1 Recipe, 5 Base Ingredients, 7 Different Cookies

For this year's Christmas cookies I didn't have a lot of time, so I choose my most popular recipe and adjusted the flavors so that I would have a variety without having to buy a lot of additional ingredients. Each night I made one batch of cookies and after a week I had a great variety of Christmas cookies. They were such a huge hit that I was recruited to make another collection of them for the ladies tea party in April.  The texture of these cookies - ultra tender, ethereally light, melt-in-your mouth-is unlike anything you can get from a traditional cookie recipe.  The secret is over 200 years old - baker's ammonia. My base recipe is from the 1800's when baker's ammonia was a traditional ingredient in cookies.  

NOTE: Do Not eat the raw dough of these cookies. The ammonia cooks off during the cooking. You may smell a strong ammonia odor while these cookies are baking but never fear - by the time they come out of the oven the odor will be gone. Can they be made without the bakers ammonia? Sure, substitute 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder. Just be aware that the texture will not be nearly as good. Bakers ammonia is available at the local pharmacy or via mail order from King Arthur Flour. It is well worth getting for the texture of these cookies.

Base Ingredients

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baker's ammonia

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 300. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
• In medium bowl beat together sugar, butter, salt, flavoring. Add flour & any dry flavoring and baker's ammonia and beat until the dough almost comes together. The dough will seem quite dry at first, but keep beating, eventually it will clump up and become cohesive. This could take up to five minutes.
• Squeeze the dough together, gather it into a ball, and scoop out pieces the size of a large gumball. Roll the pieces into a ball, then roll them in the coating ingredient.  Place them on the baking sheet and use the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar to flatten the balls to about 1/4 inch thick.
• Bake the cookies for 25 to 30 minutes until they are light golden brown around the edges.

Vanilla Dreams

Add

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons almond extract

Coating:

• Coarse sugar

Almond Dreams

Add:

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons almond extract

Substitute:

• 1/4 cup almond flour for 1/4 of base flour

Coating:

Crushed almonds mixed with course sugar

Lemon Dreams

Add

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons lemon extract

• 2 Tablespoons lemon zest

Coating:

• Coarse sugar

Chocolate Dreams

Add:

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons almond extract

Substitute:

• 1/4 cup cocoa powder  for 1/4 of base flour

Coating:

• Crushed almonds mixed with course sugar

• For Christmas use crushed almonds mixed with Christmas sprinkles for a festive touch

Coconut Dreams

Add:

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 2 teaspoons coconut extract

Substitute:

• 1 cup coconut  for 1/4 of base flour

Coating:

• Coconut  mixed with course sugar

Orange Dreams

Add

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 2 teaspoons orange extract

• 2 Tablespoons orange zest

Coating:

• Coarse sugar

Mint Chocolate Dreams

Add:

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 2 Tablespoons mint extract

Coating:

• Dip half the cookie in high quality melted chocolate and set on cooling rack to harden
• For a festive touch at Christmas - sprinkle Christmas sprinkles over melted chocolate before it cools.