This is our third year doing our cookie bakeoff which takes place the day before Christmas Eve. We each pick a recipe to make and then judge each other’s bakes. We rate based on a point system and the person with the most points wins.
SO this year we all decided to make something a little out of our comfort zone. The risk was worth the reward in some cases, but others not so much! I’ll explain more down below.
Britta’s Cookies: White Chocolate Pistachio Pudding Cookies
I went with a festive choice, pistachio cookies (for their green color). I love anything pistachio flavored and I had high hopes for these. However, they ended up being too sweet as there were too many white chocolate chips in my opinion. If I were to make these again I would do 1/2 cup white chocolate and 1/2 cup pistachios so you get both in each bite. I think the pistachios cut through the sweetness! We also used Trader Joe’s brown sugar and the granules are much larger than we’re used to so they didn’t break down in the batter as hoped. The ‘creamed’ butter never really got super smooth.
Aside from those two things I think these were a solid choice but could have been better!
Carli’s Cookies: Coffee Cake Cookies
Carli’s cookies were supposed to be cake-like, specifically coffee cake ESC. We actually all loved the fluffy texture of these! For whatever reason, they just weren’t very sweet and the crumble topping didn’t provide that sugar jolt we all love from a coffee cake topping. However, because we love the cinnamon flavor and denseness of these cookies they still won second place! We were all in agreeance they would be amazing with white chocolate drizzled on top.
Tommy’s Cookies: Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies
Tommy has made a version of chocolate chip for the past two years, but this year he took it up a notch with these copycat Levain cookies. We LOVE Levain Bakery, like most, and never tried to make these at home. This recipe was definitely the most difficult and called for the most ingredients but WAS IT WORTH IT. Tommy won first place with this and initially, our only complaint was that the interior was raw. But he popped them back in the oven for another five minutes and they were perfect. The next day they were perfectly soft and moist and tasted like cookie dough. If you are a chocolate chip lover you have to try these!
James’ Cookies: Pumpkin Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
James works at a restaurant and asked his pastry chef to ‘help’ with his cookies, so we had to disqualify him from the voting. Therefore, I don’t have a recipe for you but these were standard pumpkin, oat, and cranberry cookies. We all agreed these tasted very healthy and lacked any sweetness. They may make a good breakfast cookie but we also couldn’t taste the pumpkin. Overall not a bad cookie, but not a cookie you generally see on Christmas!
This cookie bakeoff has become one of our favorite traditions. It allows us all to channel our inner bakers and then we have cookies to share with everyone else on Christmas!
What is your go-to Christmas cookie?
xx, Britta