Holiday Cookies Redux (2021)
So the project was holiday boxes again, surprise surprise! It wasn’t like I was very subtle about it in the previous post. I just didn’t want to ruin the surprise on the off chance one of the recipients came across the previous post.
It’s been another whole year of not being in the kitchen day in and day out, yet this holiday season still felt empty without the mad dash and long hours and actual physical pain. So I did it again!
Last year’s boxes went over pretty well - people seemed happy to receive gifts and enjoyed the food, but there were some things I wanted to do over this year. Better packaging, overall bigger items, choosing items that made sense logistically. So just like hotel life, I started lazily planning this pretty early, practically in the summer before I even decided to make them… just in case. (But I am completely predictable, so of course I ended up doing this again).
This year’s mouse-drawn card art! I printed these at home on cardstock I bought at CVS and hand wrote messages on the back. Apparently it wasn’t immediately obvious to everyone that there was a message on the back? I even put arrows on some after the first round of local deliveries. Will have to brainstorm more intuitive UX for future.
Holiday “Cookie” Box 2021
Butter spritz cookies with chocolate & sprinkles or jam (without almond)
Ginger(not)snaps - chewy ginger cookies
Brown butter and sage mochi pound cake
Marshmallows (vanilla/peppermint/strawberry)
Toffee with togarashi pepitas and fruit
Chocolate and coffee yule log
Last year my biggest regret was trying to decorate sugar cookies while also making like 6 other cookies, so the first thing I decided was that absolutely no decorating or icing work will take place for this box.
So what did I decide to make instead?
FUCKING MINI YULE LOGS.
I had a pretty distinct vision for what I wanted to make this time around, surprisingly, and I really had my heart set on recreating the logs I made for Christmas buffet two years ago, except a mini version that can serve as the centerpiece for this assorted box.
Except I ended up having 20 boxes on my list? So 20 logs. A project that did not scale easily, required costly ingredients, and needed its own special box of an exact dimension to fit the cake snugly AND fit inside the other box. But technically it was the perfect project and completely embodied the meaning of this whole ordeal, aka self-inflicted pain and suffering in order to feel the “festivity” of the season.
At least the rest of the items I chose very well for both a) logistic purposes and spreading the work around/not using the oven b) shipping friendliness, and I was mentally very prepared for the week of work. Noah helped a lot too. Let the record show that he did a lot of dishes and helped pack everything!
Recipe Breakdown for people interested (I assume mostly me to look back on):
Classic butter spritz cookies were from the Baking Bible - the same as last year, only I omitted almond flour due to two people with allergies. Very similar to last year overall - tempered chocolate with sprinkles or jam.
Gingersnaps were my (pastry) mom’s recipe from back in the day! I remember really loving their chewiness and the perfect balance amount of spice. I rolled these in unrefined cane sugar+cinnamon - sugar in the raw is way too big and the domino’s white was way too fine. Now I own many versions of sugars yet again (but still not as many as my soy sauce collection!)
Brown butter and sage mochi pound cake was from a food blogger named Jenn. I made the 2x, which was perfect for four (ridgeless!!) pie tins. I infused a ton of sage into the butter as it browned (like 3 solid sprigs for 1 lb) and fried more for garnish, and added some extra milk to add back the water lost from the butter.
Marshmallows were from Bravetart. The whole box actually started with a vision of extremely large fluffy marshmallows that people could eat or tear apart for cocoa. I do have a mallow recipe I like from pastry mom, but that one is meringue based and I wanted something eggless because it seemed like it would stay fresh longer? Not sure if that’s true. So I ended up making three batches, each with different flavors: vanilla extra, peppermint extra w/ red food coloring swirled in, and dehydrated powdered strawberry. Everyone got two pieces so every box was a little different! My favorite was the strawberry - the powder made the mallow a little firmer, but it was still bouncy and the flavor was so good.
Togarashi pepita and fruit toffee was based on Bravetart. I used to make butter-based toffee at work but I feel like those have a random chance of breaking once in a while, and I couldn’t afford that. And it didn’t hurt to try something new. So I made her cream-based toffee. It was easy but truly a labor of love, stirring a scalding pot as it thickened. I toasted the pepitas and sprinkled togarashi on a whim, and it ended up giving it a tiny fruity kick that balanced the richness super well. I think the toffee was the surprise hit of the box. I didn’t expect as many people to tell me it was their favorite.
Yule Log was a repeat from hotel christmas two years ago. Chef put “buche de noel” on the menu but with no preference on what kind of yule log to make, so I went with what I wanted to eat lol. I adapted the Bravetart (yes, again) recipes and did again for these boxes. 2x batch divided over 2.5 sheets, and 4 mini cakes per half sheet.
I made French buttercream for the local Philly boxes, but Swiss meringue buttercream as a food safe alternative for mailing. Sure, I could have made all Swiss, but I just love the richness of the French so much that I wanted people to have that if possible.
Due to space restrictions, I had to do the whole assembly part start to finish (make cake sheets, fill&roll, chill, ganache) in two separate batches. The first batch (the local batch) ran into some issues (forgive me I am out of practice) that I was able to correct for the second round, so I feel like I owe the Philly folks a better log at some point. Not to mention Noah gave away two at work without thinking even though they were for people who hadn’t picked theirs up yet! They received a subpar substitute and I am still a little sad.
tl;dr - This year’s holiday gift boxes brought to you by Bravetart basically. The whole thing took a lot of physical effort, and had even more detriment to my mental health. So I guess mission accomplished - another holiday season successfully suffered through, yay! And everyone seemed to really love their gifts so as always I’m glad my misery could bring others some joy. Truly couldn’t have asked for a better round of holiday boxes.