Yesterday, NPR and food columnist Melissa Clark from the New York Times announced the winners of their annual
You can listen to the whole Leonard Lopate show with Melissa Clark on the link above, as well. These cookies are “designed to last,” meaning for at least two weeks.
The ones I found to be the most fascinating were Kathrin Dellago’s Lebkuchen. Straight from the Dolomite mountains of Northern Italy, Kathrin writes:
“Take away the snow, take away the Christmas tree, but don’t expect to celebrate the holidays without some Lebkuchen. They are one of the classic Austrian/German holiday cookies and a great crowd pleaser. In fact, they are my favorite. My mom’s recipe is short on ginger, but long on other spices such as allspice, cinnamon and ground cloves. And they are made of 100% rye flour.”
She suggests storing them in a tin with an orange- interesting!
Also fun to try tomorrow with the kids may be Joe Lambert’s Grandma’s Refrigerator Cookies.
As the name suggests, these require a couple of hours in the refrigerator. This is a great lesson for children and honing their patience and learning about the process of cooking.
There were also Savita Bhat’s Chocolate Cardamom Button Cookies, which are are the perfect combination of spice cookie and chocolate indulgence, plus they look beautiful for a party. Savita created them for a cookie competition at the International Culinary Center, where they won both first place and fan favorite awards.
All of the winners are incredible, as are Melissa Clark’s posts every Wednesday in the New York Times food section.