Oh Nuts Blog

The celebration of Hanukkah has many traditions: lighting the menorah, playing dreidel, eating latkes and other foods fried in oil, and giving children gelt, or money. Hanukkah Gelt might come in the form of real coins, or, quite often, chocolate coins covered in shiny gold wrappers. Those are both lovely gifts, but might I suggest giving a third type of gelt this Hanukkah: Hanukkah Coin Cookies.

These sweet and soft Hanukkah coin cookies are a variation on a sugar cookie, with a little extra vanilla and almond flavoring added. I think they're perfect with just a sprinkling of yellow sugar on top, but they can also be decorated with chocolate coins to make them even more seasonally appropriate.

Hanukkah Coin Cookies

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 sticks (8 oz) cold butter
• 1 egg
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 tsp almond extract
• yellow sprinkles
• circular cookie cutter
• Chocolate Hanukkah gelt

Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, the baking powder, and maybe a pinch of salt if you're using unsalted butter.

Place the butter and the sugar in a large bowl. If you've made lots of cookies in the past, you might notice that it's odd that we're using cold butter instead of butter that's been warmed to room temperature. It will be more difficult to mix this butter, especially at first, but cold butter means that we'll be able to roll the dough out right away and not have to wait an hour or two for it to chill. More work now, less work later. I'd say it's a fair trade!

Use a stand mixer or a hand-held mixer to beat the sugar and butter together, until it's creamy. We're not going for a really light and fluffy texture, just so that the butter and sugar are incorporated, and there are no chunks of cold butter remaining. Since it will take a little power to smooth out the cold butter, this is not a recipe that can be done without a mixer. (Sorry to those who like to channel their inner pioneers.)

Once the butter and sugar are mixed, add the egg, the vanilla extract, and the almond extract, and mix until combined. It will look broken at first, since the cold egg won't want to combine with the cold butter. But keep at it and it will eventually come together.

With the mixer running on low, add the dry ingredients in a slow and steady stream. This recipe has quite a lot of flour, so it might take awhile to incorporate. When it seems most of the dries have been worked in, stop the mixer and finish stirring it in by hand, so that the cookies aren't over-mixed and tough. No one likes a tough cookie, even if it's decorated like Hanukkah gelt.

I think it's easiest to work with smaller batches, so divide the dough in half and place half on a sheet of waxed paper or parchment. Cover with another sheet, and roll the dough out between the two sheets until it's about 1/4-inch thick. You could actually go even thicker if you'd like--up to a 1/2 inch if you're a real glutton for sugar cookies.

Once the cookie dough is rolled out, use a circular cutter and cut as many circles as you can from the dough. If you're less of a stickler about uniformity than I am, you could even forgo the rolling and cutting--instead, shape the dough into small balls and press the balls flat on a baking sheet to make rough circle shapes. It's faster but the end result is less precise.

Pour the yellow sprinkles into a small shallow bowl. Pick up one of the circles you just cut out and press the top in the sprinkles so it's entirely covered with yellow. The dough should be pretty easy to handle still, since we started with cold butter, but if you find it's getting very soft, just stick it in the refrigerator or freezer for a few minutes until you can work with it again.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, depending on how thick they were rolled out. They're done when they're just starting to color around the edges and have lost their raw shine.

You have a few decorating options with these Hanukkah Coin Cookies. Of course, they're nice the way they are--simple, pretty, reminiscent of the shiny gold coins that are so familiar. There's nothing wrong with leaving them plain!

But if you do want to get a little fancier, you can unwrap some Hanukkah gelt and use a little melted chocolate to stick a chocolate coin in the center of each cookie. Chocolate and vanilla-almond sugar cookies: how delicious is that?

Even more ambitious? Consider piping on some Hanukkah designs, like a menorah. All you need is some melted chocolate--chocolate chips work great. Put it into a plastic bag and snip off a tiny corner, so that the chocolate comes out in a thin stream. You can personalize your gelt cookies and write the names of family members or friends you're giving them to.

These Hanukkah coin cookies are one more way to spread joy and happiness during the season. Happy Hanukkah!

All text and images (c) Elizabeth LaBau

It doesn't matter whether your December holiday of choice is Hannukah, Christmas, or Kwanzaa, one thing unites us all: 'tis the season for cookies! Last week it was Hanukkah Gelt Coin Cookies, and this week we're celebrating the upcoming Christmas holiday with two Christmas candy recipes: Chocolate-Mint Christmas Cookies and Christmas Biscotti.

These treats are perfect for munching while decorating the tree, leaving out for Santa Claus, or packaging and giving as gifts. The recipes themselves aren't magically Christmassy, it's the colors and flavors of the add-ins that give them their holiday sparkle. Here are my secret ingredients: Chocolate-Mint Christmas Cookies get a big hit of mint flavor and some bold red and white color from these Christmas Mint Lentils.

While the Christmas Biscotti uses both red pistachios and green pistachios. Although they may not taste too different, I'm convinced that both colors are necessary to make a true Christmas biscotti.

Ready to stop talkin' and start bakin'? Let's go! First we'll tackle the Chocolate-Mint Christmas Cookies.

Chocolate-Mint Christmas Cookies
yield: about 30 cookies

• 1 cup all-purpose flour


• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder


• 1/2 tsp baking soda


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 4 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped


• 1/2 cup (4 oz) butter, cut into pieces


• 1.5 cups sugar


• 2 large eggs, room temperature


• 1 tsp vanilla extract


• 1 cup Christmas Mint Lentils

This recipe is so quick and easy, you don't even need a mixer to make it. Start by preheating the oven to 325. Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl, and whisk or sift until they're combined and your cocoa powder doesn't have any lumps.

Place the chopped chocolate and the butter in a large heat-safe bowl, and microwave until they're melted. Be sure to stir after every 30-45 seconds so the chocolate doesn't overheat or burn. Once it's melted, let it cool for about 5 minutes so it's no longer hot.

Add the sugar, the eggs, and the vanilla to the melted chocolate mixture, and whisk until it's totally combined and shiny and smooth.

Now add your dries, mixing them in with a spatula until they're totally incorporated and you don't have any clumps of flour or cocoa. Stop mixing once everything comes together so the cookies don't get over-mixed and tough.

Now for the fun part: add the Christmas Mint Lentils! Add about 3/4 cup of the lentils, set the rest aside for now, and stir until they're mixed in. The great thing about the mint lentils is that they're not a chocolate candy with a little hint of mint as an afterthought, they're pure mint through and through. So when you add them to baked goods, like these Chocolate-Mint Christmas Cookies, they bring a strong mint punch that mixes nicely with the dark chocolate cookie.

Scoop the cookies into small balls on parchment-covered baking sheets. Since we want these cookies to really pop with Christmas colors, take the lentils you set aside, and press 2-3 of them directly on top of each cookie ball. This way, when they spread during baking, they'll still have red and green candies right on top.

Bake Chocolate-Mint Christmas Cookies for about 12-14 minutes, until they've spread and have a few cracks on the surface. Let them cool for a few minutes on the tray, and then move them to a wire rack to cool completely. These rich chocolate cookies are soft and chewy, with just the right amount of crunch from the mint lentils.

It wouldn't be the holidays without a marathon baking session, so we're not stopping at just one cookie. I think all cookie gift plates need some serious variety, so we're going to make Christmas Biscotti, which are the exact opposite of the Chocolate-Mint Cookies: crunchy, not chewy, tall and thin, not fat and round, made with fruit and nuts instead of chocolate and mint, and more suited to adults than kids.

Christmas Biscotti
yield: about 3 dozen

• 3-1/4 cups flour


• 1 tbsp baking powder


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 1-1/2 cups sugar


• 5 oz (10 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted


• 3 large eggs


• 1 tbsp vanilla extract


• zest of one orange or two tangerines


• 3/4 cup white chocolate chips


• 1/2 cup dried cranberries or orange-flavored dried cranberries


• 1/2 cup red pistachios


• 3/4 cup green pistachios



Again--no surprises here--we're going to start by whisking together the flour, baking powder, and salt. You should be an expert flour-whisker by this point.



A change! We'll be using the mixer for this one. If you have a stand mixer, great, otherwise a hand mixer will get the job done nicely. Combine the sugar and melted butter and beat them together, then add the eggs, vanilla extract, and orange zest. Beat on medium-high until combined.



Now add all the dry ingredients, and mix on low speed just until it's combined. If you over-mix the biscotti will start to get tough. By the end of the mixing you should have a stiff, but slightly sticky dough.



Time for mix-ins! Add the dried cranberries, the red pistachios, and 1/2 cup each of the white chocolate chips and the green pistachios. Doesn't the look of this bowl just scream Christmas? Stir until everything is mixed together.



Preheat the oven to 350, and cover a baking sheet with parchment. Divide the dough in half and form it into two rough logs on the parchment, then use your hands or a bench scraper to press each into a bar roughly 12 inches by 3 inches. If it helps, you can spray your hands with nonstick cooking spray to make it easier to shape the dough. Although I always try to get my biscotti logs really neat and tidy, the truth is they spread while they bake, so it's doesn't really matter how perfect they are when they go into the oven. Bake the Christmas biscotti logs for 30 minutes, until they're golden brown.



After they come out of the oven, let them cool for at least a half-hour before slicing them. Use a very sharp serrated knife to cut the biscotti into 3/4-inch slices on the diagonal. If you use a lot of downward pressure the logs have a tendency to crack, so try not to press down and instead to just gently saw back and forth. Place the sliced Christmas biscotti back on the baking sheet and return it to the oven for 15 minutes to crisp up.



After they're baked, the Christmas biscotti is technically done, but I like to add just a little decoration. Finely chop the remaining 1/4 cup of green pistachios, and melt the remaining 1/4 cup of white chocolate chips. Drizzle the cooled biscotti with white chocolate, and sprinkle the chopped pistachios on top.



Now the Christmas biscotti is finished! This Christmas cookie has a little bit of everything: crunchy nuts, chewy cranberries, rich white chocolate, and fragrant orange zest, all together in a sweet, crunchy cookie. Try it dipped in coffee or hot chocolate, or give them away with a batch of Chocolate-Mint Christmas Cookies. Merry Christmas!

Looking for inspiration in decorating your holiday table? When the Today Show and InStyle wanted to dazzle their guests, they turned to Oh! Nuts. Sparkly silver jordan almonds, blue and white ribbon candy, coconut jelly beans and blue raspberry rock candy looks (and tastes) great as a mini holiday-themed candy buffet. Provide small bags for your guests to take some on their way out. What a sweet way to end the holidays!

Watch the video as Sheryl Crow and Lisa Arbetter from InStyle join the Today Show to show lots of great ideas for making your holiday table fabulous.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy