’s the level up version of this newsletter.By joining KP+, you will support the writing and research that goes into the newsletter and get access to extra content, community chat threads, and more. Subscribing is easy and only costs £5 per month:

OKAY, let’s do it.

Lots of love,
Nicola

PS. Here’s 2020’s playlist for some CHOICE Christmas tunes

The most wonderful time of the year…

One my favourite newsletters EVER was the Christmas Biscuit Bonanza of 2021. It feels very natural for me to lean into biscuits around Christmas time (I’ve always said that biscuits are my love language). Little did I know then, but I think I’ve set myself up for a yearly tradition. So, here I am, back for round two! As a passionate biscuit lover, this is a joyful task for me. I genuinely can’t think of much that makes me happier than dreaming up biscuits, especially at this time of year.

To really go all in for my love of biscuits, I decided to bring a dream into reality for 2022: A full-blown biscuit pop-up, a real-life bonanza. And a bonanza it was. With my IRL pop-up bakery lark!, I collaborated with the fantastic Kossoff’s of Kentish Town. It’s such a stunning space and Kossoff’s truly hosted the most glorious Christmas event yesterday. Dare I say it, I feel extremely festive now. So grateful for everyone that made it out and joined us - we sold 2500 biscuits in < 2 hours!!!

Yesterday’s set up!

Along with the brilliant Jo from Kossoffs, I had the joy of bringing together some of my favourite bakers and bakeries: Miel, Big Jo, Le Choux, Verena Lochmuller of OTK, My Little Cake Tin, Toklas, Painted Dog Bakehouse and Sarah Johnson of Spring. I also had the absolute joy of producing a recipe from my cookie guru Susan Spungen.

Here’s the line-up in full (bold for recipes in this newsletter).

• Spiced Alfajores by Jo Clarke of Kossoffs + me / lark! (Recipe on KP+)

• Cardamom Linzers by Jo Clarke Kossoffs 

• Babka Sable by me / lark! (Recipe on KP+)

• Cinnamon Toast Sable by me /lark! (Recipe on KP+)

• Buttery Vanilla Spritz by me / lark! (Recipe on KP+)

• Diamond Cacao Sables by Le Choux 

• Sesame Rose biscuits by My Little Cake Tin

• Ginger Cornflake Florentine by me / lark!  - (Recipe on KP+)

• Snickerdoodle by Big Jo 

• Citrus Scented & Candied Peel Shortbread by Sarah Johnson (Recipe on KP+)

• Lebkuchen Amaretti by Verena Lochmuller (Recipe on KP+)

• Damson & Vanilla Thumbprints by Miel (Recipe on KP+)

• Ginger Oaties by Painted Dog Bakehouse

• Twice baked Pecan Vanilla Shortbread by Susan Spungen (Recipe on KP+)

From L-R, top to bottom: Diamond cacao sables, cinnamon toast biscuits, ginger cornflake florentines, lebkuchen amaretti, ginger oaties, alfajor biscuit, pistachio biscotti, damson thumbprints, cardamom linzers, candied citrus shortbread, snickerdoodles, vanilla spritz and babka biscuits. Only thing missing here is Tarunima’s Sesame Rose biscuits - they were wrapped up!

Today I have the joy of sharing those recipes with you! I’ve split the selection up between KP and a second newsletter on KP+, so for the full lowdown, subscribe to the KP+.

Let’s get into it!

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Buttery Vanilla Spritz

(by me!)

All the biscuit family - the buttery spritz is the wreath!

I needed something silly and jolly to add to the selection. And nothing says jolly to me more than biscuit dough you squeeze out of a bag. Last year for the biscuit bonanza I shared a piped cookie - a brown butter viennese. I still stan that recipe, but I wanted to come up with something EVEN MORE BUTTERY and crisp. I love an egg, but eggs add moisture and tend to make things a bit soft or tender. I tried about four or five ratios to get this right but the most important thing is getting the butter temperature right. Tn  cold, and you will destroy 5 piping bags and injure yourself whilst trying to pipe it out. Too warm and the biscuits melt in the oven, and you get really dodgy shapes. Still delicious, but definitely a bit more Dali-esque than I like. 

Removing the eggs, we are also losing a bit of structure - when eggs bake, the proteins coagulate and provide structure in the final product. So, I’ve compensated this by using icing sugar which contains a little starch which helps with the final shape. Compared to my classic shortbread recipe (check it out on KP+ now!), this spritz shortbread has around 5% less flour, slightly more sugar (that all important icing cornstarch touch!) and slightly more butter to help with pliability when piping. 

This recipe really does live and die on the quality of ingredients so don’t scrimp - use really delicious cultured butter and let these SING. To decorate, I went for cranberry icing, though to be honest, it doesn’t taste a lot of cranberries - icing sugar decor is just so sweet! The slight tartness does come through, though, better than just using water and food colouring.

Vanilla Spritz Recipe
Makes 16-20 ‘wreaths’, or LOADS of little blobs

Ingredients

• 150g soft butter

• 75g icing sugar

• 185g plain flour

• 10g milk

• 1/2 tsp salt

Method

• Cream butter and icing sugar until very soft, but not fluffy. Overly aerated spritz butter will just cause spreading later on. Mix in the flour and salt followed by the milk

• Depending on your kitchen and the ambient temp, your spritz dough may be really firm and hard to work with. You have a few options - zap it a few times on a very low setting in the microwave, or place it somewhere warm (20c - 23c) for a short period of time, then knead it together with your hands.

• Move around 1/3 of the dough into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle - I use a 1.25cm one. Using less dough makes it easier to pipe - better to refill than strain yourself!

• Pipe blobs or wreaths. The dough will be quite firm so you have to be patient. If you manage to pipe it without heating the dough at all, you can bake it right away. If you have had to either microwave or warm it up, I would leave these cookies overnight in the fridge to firm up before baking.

• Pre-heat oven to 170c fan. Bake for 13-15 minutes or until golden.

• Mix up icing using 10g of liquid (I used cranberry puree) and 70g icing sugar. Mix until you get the right consistency to pipe without it going runny. Spread a line across the cookie then dip into sprinkles

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Cardamom and Raspberry Linzer Cookie

Raspberry Linzers by Jo at Kossoffs, pictured with the damson thumbprint from Miel (recipe on KP+)

Words and recipe by Jo Clarke, Kossoffs

Our take on a classic. Made with ground almonds and spiced with cardamom, sandwiched together with tart raspberry jam. It’s everything a jammy dodger wishes it was.

Yield: 10 - 12 biscuits 

Linzers:

• 100g ground almonds

• 125g soft light brown sugar

• 300g Wildfarmed T80 

• 200g estate dairy cultured butter

• 10g salt 

• 50g whole egg

• 40g egg yolk 

• 6g ground cardamom seeds 

Plus good quality raspberry jam to sandwich

Linzers method

• Preheat the oven to 160c fan

• Weigh all of the dry ingredients into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix to combine

• Cube the butter into the mixture and mix until it resembles breadcrumbs 

• Slowly add the whole egg and egg yolk and mix until the dough has come together

• Wrap dough in plastic or parchment paper and rest in the fridge for minimum one hour. Roll the dough out to a thickness of 5mm, in between two sheets of parchment 

• Refrigerate again for one hour. Use a 6cm cookie cutter to cut out the biscuits - remember to cut a small hole in half of them for the jam to show through. 

• Bake in the middle of the oven for approximately 12 minutes, turning halfway through

• When cool, pipe some jam onto the bottom biscuit and sandwich together. Leave to set before serving. 

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Sesame and Rose Biscuits

Recipe & words by Tarunima Sinha / My Little Cake Tin

I love biscuits. I have them almost every day, so experimenting with biscuits is something I really enjoy. One batch of dough makes so many, some to eat, some to share and perfect for the festive season. There is always joy to be found in baking biscuits. I am sharing a biscuit recipe which is quick to put together - I hope you will enjoy the warmth of sesame and delicate floral rose in this biscuit.

Yield: Approximately 24 biscuits

Ingredients:

• 150g unsalted butter at room temperature

• 150g golden caster sugar

• 275g plain flour

• Cardamom powder from 5 to 6 cardamom pods finely crushed

• 150g Tahini

• 125g sesame seeds (+100g to roll)

• 15g dried rose petals

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1 tsp rose water

• ½ tsp fine sea salt

To finish - optional

• 25g dried rose petals (powdered in a spice grinder).

• 75g golden caster sugar.

• A few rose petals

Method:

• Mix all the ingredients with a paddle attachment in a stand mixer for 2 to 3 minutes, until well combined. Or in a large bowl mix the ingredients with your hands into a soft dough. Do not over mix.

• Portion the dough into 30g. Wet your hands with some water and take each portion, roll into a round ball. Then roll in with the extra sesame seeds. The water helps the sesame stick to the dough.

• Preheat the oven to 160C.

• Place the sesame balls onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper, keeping some distance between them and place the tray into the preheated oven. Bake for 20 minutes.

• Once you remove from the oven, let them rest for 8 to 10 minutes. The cookies are soft when they are warm, but they will harden once they are cool. Once completely cooled, they are ready to eat.

To finish

• In a medium size bowl, take the caster sugar, add the powdered rose petals. Give it a stir.

• Toss the biscuits, after they have cooled for 8 to 10 minutes, in the mixture,       one by one.

• Shake off the excess sugar and leave it to cool on a wire rack completely.

Tips

• Use good quality tahini and rose water

• Rose petals are easy to find in Middle Eastern grocery stores.

The biscuits keep well for up to 15 days in an airtight container.

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Snickerdoodle Cookie

Snickerdoodle cookie (right) next to Sarah Johnsons citrus scented shortbread (left), recipe on KP+

Recipe by Big Jo

Yield: 24 cookies at 55g each

Ingredients:

• 215g Butter, soft

• 220g Light brown sugar

• 170g Caster sugar

• 2 tsp Black treacle

• 100g Eggs

• 400g Flour

• 1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda

• 1 tsp Cinnamon

For Cinnamon sugar;

• 20g Caster Sugar

• 20g Cinnamon

Method:

• Cream together butter and sugars till fluffy

• Scrape bowl down and add eggs gradually whilst beating to emulsify

• Add dry ingredients and mix till incorporated

• Portion into 24 pieces. Roll into even sized balls and roll in cinnamon sugar 

• Bake at 150C for 12 minutes

• Leave to cool completely 

• Best enjoyed on the day but keep in an airtight container for up to a week

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Ginger Oaties

Words and recipe by Talia Berk of Painted Dog Bakehouse

These are a little adaptation from classic ‘crunchy biscuits’ that are a South African staple. I’ve added some festive spicing in the way of ginger - both dry ground and crystallised stem. It really brightens these already moreish biscuits.

Yield: 22-24 biscuits

Ingredients: 

• 120g Wholemeal Flour

• 120g Rolled Oats

• 2 tsp Ground Ginger

• ½ tsp Bicarb

• Pinch Salt

• 120g Butter

• 100g Golden Caster sugar

• 70g stem ginger (chopped very fine)

• 1 small egg beaten

Method:

• Place all the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl to combine.

• Rub butter in until it resembles sand

• Stir through the sugar and chopped ginger

• Slowly add the egg until the mixture comes together into a cohesive dough - don’t let it get too sticky (I used roughly 46 grams of egg)

• Bring together and flatten, cover and chill for roughly 30 mins

• When you get back to your dough, turn on your oven to 160 c fan.

• Either dust your work surface with some flour or my favourite is to roll it between 2 sheets of parchment paper (less mess) 

• Roll out until 3-4mm thick and cut out circles with a 6 cm cookie cutter

• Place onto lined baking trays leaving some space between each.

• I like to keep the cut biscuits in the fridge while I work on the rest of the dough - bring together and re-roll the scraps.

• Bake for 14-16 mins turning once halfway through. Let cool for a few mins on the tray until they are firming up then move to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

If stored in an airtight container, these will last about 2 weeks, but they are always better as fresh as possible - you can freeze the biscuit dough and bake off fresh when you need to (add a minute or 2 when backing from frozen).

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Diamond Cacao Sables 

By Abigail of Le Choux

Makes 16 cookies

Ingredients

• 200g cold butter, cubed

• 100g caster sugar

• 70g egg yolks (around 3 egg yolks)

• 250g all-purpose flour, sifted

• 60g cocoa powder, sifted

• 30g dark chocolate, chopped (at least 70% Cocoa)

• Caster sugar

• ½ tsp salt

Method

• The day before: In a mixer bowl, mix together butter, sugar and egg yolks.

• Add the flour, cocoa and chopped chocolate at one time and mix until you get dough crumbs. Knead until a dough forms.

• Roll the dough into a log, around 5-6cm in diameter. Roll the cookies in sugar then wrap in paper and refrigerate overnight or until firm.

• Preheat oven to 160c. Slice biscuits into 1-2cm rounds.

• Bake for 16 - 20 mins until cookies are baked and dry.

• You can store these for up to two weeks in an airtight container

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Toklas Pistachio Biscotti

Yield: 22- 24  biscuits

Ingredients:

• 100g whole eggs

• 20g egg yolk

• 100g caster sugar

• 2g salt

• 40g beurre noisette, room temperature but set or room temperature unsalted butter

• 40g honey

• 115g spelt flour

• 115g Miluka flour or any whole grain flour

• 106g walnut halves

• 106g raw shelled pistachios

• 10g orange zest

• 10g lemon zest

Method:

•  In a stand mixer whisk together the eggs, yolks and salt.  With the mixer running gradually add the caster sugar and whip until you get a sabayon, and the mixture triples in volume.

• Separately cream the butter and honey. Then add it to the egg mixture and mix together with the paddle attachment. Add in half the flours, mix until almost combined, add the remaining flour and mix.  If the mixture appears quite wet leave to rest for 10 minutes so the flours can hydrate.  Add in the zest and nuts and mix well. 

• Using wet hands form the dough onto a lined baking tray.  We took ours to 46cm long.  Brush with egg wash. 

• Bake at 180 degrees for 20 minutes, rotate the trays and bake for a further 10 minutes.  Leave to cool completely.  Slice into 3cm pieces and lay onto a lined tray.  Bake at 160 degrees for 4-5 minutes on each side.