Very fun and tasty: Psychedelic Christmas cookies

Emilie Richardson-Dupuis is more a seasoned baker than a journalist, I’m new to the newsroom as a student reporter, but worked years as a professional baker.

TODAY'S RECIPE

Psychedelic Christmas Cookies were first published in the Star in 2020.

THE COOKIES 

I know I just said I was a professional baker, but I should specify: I was a bread head. My thing was sourdough; I never got into the fussy, perfectionist world of cookie-making.

On first glance this cookie recipe intimidated me, mostly because I have a bad track record with shortbread (last year’s super spreaders are still fresh in my memory). However, I decided I will not admit defeat. I will conquer the shortbread!

Learning from last year’s disaster, I was overly aware to actually let the butter come to room temperature and not to just use cold butter and assume it’ll be fine. I also was very cautious not to overmix the dough, stopping the mixer every five seconds. Thank goodness the author of this recipe specifically said not to worry if the mixture looks curdled after adding the milk and vanilla. My dough looked curdled beyond repair, but sure enough, once I added half the flour it came together. I should mention, if you hate doing dishes, this recipe is not for you. By the end of the process, every mixing bowl and every utensil I owned was covered in colourful goo.

This recipe also requires a lot of waiting. You have to chill the dough for two hours, then another 30 minutes. It’s all worth it when you see the fruits of your labour reveal themselves in the form of cute, colourful layers of dough, and the more I rolled out the scraps, the more avante-garde the cookies became.

The end result is a very fun and tasty cookie that will surely be a hit at any Christmas party, whether your guests are children or baby boomer hippies who once did too much LSD.

THE SCORE

Making these cookies was time consuming and messy, but once the colourful layers revealed themselves it was worth it. 

Psychedelic Christmas cookies

Ingredients

375 ml unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp kosher salt

160 ml skim milk

1 tbsp vanilla extract

5 cup all-purpose flour

About 1 tsp (5 mL) each red and green food colouring or to taste

Directions

Using an electric mixer on low then medium speed, beat butter and sugar in large bowl until fluffy. Beat in eggs and salt. Beat in milk and vanilla (don’t worry if mixture looks curdled). On low speed, beat in half the flour. Beat in remaining flour with wooden spoon just until moistened.

Divide dough in 3 parts. In medium bowl, blend one piece with red food colouring. In another medium bowl, blend second piece with green food colouring. Gather each piece into ball, press into disc and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.

On lightly floured parchment paper, roll out each disc separately to untidy oval about 3/8-inch (1 cm) thick. Lay plain dough on green dough. Lay red dough on plain dough. Roll three layers into tube. Cut roughly into 4 pieces. Refrigerate half an hour to firm up.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment. Preheat oven to 350F (180C). Place 2 racks above and below centre.

Working with 1 piece of dough at a time on sheet of floured plastic wrap sprinkled with flour, lay dough tube on its side, squash down with palm and roll to 3/8-inch (1 cm) thickness to blend colours randomly. Use 3-inch (7.5-cm) serrated round cutter to punch out rounds from dough. Place rounds on baking sheets 2 inches apart (5 cm).

Bake until bottoms are golden brown, about 15 minutes, switching racks at halftime. Remove from oven. Let sit 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely.

Repeat rolling, cutting and baking with remaining dough and scraps.