6 Christmas cookie recipes from New Orleans' top chefs (2024)

Top chefs in New Orleans share their favorite cookie recipes. (The NOLA.com | Times-Picayune archive)

Posting chef Tenney Flynn's recipe for his favorite Christmas cookie reminded me of one of my favorite Times-Picayune Christmas stories ever. In December 2000, food editor Dale Curry asked "top toques," as the headline said, for their cookie recipes.

A couple of theseare already in our big database of 4,000 recipes: Susan Spicer's Pumpkin CookiesandGreg and Mary Sonnier's Mexican Wedding Cookies.But the other recipes deserve a second look, too.

The article also included Emeril Lagasse's Big Boy Christmas Cookies. He told Curry that when he came to Louisiana, he began using pecans instead of walnuts, traditional in his Massachusetts hometown.

Peristyle chef-owner Anne Kearney, who has since moved back to her native Ohio, shared a recipe for Linzer Cookies from a German restaurant where she worked in Ohio when she first started cooking. (Sandwich cookies may be the trend of the 2010s, but the peek-a-boo linzer cookie predates them all.)

The generous chef Frank Brigtsen gave Curry the formula for the cookies he made on Christmas Eve for neighbors. Fourteen years later, he shared with us his Thanksgiving recipes.

And John Besh, who was then chef at Artesia in Abita Springs, gave a recipe from his wife Jenifer's side of the family, a Czechoslavakian oatmeal lace cookie.

Happy baking!

Oatmeal Lace Cookies (John Besh)

Makes 2 dozen

2 cups oatmeal

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1/2teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

2 whole eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the oatmeal, flour, sugar and salt until well-incorporated.Place the butter over high heat until quite hot to the touch and then pour over the contents in the mixing bowl. Stir the mixture well, making sure that the sugar has melted. Add the beaten eggs and vanilla.

Cover a sheet pan with aluminum foil and grease the foil. Drop a level one-half teaspoon of batter onto the foil, while spacing each drop at least two inches apart.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, remove from the oven and let the cookies cool before removing from the pan.

If desired,the cookies can be U-shaped by allowing them to cool briefly, removing them from the pan and continuing to cool on a rolling pin, preferably a marble one.

Another option:Once cookies have cooled, they may be partially dipped into melted chocolate and allowed to cool again.

Store cookies in an airtight container.

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"These are very simple cookies, but delicious nonetheless," chef Emeril Lagasse said to the food editor, Dale Curry, in 2000. "I love these butter cookies just as they are, but they can be sprinkled with colored sugar or brushed with melted chocolate after they come out of the oven. You can make them big, like I do, or small as you like."

These are refrigerator cookies. The dough is rolled in a cylinder and refrigerated eight hours before slicing to bake.

Makes about 2-1/2 dozen

3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

6 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 cup ground pecans

3/4 teaspoon salt

Beat the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle on medium speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Cream the mixture until it is smooth and fluffy. Add the egg yolks, one at a time, mixing between each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat for one minute, and add the vanilla.

Combine flour, pecans, and salt in a medium-size mixing bowl and mix well. Add to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until it is fully incorporated. Increase the speed to medium and mix until the batter is thick and creamy, about two minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the paddle.

Generously dust a large sheet of parchment or waxed paper with flour. Spoon the dough down the center of the paper, fold the paper tightly over the dough, and roll into a cylinder about three inches in diameter and 12 to 14 inches long. Refrigerate for eight hours.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and peel away the paper. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough crosswise into one-half-inch-thick slices. Place them on the baking sheet about four inches apart. Bake until lightly golden, about 20 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool completely in the pan. Remove the cookies from the pan using a spatula or thin knife. Repeat the process until all of the dough is used.

Store in an airtight container for up to two weeks.Note: Once the dough is removed from the refrigerator, work quickly so that it doesn't get soft.

Chef Frank Brigtsen said this ishis adaptation of Lori Taylor's recipe in "Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen."

Makes 4 dozen

1/4pound unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup light brown sugar, tightly packed

1 egg

2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup finely chopped dried figs

1/3 cup finely chopped dates

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup grated coconut

1/2 cup granola

3/4 cup coarsely chopped pecans

3/4 cup peanut butter chip

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

In an electric mixer with the wire whisk attached, beat butter and brown sugar on low until creamy and smooth, one to two minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat on medium speed for about two minutes. Add the figs and dates and beat on high speed until light and creamy, two to three minutes.

In a mixing bowl, throughly blend flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder. Add to the butter and sugar mixture and beat on low speed until thoroughly incorporated. Fold in the coconut, granola, pecans, peanut butter chips and chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On buttered cookie sheets, place one tablespoon of cookie batter for each cookie, spacing them about two inches apart. Bake at 350 degrees until lightly browned, 12 to 15 minutes. When done, transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool.

Makes about 3 dozen

5 ounces unsalted butter (10 tablespoons), softened

Grated zest of 1 lemon

2 large egg yolks

1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4teaspoon ground cloves

1/4teaspoon salt

3/4toasted, whole, peeled hazelnuts, ground until fine in a food processor

1 cup seedless raspberry jam

In a mixer with paddle attachment, beatthe butter and lemon zest until smooth and pale in color. Add the egg yolks one at a time and mix until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl.

Sift the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves onto a piece of parchment paper. Turn the mixer on low and gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Mix for 30 seconds, stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the chopped nuts and mix to incorporate. Transfer to plastic wrap, flatten into a one-inch-thick disk and refrigerate for one hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Divide dough into one-third and two-thirds. On a floured surface, roll out the larger portion to one-fourth-inch thickness. Using a two-inch cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies as possible. Transfer them to a parchment-lined one-half sheet tray. Combine the scraps and repeat.

Place one-half teaspoon of raspberry jam onto the center of each cookie.

On a clean floured surface, roll out remaining dough to one-fourth-inch thickness. Using the same cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies as possible. Using a three-fourths inch cookie cutter, cut a hole in the center of each cookie. Place each cut-out cookie on top of the raspberry jam cookie.

Chill for 15 minutes and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden and bubbly. Cool slightly and dust with powdered sugar.

Editor's note: There are two ways to take the skins off hazelnuts. Place them in boiling water with one teaspoon of baking soda for about 10 minutes; the skins will slip off. Or, roast in the oven and then rub nuts with a towel.

Food editor Judy Walker can be reached at jwalker@nola.com.Follow her on Twitter (@JudyWalkerCooks) and Facebook (JudyWalkerCooks).

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