I found an other cookie I really like, chocolate orange cookies. They are easy to make and already the dough is delicious ( important to me because I lick to pinch ;-) ).
I'm not to much into all these christmas cookies that smell of cinnamon, cloves and nuts. Don't know why. Ginger is ok though. But if there's  chocolate, I can't resist.

Pastry

150 gr butter
100 gr sugar
1 pinch of salt
2 fresh egg yolks
1 organic orange zested
50 gr dark chocolate cut into small cubes
250 gr flour
dark chocolate glazing

Beat butter till fluffy add sugar, salt, egg yolks and orange zest. Mix till light and fluffy. Add chocolate and flour and knead to bring the dough together .
But into cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Roll out on a lightly floured working surface to a thickness of 7 mm. Cut into shapes with the cookie cutter of your choice.
Bake for 9 minutes in the preheated oven ( 180 °). Let them cool decorate with dark chocolate glazing.

The cookie is pictured on an other page  of one  my favorite art books: Shades of time by the swiss photographer Annelies Strba by Lars Müller Publishing.

Yesterday we started making cookies, rather late I realized, last year we started a whole month earlier. Must be the weather, it was way to warm to get into christmas mood.
As always we started with a kids cookie, hoping that while they are busy decorating we have time to try some new things. It worked, at least for me. My friend was very busy keeping the kid from eating all the dough, liking all the icing and pinching all the sugar decoration.
Our kids cookies are very simple, make a sablé dough and then mix many icing colors which the kid love, we always end up with way to many different color pots. Pink is a must for my boy, my friend needs at least green and yellow, her boy usually wants violet and I make a proper red. But then we still don't have a nice ice blue ....
And then I get out the big red box filled with every possible cake decoration accumulated during the last 5 years and the boys are quiet for a second, the first and last time today. My advise: if you want eat some of these cookies too, set some aside because the rest will be loaded with decoration.

Pastry:

250 g Flour
175 g Butter,
75 g Sugar
1 pinch Salt
a little bit of Vanilla pith

Beat the butter mix in all the other ingredients. Make the dough. Put into cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour. Roll out on a floured work  surface to a thickness of 7mm. Cut out your shapes and bake for approx. 8 minutes.

Icing:

Mix a little bit of fresh lemon juice with icing sugar. Color with food color.

The cookie is pictured lying on one of my favorite art books: Shades of time by the swiss photographer Annelies Strba by Lars Müller Publishing.

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