Christmas Cookies

Early in our marriage, Larry told me about Sand Tarts, the thin, pale, dense Christmas cookies he loved as a child. His mother didn't have the recipe, but I found one in my 1975 edition of the Joy of Cooking, and when Larry tasted them, he said they were exactly as he remembered.

So every Christmas since then, I have performed the labor of love that is making these cookies.

The dough is very stiff and has to be rolled to 1/16". Much un-seasonal language echoes from the kitchen as the dough sticks to the table and deformed snowmen have to be patted into shape on the cookie sheet before baking.

A couple of years ago I got smart and bought a roul-pat - a large silicon mat to roll the dough on. No more sticking. Less cussing. In fact I became a little cocky at how well I had mastered these cookies.

Until this year, when I accidentally used whole wheat flour instead of white.

It was not an attempt to add nutrition and fiber to a Christmas treat. I had bought a bag of organic pastry flour, not realizing it was whole wheat. The dough was a little darker than usual, but I thought it was because I used raw sugar instead of the white bleached kind. I put it in the fridge to chill, and then pulled out my flour canister to re-fill it from the new bag. That's when I noticed how white the flour in the bottom of the canister was. Oh no. I had messed with tradition.

And a very serious tradition it is. Larry loves these cookies with his morning coffee during the holiday season. He says that he considered having me sign a pre-nup that I would bake these every year. He doesn't need a Christmas present as long as he has sand tarts. He doesn't need the 12 Days of Christmas, just 12 Days of Sand Tarts.

So I baked only one cookie sheet-ful, and confessed the mistake to him as I put a few in his lunch bag. I told him if the whole wheat flour made them not good for Christmas, I'd freeze the rest of the dough for after the holidays, and make a new batch with white flour.

Larry tasted the cookies, and declared them delicious.

We made the remaining dough into cookies last night. I rolled and cut, Larry sugared and baked.

Maybe we've started a new holiday tradition.

Whole Wheat Sand Tarts
3/4 cup butter
1 1/4 cup raw organic sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp grated lemon rind
3 cups organic whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 tsp salt
colored sugars to decorate (optional)

Beat the butter until soft. Gradually beat in the sugar and keep beating until it's creamy. Beat in the egg, egg yolk, vanilla and lemon rind.

Stir together the flour and salt, and gradually stir them into the butter mixture. You will probably have to knead the last of the flour in by hand. Form the dough into a log, wrap in wax paper and chill several hours. (At this stage you can keep it in the fridge for a couple of weeks, baking a few cookies as needed.)

Take the dough from the fridge and let it get a little soft. If your house is cool, this will a few hours. But you don't want the dough to be too soft or it becomes even harder to roll.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Roll the dough out very thin. Flour the table and rolling pin as needed. A silicon rolling pad really helps.

Cut the dough into shapes. Place on greased cookie sheets or sil-pats (re-usable silicon cookie sheet liners). Sprinkle with colored sugars if desired.

Bake 8 minutes. Halfway through the cooking time, rotate the cookie sheets back to front and switch the top one with the bottom one. This helps all the cookies bake evenly.

Makes about 70 cookies, depending on the size of your cookie cutters.

(Adapted from The Joy of Cooking, 1975)

Gingerbread Cookies

While I was visiting my mother in Montreal, we made Christmas cookies for the neighbor-hood children. She hands them out in little bags with a tube of icing attached. It's a great combination of craft and treat, even if the little boys squirt the icing directly into their mouths instead of on the cookies.

Mum's baking is a little healthier than most because she only uses organic whole wheat flour. This sometimes has interesting results - a recent lemon poppyseed loaf took twice as long to cook as the recipe suggested. But it tasted great - people asked for the recipe.

She buys whole wheat pastry flour, which is ground from soft wheat and has less gluten than hard wheat. If you're making bread, use hard wheat flour. For all other baking, use soft. And store it in the fridge or freezer to keep it fresh.

Mum had two items that make cookie-cutting easier. One is a blue silicon pad to roll the dough out on so it doesn't stick. The other is a set of wooden slats you place beside the dough and run the rolling pin on so you get the cookie dough to a uniform height. She has three sets of these slats, all 14" long by 7/8" wide, and with heights of 1/8", 1/4" and 1/2". I covet them, and have asked Larry to make me a set.

These gingerbread cookies are a lovely dark color, and while they're baking the whole house smells of Christmas.

Mum's Gingerbread Cookies
3 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground allspice (for luck)
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg

Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.

Separately, beat the butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat until fluffy. Beat in spices, then molasses and egg, beating well after each addition. (The more you beat the dough, the fluffier the cookies will be. I like them on the dense side.)

Beat in the flour 1/3 at a time until well blended.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm enough to roll out easily (2 hours or overnight).

Roll the dough out between two pieces of wax paper until 1/4" thick. Cut out shapes. Bake on ungreased cookie sheets at 350°F for 10-12 minutes. Transfer to racks. The cookies will harden as they cool.

Makes about 45 cookies depending on the size of your cookie cutters.

Butter for Health

When I have a few extra hours, I like to churn my own butter.

There's nothing like good butter. It's a natural food made from cream -- no chemicals required, unlike all the margarines on the market. And that butter taste is essential in baked goods and yummy on steamed vegetables.

Making it the old-fashioned way is a good workout for the arms, and relaxing for the mind.

Okay, that's an April Fool's joke. I've never made my own butter, although I understand it's possible to make it in a food processor.

I do appreciate butter, though. I've always been averse to the chemicals they call margarine. And now science has caught up with me, finding that hydrogenated vegetable oils are harmful. Now they're making margarine without trans-fats, but it's still not food.

Butter is food. And it's actually good for you.

Ideally we would eat raw organic butter made from milk from grassfed cows. You'd think it would be hard to find, but Organic Pastures makes it at their dairy farm near Fresno. You can buy their raw dairy products at the Hollywood Farmers Market, and at Granny's Pantry on Arroyo in Pasadena. Also at the Hollywood Farmers Market you can get organic butter from Spring Hill Cheese Co. made from the milk of Jersey cows in Petaluma, CA. I often get regular organic butter at Trader Joe's. Even supermarket butter has health benefits.

Butter is a saturated fat. Twenty years ago this was a no-no, but science has realized that the saturated fats in butter have strong anti-cancer and anti-tumor properties.

It contains conjugated linoleic acid, which is a potent anti-cancer agent, muscle builder, and immunity booster.

The cholesterol found in butterfat is essential to children's brain and nervous system development. It contains arachidonic acid which plays a role in brain function and is a vital component of cell membranes. Butter can protect against gastrointestinal infections in the very young and the very elderly.

Butter is rich in anti-oxidants, selenium, vitamins A, D, E and K. It contains lecithin (essential for cholesterol metabolism) and a highly absorbable form of iodine. It also contains an anti-stiffness factor which protects against calcification of the joints and prevents hardening of the arteries and cataracts.

It helps your body absorb minerals. It's good for your arteries, thyroid and adrenals. It has nutrients that fight candida and fungal infections.

Best of all, butter is not stored in your body's adipose tissues.

So eat some butter. Spread it on your whole wheat toast, toss it with your steamed vegetables. And on special occasions, make butter cookies.

Easy Butter Bar Cookies
1 cup butter
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp almond extract
1 egg, separated
1/2 cup flaked almonds

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Grease 9"x12" baking pan.

Cream sugar and butter. Stir in almond extract. Add flour, stir until well combined, then beat in egg yolk. (This can all be done in the food processor.)

Press into greased pan. Brush the lightly beaten egg white over the top and sprinkle with almonds.

Bake 20 minutes. Let cool in pan, then cut into bars.