Chocolate Sablés with Juniper Sugar

I was recently gifted a jar of freshly foraged juniper berries and a container of juniper sugar from my friend and collaborator Tama Matsuoka Wong. Tama is a forager and conservationist and every winter she collects the berries of the eastern red cedar trees near her home in New Jersey to sell to restaurants in New York. This year, I was lucky enough to get some too! The berries (technically cones) are slightly sweeter and less harsh than commercially available dried juniper berries and they smell absolutely wonderful. When I tasted the juniper sugar, I knew it's sweet foresty flavor and subtle woodsy notes would be just the thing to add to my holiday treat arsenal so I stirred up a batch of my favorite chocolate sablé dough and coated it with the sugar before slicing. The result is a wonderful holiday flavored cookie, perfect for gifting.

More tasty holiday gifts can be found in this post from last year.

In other news:

If you are still searching for an impressive Christmas dessert, check out the Bûche de Noël I made for Food52 here.

I was recently featured on the wonderful site Pantry Confidential. Click through to peek inside my kitchen and get my recipe for Salty Caramel Apple and Cranberry Pie.

Happy Holidays!

Chocolate Sablés with Juniper Sugar
cookies adapted from Dorie Greenspan

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup confectioners sugar1 large egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
juniper sugar for rolling (recipe below)

To make juniper sugar blend 3 tablespoons dried juniper berries with 1/2 cup raw sugar in a spice grinder or high powered blender. This can also be done with a mortar and pestle (and elbow grease).

Mix the butter in a large bowl with a wooden spoon until soft. Add in the sugar and cocoa powder. Add in the egg and vanilla, then finally add the flour and salt and mix until just combined. Dump the dough onto a sheet of parchment paper and use the paper to form the dough into a log 2-inches by 12-inches. Chill the dough until firm, at least 2 hours. When firm, roll the dough log in the juniper sugar then cut into slices, just shy of 1/4-inch thick. Place the slices 1-inch apart on lined baking sheets, sprinkle with additional juniper sugar if desired, and bake in a 350º oven until they are just beginning to darken around the edges, 8-10 minutes. Let cool completely on the baking sheets and store in an airtight container.

Edible Holiday Gifts

I love my friends and family dearly, but braving crowded shops to hunt for gifts for them is pretty low on my list of desires this time of year. What I love to do instead is hunker down in the kitchen to stir hot, bubbling caramel on the stove, roll out gingerbread guys and gals, mix and bake cookies, and then wrap it all up to give as gifts. There is joy in the making and joy in the giving of homemade holiday treats, which is a lot more than I can say about a trip to the mall.

I send some of my treats across the country to my family and a lot of it goes to work with P, but I love having little bags of treats all packed up and ready to go for when an unexpected visitor pops by or I meet a friend for coffee around the holidays. It's a simple, inexpensive way to show people that I am thinking about them during this season that seems to get more and more hectic every year.



You can see a few of my favorite ways to pack treats for the holidays in these photos. I like to keep it really simple and gravitate towards unbleached parchment paper, Weck jars, glassine bags, natural twine (from the hardware store), little bits of nature, and baker's twine to wrap my treats. I've owned the spool of baker's twine pictured in these for 5 years and it never seems to get any smaller.

Edible Holiday Gift Recipes

You can find my favorite Gingerbread Cookie Recipe (for ornaments and eating) in the new holiday issue of Foodiecrush Magazine, out today!

Apple Cider Caramels, pictured in the top photo are straight from Deb at Smitten Kitchen, but I cooked mine to 250º instead of 252º which the recipe suggests because I wanted them to be a bit soft. Oh, and make a double batch. You won't regret it.

Nibby Brownies (a family favorite)
Squash Harvest Loaf
Spicy Caramel Cashew Corn
Apple Butter

And a few more from the photos

Nibby Buckwheat Butter Cookies
adapted from Alice Medrich
yield 48-55 cookies
These aren't really a classic holiday cookie, but it has become my own tradition to make them every December. The unusual combination of buckwheat and cacao nibs makes them special enough for gift giving.
1 ¼ cups (5.6 ounces) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (3 ounces) buckwheat flour
½ lb unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup cacao nibs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours.
2. In a stand mixer, beat the butter, sugar and salt until smooth and creamy but not fluffy, about 1 minute. Add in the cacao nibs and vanilla, and beat to incorporate. Add the flours and beat on low speed until just incorporated. The mixture will seem very dry, but the dough will eventually come together. The dough is very thick so sometimes I use my hands for the last bit of mixing so my mixer doesn't have to work so hard
3. Form the dough into a long (about 12'')  log about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap well and refrigerate at least two hours, or overnight.
4. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven, and preheat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners.
5. Using a thin, sharp knife, carefully cut the dough into ¼-inch-thick slices. Place slices on the prepared baking sheets, spacing each cookie about 1 ½ inches apart.
6. Bake until cookies just begin to color around the edges, about 12 to 14 minutes, rotating the sheet pans halfway through the cooking time. Transfer to wire racks, and cool the cookies on the baking sheets (or slide the parchment onto the rack to free up the pans). Cool completely before eating or storing. Repeat with remaining dough. Store the cookies in an airtight container for up to 1 month. They also freeze really well.

Candied Citrus Peel
This method works for most citrus fruit and is simple as can be. I used yuzu peels above, but oranges, grapefruit, lemons or meyer lemons would work as well.

Citrus Fruit (4 oranges, 6 lemons, or 3 grapefruit)
4 cups water
4 cups plus 1/2 cup sugar

1. Using a paring knife, make 6 slits along curve from top to bottom of each citrus fruit, cutting through peel but not into fruit. Using your fingers, gently remove peel. Slice each piece of peel lengthwise into 1/4-inch-wide strips. Using a paring knife, remove excess white pith from each strip and discard.
2. Place strips in a large saucepan, and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, then drain
3. Bring 4 cups sugar and 4 cups water to a boil, stirring occasionally until sugar dissolves. Add the boiled of citruspeel to the boiling syrup, then reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer gently until strips are translucent, about 20-40 minutes. Remove from heat, and let strips cool in syrup. Reserve the syrup for another use (cocktails).
4. Using a slotted spoon, transfer strips to a wire rack placed on a rimmed baking sheet. Let the strips dry for a few hours then roll strips remaining sugar. Arrange in a single layer on a wire rack, and let dry for at least 8 hours.