Fixin' Leaks and Leeks

The elf fell off the shelf when it saw me dump a generous splash of cherry liqueur into the batter, but that’s how the crisp cookie crumbles. Yep, for this last batch of countdown-to-Christmas cookies, I dove deep into the pantry to see what other kind of booze I could sneak into cookie batter—and no one would notice because it doesn’t really make a difference.

But: these red velvet cookies are really good. Just a little crispy, which is how my dad likes cookies. They must be crunchy. They must break your teeth. (Pro tip from my father: Eat them straight from the freezer, for an extra-crispy kick.)

No one named Crisp or Chris Kringle has been baked into the cookies, so don’t let the name scare you into thinking the crispness comes from natural ingredients, like human bones, sprinkled with the wonder of Christmas. Nope. You’re barking up the wrong yule log if that’s what you’re after. These are made from 100% corpse-free ingredients, despite what the Ghost of Christmas Past might say.

Anyhoo. I based the recipe on Ree Drummond’s Red Velvet Christmas Thumbprint Cookie recipe that I randomly found online when I realized that I’ve made a lot of Christmas cookies over the years for this blog and have almost repeated one (gasp!). I got slightly different results than hers, but I still like them:

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups of flour

2 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa (I used 100% cacao)

¾ teaspoon of baking powder

½ teaspoon of sea salt

½ cup of softened butter (1 stick)

½ cup of granulated sugar

½ cup of brown sugar (I used dark brown sugar)

1 egg

1 generous splash of cherry liqueur (Ree Drummond uses 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.)

Red food coloring

White chocolate chips (for melting and drizzling over the cookies. Ree Drummond uses cream cheese frosting to place in the perfect thumbprints she makes for her cookies, but I did what I could and called it a day: melted white chocolate sans thumbprint.)

Method:

Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and sea salt together in a bowl. Then, in another bowl, mix the sugars and the butter together really well. Next, add the egg and liqueur—and beat the mixture together on medium speed. Add the food coloring as well. Then, add the flour mixture a little at a time until everything is nicely blended.

Refrigerate the mixture for an hour or so, and then roll it into balls and flatten them onto a greased baking sheet. Bake at 350 (F) for 12-14 minutes.

Melt some white chocolate chips in the microwave, and gently drizzle it over the cookies.

Results: The cookies are sweet with a delightful chocolate kick. Yes, they are crunchy, but sometimes you just want a crunchy cookie. And they look really cool with the white chocolate chip drizzle.

Serve these with:

• Bumble, the Abominable Snow Monster of the North
• Goblets of more melted white chocolate—for dipping—and for soothing Bumble (see bullet point #1)
• Warm, snuggly socks
• Just a shot more of the cherry liqueur
• The elf on the shelf’s hourly rate
• A jolly ride in a one-tail light, open Subaru
• Your dentist
• Mittens filled with warm cocoa
• Polar bears riding trains that chase Christmas ghosts
• My dad

Your Turn: Have you ever tried a famous celebrity chef recipe? How did it turn out?