Baking two kind of cookies for Christmas

 Christmas cookies in different shapes

Whole wheat cookies and butter cookies

(Photo. Somin Park)

  Long time ago, when sugar and butter were very rare, the day of making sweet food using them would have been a very special day. Making food using expensive and hard-to-find items would have made many people happy as they look forward to Christmas. That is why the tradition of baking cookies while waiting for Christmas continues to this day. And after many spices began to spread in Europe, combining cookie dough and spices also became a tradition. That's why many Christmas desserts contain scents such as cinnamon, vanilla extract, and ginger. Long ago, when people were not wealthy, the desire to give gifts to neighbors and family continues to this day, which is why we can still enjoy cookies on Christmas. For that reason, I also enjoyed the cookie session with excitement and happiness.

 

  The two types of cookies I make are similar in basic ingredients and process, but differ in shaping and flavoring. The difference between the two is that the dough is rolled out thin and chilled before being cut out with a cutter, and the cookie dough is shaped and frozen before being cut to make round cookies. However, the basic process of creaming the butter, mixing, resting the dough, freezing, and shaping is similar for both types of cookies.

* Whole wheat cookies

Ingredients 

-White flour 126g

-Whole wheat 54g

-Baking powder 3g

-Butter 120g
-Unrefined sugar or brown sugar 80g

-1 egg

-Salt 3g

-Chocolate chips 50g

-Cranberries 40g

-Walnut 50g

Ingredients
(Photo. Somin Park)

Approach

-Mixing

Leave the butter at room temperature and cream it until smooth, then mix it with the sugar. Add the eggs and mix quickly to prevent them from separating, then add the sifted flour, whole wheat, salt and baking powder and mix until no lumps remain.

Mixing step
(Photo. Somin Park)

And then add the cranberries, chocolate chips, and chopped walnuts and mix lightly.

Mixing step
(Photo. Somin Park)

- Resting and Freezing

Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for 15 minutes, then roll it out into a long cylinder on a piece of parchment paper, wrap it in cling film, and freeze it in the freezer for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

(This is essential for shaping the dough. If you don't want to shape it, you can just let it rest and then scoop out the dough to bake.)

Resting and freezing step
(Photo. Somin Park)

-Shaping and baking

Whole wheat cookies are baked using a molding method in which the dough is frozen and cut into circles without using a cutter.  Cut them with a knife to a certain thickness and trim the edges by hand before placing them in the molds and bake them at 180°C for 10-11 minutes. (Preheat for 15 minutes at 180°C).

Shaping and baking step
(Photo. Somin Park)

Bake until the shine disappears and it becomes hard. (The color is brown, so be careful not to burn it.)

Baked whole wheat cookies
(Photo. Somin Park)

*Butter cookies

The next cookie I made was a slightly easier and more basic 'butter cookie'. The reason I chose butter cookies is because the molding method is different from whole wheat cookies, and I wanted to show the diversity of cookie molding methods, so I made two types of cookies.

The process of making butter cookies is the same as that of whole wheat cookies, even down to the resting process, so I will explain briefly and explain the differences in forming methods in more detail.

Ingredients

- Butter 100g

- Sugar 65g

- 1 egg

- white flour 180g

- Baking powder 3g

- Vanila extract 2g

- Salt 2g

-Mixing

Mixing step of butter cookies
(Photo. Somin Park)

- Resting and freezing

Unlike whole wheat cookies, they are shaped by cutting them with a cutter, so the dough is rolled out evenly to a thickness of 3-4mm. And harden in the freezer for about 30 minutes.

Resting and freezing step of butter cookies
(Photo. Somin Park)

-Shaping 

Shape with a cutter, roll out the remaining dough, and repeat until almost all the dough is gone, then bake at 170°C for 10 minutes.

Shaping and baking
(Photo. Somin Park)

-Cooling and decorating 

When the color of the surface of the cookie begins to turn slightly brown, take it out and let it cool. Then, decorate using icing or a chocolate pen, and once the decoration hardens, the entire cookie-making process is complete.

Butter cookies
(Photo. Somin Park)

-Preservation

Whole wheat cookies are stored frozen in the freezer with as much air removed as possible, sealed in plastic, and butter cookies are stored in a container in a cool place. Frozen cookies can be stored and consumed in a state most similar to their original state by lightly baking them in the oven, and butter cookies cannot be re-baked in the oven because they have chocolate icing, so I chose to store them at room temperature.

  After completing the jam, pickling, meat, and baking sessions, I was able to clearly feel that I had become much closer to Norway's preservation culture and Christmas culture than before. As I experienced these processes myself, I realized how exciting it is for Norwegians to prepare for Christmas, and it was even more impressive than the feeling I had waiting for Christmas in Korea.

And finally, I'm really looking forward to how meaningful this Christmas will be as we all gather together and eat cookies made with this kind of feeling.

Butter cookies and whole wheat cookies
(Photo. Somin Park)

Sources

-J'adore[J'adore자도르](2021,19th October). The best basic butter cookie l A recipe that is delicious, doesn't spread and is easy to work with l Icing cookie (with Wiswell Enhance Oven). [Video&Recipe].Youtube. https://youtu.be/JI3HlG_r8Ms?si=k4c1JBFHpLrslx9_ 

-Culturallyours.(2019,12th April). History and culture of Christmas Cookies.

https://culturallyours.com/2019/12/04/history-and-culture-of-christmas-cookies/