I love a good holiday cookie or confection as much as the next person, but to be quite honest there is a limit to the number of snickerdoodles or Christmas tree cookies my body can handle. By the time I’ve hit my fourth holiday party, my bloodstream seems to be 50 percent peppermint extract and liquid chocolate.
As someone who loves to bake for the holidays, I am always looking for new twists on old classics. A cookie that has been elevated with an unexpected ingredient, or a nut mix that veers away from totally sweet into slightly savory.
I also love to give baked goods as holiday gifts. A homemade, edible gift shows the recipient that you have put love, thought and care into what you are giving them. After all, this isn’t just a shiny bauble, this is something that they will consume. There are very few things more intimate than eating what another has prepared for you.
The following recipes have three things in common: they are easy to make, they travel well and therefore make great gifts, and they all are slight twists on familiar holiday treats.
My partner, Harper Hornaday, and I really enjoy cooking with Asian flavors: stir-fries, curries, you name it. My pantry could double as an Asian market. Each of the following recipes has taken a familiar cookie, bar and nut mix on a little Eastern journey. Trust me, the detour is well worth the resulting reactions you’ll get from friends and family when you hand over a tin of homemade goodies with a twist.