Spiced cookies that are perfect for the holidays

We just had a lovely Thanksgiving, a pie holiday — one of the next holidays, Christmas, is a cookie holiday! I like pie but I love cookies and make them frequently throughout the year, especially at Christmastime. Now with no kids at home, I still make cookies, but I only bake a few at a time. The rest of the batch is rolled into walnut-sized balls and frozen in zip-lock bags. It’s a great way to have some warm homemade cookies in a few minutes; more importantly, though, it keeps me from eating them for breakfast.

I missed out on those sugary, butter-filled treats as a kid, growing up with a health-conscious mother. She only baked two kinds of cookies: date bars that we could have used for doorstops and gingerbread men that she made for tree decorations. One year I “accidently” discovered those tree decorations tasted pretty good. As the holiday wore on, I secretly nibbled away at the gingerbread men until most of them were just heads hanging from a green thread. Did anyone else do that, too? Does anyone still decorate their tree with gingerbread people?

Apparently, William Shakespeare also enjoyed gingerbread because he mentioned it in his play “Love’s Labour’s Lost” in 1597: “An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread.” Gingerbread had already been made widely in Europe for 1,000 years, but it was Queen Elizabeth I who began the trend of gingerbread men. She famously reigned without a husband (and was thought to be willful and headstrong by the powerful men trying to control her). The queen instructed her cook to make gingerbread men to resemble her guests and more importantly, potential suitors who were coming to dinner. Everyone had the honor of “eating themselves” and she enjoyed biting the heads off those men trying to woo her. That’s an interesting twist on the Christmas spirit!

This recipe does not include biting heads off anything, but these cookies are dangerously delicious, and you might find yourself eating them for breakfast. The recipe comes from Yossy Arefi, a contributor to the New York Times’ cooking section. I think they are a great holiday treat — they smell like Christmas when they are baking, and when you bite into them, not only do you get the satisfying crunch from the turbinado sugar but also the double chocolate flavor from the cocoa powder and the chocolate chips. I am a huge fan of the combination of chocolate and tart cherries. I’ve adapted the cookies slightly by using bittersweet chocolate chips and blackstrap molasses, as well as cutting the sugar by ¼ cup.

Claudia Alexander, a resident of Marin County, has been happily cooking for family and friends for more than three decades. She has a weekly food blog, sweetbynurture.com. You can contact her at sweetbynurture@gmail.com.

Recipe

Spiced Chocolate and Cherry Cookies

Makes 25 cookies

Ingredients

½ cup turbinado sugar

1 egg

½ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup blackstrap molasses

6 tablespoons unsalted, melted butter, cooled

2 tablespoons Dutch-processed chocolate cocoa powder

2 tablespoons grapeseed oil

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 ¼ teaspoons ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¾ teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon nutmeg

1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour

1 ¾ teaspoon baking soda

¾ cup bittersweet chocolate chips

½ cup dried tart cherries or dried cranberries, chopped

Directions

In a large bowl, combine granulated sugar, butter, cocoa powder, oil, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt and nutmeg.

Add molasses and egg, whisk until the egg is thoroughly combined. Combine flour and baking soda in a separate bowl.

Using a spatula, turn the flour mixture into the cocoa and molasses until just combined. Add the chocolate chips and the cherries until they are evenly distributed.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the cookie mixture in the fridge to harden a bit while the oven preheats.

Pour the turbinado sugar into a bowl. With slightly damp hands, mold the cookie dough into walnut-sized balls. Roll them in the sugar and place them on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes. They will be a bit soft but cracked on top.

— Adapted from Yossy Arefi for the New York Times