A Miso Cardamom Cheddar Chai Cookie Box

This holiday bonus letter is edible.

Dec 22, 2024

This is not a food blog, but it’s Christmas, and I want to make you a box of cookies. Is that so bad?

A darling Swedish friend recently hosted us for the celebration of Sankta Lucia, the feast of Saint Lucy, a December 13th tradition that is most widely observed in Scandinavia. I believe all winter celebrations call for cookies — so I brought some in pink pastry boxes.

Now I bring them to you, in case you’re like me and want to spend your holidays slathered in butter and sugar.

These treats made the box:

Pine nut cardamom sables
Miso maple toasted pecans
Cheddar rosemary fig jam shortbreads
Brown butter chocolate chocolate chunk cookies
Chai masala snickerdoodle bars
Lolly-filled Australian rocky road

Pine Nut Cardamom Sables

I haven’t been able to get these out of my head since the first time I ate them years ago at an ex’s family home, so I texted his mom for the recipe. Because she’s an angel, she shared it with me. And because I’m an angel, I’m sharing it with you.

She reckons she ripped it out of Gourmet Magazine about 20 years ago but thankfully was able to find a digital copy. All the best recipes were ripped out of magazines decades ago! Per her recommendation, I upped the cardamom and the salt a bit.

I’ve made these once more since but replaced the cardamom with cinnamon and the pine nuts with miso maple pecans — also so good. This recipe is naturally eggless and supremely easy to make vegan.

Miso Maple Toasted Pecans

Speaking of miso maple pecans… I took inspo from this Bon Appetit recipe for Miso-and-Maple-Pecan Butter Mochi Cake and used the first few steps to make a sweet and salty nut to sprinkle in the boxes.

The payoff of how delicious the pecans are far outweighs the amount of work. I’ve made them a couple more times now and find adding a minute or two in the oven resulted in a better snacking texture. A jar of pecans tied up with a ribbon is a sweet hostess gift.

Cheddar Rosemary Fig Jam Shortbreads

These came to me in a vision. I made a simple shortbread sans sugar — ½ cup soft butter + 1 cup of flour — and added 8oz of shredded room-temp white cheddar, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tsp rosemary. It’s really cheddary, so adjust the measurements according to your own cheese prerogative.

Room temp cheddar is nice and soft which allows this mix to turn into a good pressable dough after a couple minutes of beating. I pressed the dough into a loose ball on a sheet of wax paper and formed it into a nice rectangular prism log. After refrigerating overnight, I sliced thinly, spread a bit of fig jam on top, and baked at 350 for 15 min to get golden crisp edges. About half the receivers of the cookie box said this was their favorite (it was mine).

Brown Butter Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I’m not typically a double chocolate gal, but this is one of my favorite cookie recipes of all time. It’s a great cookie to have in your freezer, either in dough balls or in baked cookie form, to be able to bake or heat up in a cookie emergency. The cookie emergency being I’ve just finished dinner and want a cookie.

I used a combo of semi-sweet mini chips and chunks, but I’ve also used milk chocolate before. Some espresso powder in the dough would be so yum.

Chai Masala Snickerdoodle Bars

I used this recipe from Modern Honey and added 1 ½ tbs of chai masala to the dough (and a little bit of extra salt). Up it to 2 or 2 ½ tbs for a spicer dough.

To make it a bar rather than a cookie, I spread it evenly in an 8x13in pan, dusted the top with cinnamon and sugar, and baked at 350 for 26 minutes (or just until the edges start to get golden brown and pull away from the pan a bit). They’re also delicious a tad underbaked. Bonus points if you dunk them in a milky black tea.

Lolly-Filled Australian Rocky Road

If you’ve never had a chocolate-covered gummy bear, trust me that the gummy choco combo works. Actually don’t just trust me — make a rocky road and let me know if I’m to be trusted.

To my melted milk chocolate, I added what my boyfriend claims are classic choices from his Australian childhood: mini marshmallows, pretzels, salty peanuts, and gummy candy.

I used one full pound of milk chocolate plus about a ¼ pound each of my lollies and snacks, totaling a roughly 1:1 ratio of fillings to chocolate. Measure with your heart. NYT Cooking published a rocky road recipe this year by Sohla el-Waylly, in which she mixes cookie butter with the chocolate to give it a fudgier texture, if that’s your thing.

This box is for you to take home :)

The beautiful film photos in this letter are courtesy of my friend Colden, a talented cinematographer and director who took a quick break from much more important jobs to shoot my cookies. Here is a less beautiful shot that I took of him behind the scenes.

I hope you’re staying warm in a nice wool sweater, and I hope you have plenty of cookies wherever you may be. Please tell me what you’ve baked this season! And if you really love me, reply to this email with your family’s secret recipes.