Celebrating Holiday Cookies with Dan Pelosi

Season is brought to you by Plugra Premium European Style Butter, made using a slow-churn process. Look for Plugra wherever fine butters are sold. Like a sau plait. Exactly. I just wanted to see if I could pronounce that word right. From King Arthur Baking Company, this is Things Bakers. No, I'm Jessica Badalana, King Arthur's staff editor. And I'm David Tamarkin, editor-director at King Arthur Baking. And today, we're talking all about holiday cookies. Oh, finally, I've been waiting for this episode. I think since we started doing this podcast, it wasn't timing-wise appropriate to do it in our first season, although, sure, you could talk about holiday cookies in April. In fact, we have basically been talking about holiday cookies since April. Perks of working in food media is that you get to talk about the holidays almost all year long. We start planning holiday cookies and holiday coverage well before the holidays actually come. And in the case of holiday cookies, I don't mind. We'll get into what is a holiday cookie in this episode, but I never mind eating a cookie. Our test kitchen is always thinking about new things for the holiday season ahead. That probably started in June, which is great for me because I, as you know, David, host a holiday cookie party at my house every year. This is a tradition that I came about because I love eating a wide variety of holiday cookies and I always have new recipes I want to try. And so I was like, I need more people to eat all the cookies I want to make. And it has become a really beloved tradition in our household. Our kids really love it. They invite their friends now. I still make all the cookies because... Which I can't believe you do that. I'm impressed and it's very in keeping with who you are. And I love you, so that's I love who you are and I love that you do this. But I do think it's just wild. How many cookies do you make every year? Well, usually I make 10 to 12 different varieties of cookies. And it's a lot because they need to all be ready on the same day. So making 10 to 12 batches of cookies over the course of the holidays, that's still extreme, but not as extreme as needing to have them already on the same day. So it becomes like, you know, an exercise in timing and freezing and spreadsheets. Doesn't that sound like good holiday fun? Spreadsheets, wow. But I think the point here for me at least, and part of the reason I don't know, I mean, why am I so controlling about the party? Well, there's a number of factors at play and, you know, let me lay down on your therapist's couch. One of them is that I have a very high bar for holiday cookies. I mean, it sounds like a total jerk saying this, but I don't want random cookies in the mix. I think really hard about what cookies should be there and the textures and the flavors and having this sort of variety. Variety is critical. That is something that I want to talk about. And I think the world needs to know and think a little bit more about. I would go as far to say that it's not the number of cookies on your cookie plate or in your cookie box. It could be just two cookies, but those cookies have to speak to each other. They have to play off each other. You have to have variety. Otherwise you're failing at holiday cookies. You failed. You and I were just talking about how early in the year we start thinking about holiday cookies. And for me, it starts January 1st. I collect and hoard cardboard boxes throughout the year to pack with cookies and send out at the end of the year as my gifts to people. I don't really buy gifts for people. I make cookies. Those are my gifts. And you mail them. I mail them. However many boxes I've collected by the time December 1st rolls around dictates how many people in my life get cookies. So I like to make some of the same recipes every year and then I bring in a new one. Often the new ones I bring in are new King Arthur recipes, ones that I've either tried in the test kitchen or seen them make and haven't gotten a chance to try yet. That is going to be true again this year. We have a zillion holiday cookie recipes, which we have collected in a fantastic list on the site. But we have some new ones that I want people to know about because I'm excited to make them. King Arthur holiday cookies 2025, right? Every year we come out with new holiday cookies. There's always a lot of discussion about what is the theme going to be? What does the world need this year in holiday cookies? What service can we provide? And this year we really thought about exactly what you do every year, making a cookie platter, putting out a selection of cookies and making sure that they all work together from a variety of textures and flavors. So here's the lineup. Okay, I've got a role. Sparkling pistachio cookies, which are like a crumbly sort of like a Mexican wedding cookie texture. So you have that tenderness in a crumbly cookie. It's also really beautiful because it's rolled in sparkling sugar and it's green from this pistachio. Gingerbread biscotti, which this is a delicious biscotti. This will be the cookie I send in the middle of the year. I feel like we're ruining it for all your friends. I know. Well, they don't listen to this anyway. Striped peppermint shortbread cookies. This is another contender. I think could be okay in the mail, maybe not as good as biscotti because they will stale, but shortbread has a longer shelf life among cookies. And this has a beautiful red stripe through it. So it's festive. It's got a little peppermint extract in it to give you that holiday vibe. But those for sure you should not, if you decide to ship those, like do not put anything else in the box unless you wanted to taste like those peppermint cookies. You're right. You got to be careful. Otherwise, your gingerbread biscotti is going to taste like toothpaste and that's going to be not good. Not good. We have a cannoli cookie, which is the sandwich cookie option. So it's a cookie with a kind of ricotta filling in it. Yeah. And then we have soft chocolate sugar cookies. Jessica, what do you think about sugar cookies in general? I love them. Yeah. We had a real debate about these because are they a holiday cookie? I forget where you landed on this, but I went back and forth with our test kitchen director, Sarah Jean-Pel. Like, is this holiday? Is this not? I tasted them. They're so delicious. I think there would be more holiday if we put a little frosting on them. Then you could put sprinkles on the frosting. There's something about frosting that felt a little bit more holiday-ish. That was divisive though. We took it to the hive. It was. And I forget where you landed. Were you pro or anti-frosting? You know, I forget where I landed too because they're both really delicious. The cookie on its own, just with sugar on the outside, is very good. Doesn't look spectacular, but it tastes so good. It's got such a rich cocoa flavor. I feel I've mixed feelings about an iced cookie. Like it feels a little extra in a way that I don't like, but I tried those with the icing on it and I loved them that way too. So I think you can go either way. If you were like going to transport them somewhere or give them to a teacher or something like that, you know, like maybe you wouldn't frost them because then you can't stack. It makes it a little harder. But if you're having them at your cookie party, throw some frosting on there. Stick on some sprinkles. I think the reason why the frosting works on this cookie is because it does have that bitter cocoa note in it and it's got a good amount of salt in it. So it really balances the frosting. And I'm with you on a lot of frosted cookies where it just feels like gilding the lily and makes things extra sweet. This is not the case here. So if you're going to frost your cookies, make sure you have balance in the cookie itself. Yeah. And then the last cookie they developed in the Test Kitchen is a matcha Christmas tree. It's a stamped cookie cut with a Christmas tree shaped cutter. Of course you could use any cutter you wanted. It has matcha green tea powder in the dough. I think it's one that a lot of people love and a delicious and fun way to get a green cookie without using food coloring too. Right. Which we don't use a lot of food coloring in our bakes because we prefer natural food coloring and so we try to avoid it. So yeah, matcha is a good way to color it. I feel like there's something for everyone here. If you want a cakey sandwich cookie, if you want like a, you know, a snappier shortbread, if you want a biscotti to ship, like, and together they make a beautiful plate. If you made these six cookies and only these six cookies, you'd have a lovely assortment. You'd have your crisp cookie, your shortbread, your iced cookie, your sweeter cookie, not so sweet cookie. You'd have your biscotti. This is the point. When you're making a cookie platter or a cookie box to send to people, be mindful. Take some care. Take some care. Think about it. Make a spreadsheet. Yeah, exactly. We'll put all the recipes to the six new cookies in the show notes, but we'll also put the recipe to the zillions of other holiday cookies that have been developed over the years. If these six cookies aren't, you know, your dream lineup, you will find your dream lineup in there. If you only want to make one showstopping cookie, it's on that list. If you just want to ship your biscotti, you'll find those in the list too. You and I are not the only people who are really into holiday cookies. When we started thinking about wanting to do this holiday cookie episode, I knew exactly who I wanted to talk to you for this episode. And it is Dan Pelosi, who is the creator behind the incredibly popular Instagram account and website, GroCiPolosi. He's also a New York Times bestselling cookbook author. He has a brand new book, Let's Party, that came out in September. And it features a whole spread on his annual holiday cookie party in the spirit of joy and competition. I wanted to talk to him about his holiday cookie party, his sort of philosophy about hosting parties in general. And so we asked him to come on the show. After talking to him, I was like, were we separated at birth? Are you actually like my long lost Italian twin? Because we see eye to eye on a lot of things. I cannot wait to hear this. Dan Pelosi brings so much joy to his cooking. He's just so joyful and seems like a really sweet guy. And that cookie party is legendary. My hope is that, even though I didn't talk to him for this episode, somehow I get an invitation to that cookie party through you. I know. You're now my in. You can be my plus one if I get invited. All right. So early on in the planning of this episode, we knew we wanted to focus the full episode on holiday cookies. One episode is honestly not really enough. And then when we were talking about who to have as our special guest, David and I were like, the obvious choice is Dan Pelosi. Because for those of our listeners who don't already know you, I think one of your calling cards is this holiday cookie party that you throw out of here. I mean, thank you. I'm honored, first of all, that you thought of me and I do sort of peak around the holidays with you. I sort of feel like maybe the invitation to this party, it's like the, you know, it's the met gala of the holiday season, you know, like coveted invitation. It's pretty wild every year. I'm like, where's my list from last year? Who am I? I need it to be like the Devil Wears Prada. I need someone to wear people's names in my ears. So let's talk about you have done this holiday cookie swap for how many years now? It's like over 10 now. It started when I moved to New York City. I lived in an extremely small apartment in the West Village and I just threw, you know, I grew up eating holiday cookies out of tins and trays. Yeah. All my Italian Americans will know in other cultures as well. My tradition has evolved because I found myself the entire first cookie party as one does talk about the cookies, tell the stories. People wanted recipes. They just want to know everything. You know, I'm really big on when you're hosting and entertaining, like planting some really great conversation pieces, right? And so this just became the ultimate conversation piece. And so the next year when I had this much bigger space, I had moved to Brooklyn. I was like, the beauty of that day was being able to talk about these recipes and how much they mean to me. And so I invited folks to bring however many cookies they wanted to bake of a recipe that had really big meaning to them. And then invited them to put them on the table next to mine. The whole day just became about sharing this tradition and sharing the stories and sharing the cookies and people being like, who made this coconut chocolate? And then you met people that way. Yeah. I like that. I think there's something so big-hearted and lovely about that idea. And I mean, I'm going to admit that the reason that I don't have people bring cookies is because I think to myself, those cookies are not going to be good. Well, you know, the table doesn't lie. The cookies that I left on the table. I mean, it's not a competition. I do not claim a winner. I think that's insane. I just am like, everything's fine. But yes, I do have a rule that's like, if you're not going to bake them yourselves, don't bring cookies. They won't go on the table. I think the homemade is really the tie. If you don't want to bake, please come, but bring a drink or bring yourself or bring whatever. So that's the one real rule that you have is no store-bought cookies. No store-bought cookies is just not like, love store-bought cookies. I love a bakery by all means. It's just not what the grossie holiday cookie party is about. It's a celebration of recipes and making and the act of making and the act of cooking for others and sharing and storytelling. I mean, this is very King Arthur of you. I love that because I think it is about the joy. The point is not to make a bakery quality cookie because if that's what you wanted, people can go to bakeries and busts. Yeah, go to the bakery. Support bakeries. Absolutely. It's just this one specific day that ask is, come, write your name on the table, tell people what you made, and then people are going to hunt you down and talk to you and it's just so fun. And then everyone takes, you know, there's little doggie bags on the table. You can take some cookies home. It's perfect. Something I write about in my new book, Let's Party, which is all about parties and menus and dinner parties. Yeah. It's about inviting people with the menu, giving people the knowledge of what they're getting into. That's what sues me as a guest, but also that's me up for a success as a host. My sister and I joke if we don't know what we're eating at your house, we're eating before we come over. Yeah. Do you always now make the same cookies for your cookie party every year or do you mix it up each year? I like to mix it up. I have new cookies every year that I present. This book has six brand new holiday cookie recipes and I'm sure I'll bring some of those to the table this year. Last year I snuck a few on the table because I was developing the book, but no, I always love to bring some of the classics, the ones that people always take, and then I like to bring some new ones. And like, you know, you'll probably understand this, but like one of the best things that people in the food space who work on recipes or I recipes, my favorite thing in the whole world and the way that I relax is like, I just want to make someone else's recipe. Yeah. Hopefully it's been tested and I could just like, Oh my God, that recipe that just came out in the times or I've been looking at this Smitten Kitchen recipe for forever and I'll just make it because we should be in celebration of each other as well as ourselves. I think that's true. I also have a codified assortment of cookies that I make every year for this cookie party and I think people look forward to them because it's the only time of the year that I make them. But I do try and always introduce a wild card. I like making the same cookies, but there's so many and I feel like what if there's the undiscovered gem that I haven't made yet. So, Well, yeah, and I think that's the spirit of all of my entertaining parties and I think most of them are like a eight person affair. But when it's a cookie party, inviting other folks to the table with their food is really lovely and really in support of just kind of like the holiday spirit of sharing and, you know, I've had people leave my party with a couple bags full of cookies and then they like turn them into gifts or like they're wrong. This is from Grossi's Holiday Cookie Party and I'm awesome. Well, I can't wait for my invitation to come to your party. I promise I'll bring my best selection. And if you need some hand holding beyond what you've offered here, there is this fabulous section in your new book, Let's Party that tells people how and what to do to throw the Grossi Pelosi Holiday Cookie Party of their dreams. So I expect to see nationwide, you know, nationwide Grossi Pelosi Holiday Parties. It's such a treat to talk to you and I love talking about holiday cookies. I especially love talking about holiday cookies with you. Thank you for being so generous with your time, your knowledge and your good vibes. Happy holidays to you and I hope we talk again real soon. Happy holidays. Thank you. Happy holidays. I'm going to be talking about the next one. I'm going to be talking about the next one. I'm going to be talking about the next one. I'm going to be talking about the next one. I'm going to be talking about the next one. I'm going to be talking about the next one. I'm going to be talking about the next one. I'm going to be talking about the next one. I'm going to be talking about the next one. I'm going to be talking about the next cookie dough with my bare hands. I like the small ones. I like the big ones. I really have them all because then I'm ready to tackle cookies and baked goods of any size. If you can find our new line of baking scoops in our online shop at KingArthurBaking.com. It's time for our next segment, Ask the Bakers. For Ask the Bakers, we want to hear from you. a baking question for us, head to KingArthurBaking.com slash podcast to record a voice message, and we may end up using it on the show. That's KingArthurBaking.com slash podcast. And don't forget, if you are in the middle of a batch of cookie dough and you have a baking question that simply cannot wait, you can always reach out to our bakers hotline via phone, email, or online chat. Just go to KingArthurBaking.com forward slash bakers dash hotline. That's KingArthurBaking.com slash bakers dash hotline, or call us 855-371-2253. That's 2253 as in bake. That really is why AI was invented, like why Siri exists, because if you have your hands full of dough, you can just say, hey Siri, call the King Arthur hotline, and you don't have to touch your phone. It's true, people should just program that into their phones. Let's hear our questions. I have a question. Cookies are my all-time favorite food, and I have a really great recipe, but I feel like they're a tiny bit too cakey for me, and I'm wondering what I can do to make them a little bit less cakey and a little more cookie. Cookies are also my all-time favorite food. I recently was asked to rank categories of things, like with cakes over cookies, doughnuts over bobo, and I was like cookies, cookies, cookies, cookies. Were you like at a speed dating event? I was doing some promotional stuff for sweet and salty, the kids book, and they... The holiday present of the season. True, if you've got small people, it's the book. Anyway, they asked me to rank these things, which I felt like was unfair. They were like pastries, cookies, cakes, cookies, you know, and I just, cookies came out on top every time, and I stand by it. So this caller and I have a lot in common already. We do have some advice for this caller. Do you want me to start, Jessica? Would you want to start? Well, I think we're going to be a little bit like broken records about this, but we don't know if this caller is using a scale. One of the main contributing factors to a cookie being cakey, I mean, obviously there are some cookie formulations that are intended to be one texture or the other, like a crispy cookie, a cakey cookie, you know, and you'll have some indication of that in the headnote of the recipe or the title of the recipe. But suppose you don't, and you know, you're making these cookies and you're not using a scale, it's very possible you could be adding, you know, just a small amount of additional flour, a tablespoon or two, could make a dramatic difference in the texture of your cookie. If you're using an older cookie recipe that doesn't have weights in it, then I think we go back to the old King Arthur fluff sprinkle sweep. So you fluff up your flour in the bag, sprinkle it into your measuring cup, and then use a bench scraper or a butter knife to scrape it level. And then you'll be ensuring that you have a consistent cup of flour every time. If the recipe has metric conversions and you're not using them, I would say get a scale and start using them. If you don't have a scale, you could try just like backing off on the flour a little bit, like taking out, you know, I'd start with just a little bit like a tablespoon of flour. We have a blog about this where we talk about the benefit of making a test cookie. And I think there's something to that. So you could take like a tablespoon of flour to the recipe, bake one, see if you like the texture, and then if you needed to add more, you could, right? Before you made the whole batch. Right. So I think that's a great piece of advice. Just pull back on the flour a little bit, see if that makes a difference. If that doesn't work or you want to try a different way, you could also back off of the leavening just a little bit. Sometimes if you have too much leavening, it's going to cause your big good to rise and then fall flat. So you could try backing off a little bit on the leavening and see if that makes a difference to see if it gives it less rise and then it's less cakey. And then also this is going to be an irritating piece of advice to hear. It's very parental advice, but just find a recipe that's not cakey. Yeah. Like a shortbread or something like that. Some cookies are just never going to be cakey, especially cookies that don't have eggs in them and that have a short texture. Find a cookie that's just butter, flour, sugar, salt, and you'll definitely won't get something cakey unless you put too much flour in. Yeah. And even then, like the world peace cookies, no matter what you do, they're not going to be a cakey cookie. And that's just not the way that they're formulated. So you would be looking for one that has a higher ratio of butter, probably no eggs or maybe one egg. And it's hard to know because this caller said that they have a recipe that they like, but we don't know what it was. If she was saying I'm making a ricotta cookie and it's too cakey, I would say you're out of luck because that by its very design is meant to be cakey. But things like chocolate chip cookie, an oatmeal cookie, a peanut butter cookie, like there are so many formulations out there. So you could experiment and try and find one that's just a little bit more texturally pleasing to you. Like a sablé. Exactly. I just wanted to see if I could pronounce that word right. I'm terrified of pronunciations on this podcast. I'm terrified of pronouncing things wrong. Well, to air as human. Thank you. Should we listen to another baking question? Yeah, let's do it. I love making cutout cookies for the holidays, but mine always spread out on the pan so much while I'm baking. How can I make sure my cutout cookies keep their shape? Good question. I cut out a lot of cookies. My kids love to cut them out and decorate them. You want them to come out of the oven as crisp and well-defined as they go in the oven, you know, like you don't want them to spread and lose their nice shape. Some of that I think is rolling the dough to the proper thickness. The recipe dictates. If you roll it too thin, then your cookies are going to frizzle on the edges and melt out a little bit and you'll lose that nice definition. I typically, this is also like a getting ahead trick. I will make my sugar cookie dough or my gingerbread cookie dough. And a lot of recipes tell you to make your dough, wrap it into a disc and refrigerate it. Then when you're ready to, you know, bake them to take it out of the refrigerator, let it come up to temperature and roll it out. I find this very annoying because it actually takes a decent amount of time for a butter cookie dough to come up to a rollable temperature. I'm a very impatient. So you're waiting, you're whacking it with a rolling pin, trying to get it soft enough and then roll it. And so what I do now is I will make my dough and I'll give it just a brief chill, like maybe just in the mixing bowl for 20 minutes. And then I take the dough out and I roll it between sheets of parchment. So like without chilling it for a long time. And then it's very easy to roll. And then I stack those sheets of rolled out dough on a cookie sheet, wrap it in plastic wrap, store in my freezer. So then if my kids want to make a few sugar cookies, I can just pull out one sheet of dough. I know it's rolled to the right thickness. It's deeply chilled because I think that's key to maintaining its shape. And you know, I think one of the challenges, and I can say this is somebody that wrote, our kids cookbook is that kids are a lot of things, but patient is not chief among them. These cookies benefit not only from being chilled at the dough stage, but also once you have cut out your shapes, I like to chill them again before they go into the oven. And my kids get their hot hands all over them. That dough is already warmed up. That can also cause them to lose that sort of definition. Chilling them for 15 or 20 or 30 minutes before you put them in the oven will help them retain their shape. Lastly, some of it is the recipe. And the formulation, we have a great recipe for soft frosted sugar cookies on our site. We'll put it in the show notes and that uses the reverse creaming method, which we have talked about in this podcast before, where you mix together the flour and the butter, and then you add your wet ingredients, your eggs. And that's a great recipe. You get a nice texture to those and they hold their shape really well. Those are some great tips. And if I can add just one more thing, it's also about temperature. You really need to dial in your oven temperature. You really need to understand if your oven's running hot or low. And as we've talked about before, people often think that when their cookies are spreading, it's because their oven is too hot. It may be because the oven's too cold. If your oven is not hot enough, it will not set the cookie in time. The cookie will lose its shape because you really need to hit that sweet spot of hot enough to set the edges but not too hot. Calibrate your oven, get an oven thermometer, and make sure that your oven is the temperature that you think it is. Yeah. And that's a good tip for any holiday cookie, especially these cookie cutouts. Let's take our last question. Hey, King Arthur, royal icing is so annoying and it doesn't even taste good. So do you have a suggestion for something I could use to decorate cookies that would be a better option? Thanks. I do not mess with royal icing. I think that if you are not skilled at decorating, royal icing is probably going to be more frustrating. Like our colleague, Mel Wanderz, who did our great on-demand class for cookie decorating, to see her work with royal icing and the things she can do with it, it's amazing. So if you want to get better, you got to get down with royal icing. But for the rest of us, that's not our passion. I think there are lots of other options. One thing I love is a cookie that's half dipped in chocolate. Oh, me too. I love a shortbread cookie that's half dipped in chocolate. I like the gingerbread flavors and the default spice, the warm spice flavors with chocolate too. So I would even dip a Sturdy or Molasses cookie or ginger cookie in chocolate or maybe white chocolate. It's very easy to get a clean line and it's pretty and it tastes good. So that's one thing. And then the other thing, the other very simple decorating move that I love that you can apply to a lot of cookies, if they're slice and bake, you can roll any slice and bake cookie in sparkling sugar of any color. That just adds bling and a little crunch too. Some King Arthur recipes have you putting a little egg wash on the roll cookies before you roll it in sugar and cut it. That's not a bad idea because it really gets the sparkling sugar to stick. Yeah, exactly. And I think we'll call it as we see it, which is that royal icing is there for looks. If you have your heart set on that type of lavishly decorated iced cookie, I can't do it. It is not something I'm terribly interested in learning to do. If you are, you have made a choice, which is that you are going for looks. The cookie can still taste good, but you're not putting the royal icing on there because you're like, oh, royal icing is so delicious. You're putting it on there because it's an edible medium that you can do these very beautiful and exciting designs. Since I am not that person, but as I said, we do make a lot of sugar cookies in our house. I just make an American buttercream. So, you know, a stick of softened butter, unsalted butter, confectioner sugar, vanilla extract, and I just put that on my cookies. It does not get firm and shiny the way a royal icing does. So you can't stack them, but it's very tasty. Sprinkles will stick to it. Red Hots will stick to it. And that seems to be the main desire of my children to have some sort of glue that will hold on an insane amount of decorations. But it's very tasty. Like I think of vanilla butter frosting on a crispy sugar cookie is nice. And of course you can color that with natural food coloring. And so I will often do that as an alternative if we want to have a decorated cookie in the classic sugar cookie tradition. And I think that's really tasty too. Good idea. Love it. If you want to have a glaze that does set up, you know, shiny and hard, but tastes a little bit better than royal icing. We have a recipe for a simple cookie glaze on our site. Instead of using egg whites like royal icing, it uses a little bit of corn syrup along with confectioner sugar and milk. And it sets up firm like a royal icing, but is more flavorful. And you can color that as well. Lots of good options. Lots of good options. So follow your bliss. We just gave you a thousand ways to decorate your holiday cookies. Every episode, we like to check in with Jessica to hear what wildly surprising and full-throated ideas are in her head. A segment we lovingly call Jess Opinions. Jessica, what is your holiday cookie? Jess Opinion. This one was so easy for me to come up with. Every year you see things come out on different media outlets where they talk about the top 10 holiday cookies or the best holiday cookies by region. Inevitably on that list of 10 or 20, there is always chocolate chip cookies. I love a chocolate chip cookie. True fans who listen to season one know it was our first episode. I love chocolate chip cookies so deeply, so passionately. And like for 300 and say 15 to 20 days of the year, that is the cookie that I want. But those other 45 days are not chocolate chip cookie season. And I'm sorry, a chocolate chip cookie is not a holiday cookie. It does not belong on your holiday cookie platter. It should not be shipped as your holiday cookie. I don't care if you swap in red and green M&Ms for the chocolate chips. Well, then you're an M&M cookie. So I know that a lot of people disagree with me. And maybe it's people that only bake cookies around the holidays. They're going to bake a chocolate chip cookie. But the rest of you have no excuse. A chocolate chip cookie is not a holiday cookie. And it is not open for discussion, case closed. I can hear the passion in your voice and I love it. What happens when you go to a holiday party and you see a chocolate chip cookie on the platter? What do you do? Oh, I just upend the whole table like the incredible Hulk. I will just ignore it. I won't eat it. Just ignore it. You're like, I suppose. Justin, would you like a chocolate cookie? I don't see that. I'm like. What? Of course, if I was at a party during the month of December and chocolate chip cookies were the only cookie served, I guess I would eat it, I suppose. But. I agree with you here. It just does not give me holiday vibes. A classic chocolate chip cookie does not give me holiday vibes. However, you do have something working against you here, which is that blue tin. Oh, I love those. Well, there's a chocolate chip cookie. No. Let's clarify. The blue tin of what is it? Danish butter cookies? Yeah. But there is a chocolate chip cookie in there. Is it really a chocolate chip cookie? No, it's a butter cookie that has some specks of chocolate in it. I would not call that a chocolate chip cookie. Oh, well, all of a sudden this line got very thin. What is a chocolate chip cookie? What is not? So we're going to need to go, we might not have to record a second chocolate chip cookie episode. Those are not like a traditional chocolate chip cookie. For a store-bought cookie, I do think those Danish butter cookies are better than they have to be. I mean, I know they're sold at Walgreens, but I think they're pretty good for a store-bought cookie. But enough about what I won't be baking. I want to ask you what holiday cookie, other than the biscotti that you're going to mail to, a select number of loved ones as determined by your number of collected cardboard boxes, what are you going to make for your holiday cookie this year? I'm going to give you two. Okay, as I've talked about on the show before, I'm a dual holiday human. I celebrate a lot of different holidays. I have family members that I celebrate Christmas with and Hanukkah with. For Hanukkah, I do love rugola, a classic cream cheese dough. We have a great one on the site. I like a chocolate rugola. I also like the cinnamon walnut, but I prefer a chocolate situation. I really love a classic piped shortbread cookie for the holidays. I love to dip it in chocolate and then dip it in sprinkles. It's kind of like that classic, give us Italian American vibes. That's what you would see in a lot of Italian American cookies. And it also gives me Danish shortbread vibes. This is a classic butter cookie. Butter is a key part of the holidays, especially end of year holidays. So I like to lean into it with a classic butter cookie, pipe vanilla shortbread cookies. I'll put that link in the show notes. I think that's a great one. And I also think the piping, use a star tip for that. And so it makes it a little fancy. Like, you know, the dough is simple enough, but like the piping and the dipping makes it a little fancy. And then you could post some sprinkles if you wanted or some chopped pistachios on the end of it. I think that's a very elegant. So what about you? What are you baking? Yeah, I mean, I know I talked about a lot of this codified things I make for my holiday party. But another one that I like to make is our whipped lemon shortbread. I think that's a really special cookie. It's funny because we think about warm baking spices, peppermint, chocolate, all of those being flavors of the holiday. But, you know, these holidays do fall citrus season too. And so I think lemon is an appropriate choice and it sort of brightens up an assortment of cookies. And these have a little bit of masa harina in them. So they have like a deep corn flavor. And as the name suggests, they are a whipped cookie. So they have a really nice light texture. And so I'm going to make those. So I was thinking, wouldn't it be interesting to like half dip these or do the chocolate footer on these lemon shortbreads? I might try that with some of them. We'll put that recipe in the show notes for your consideration. I mean, there's no way to go wrong when you're making a holiday cookie. Except for one, which we discussed. As we said, we have folks standing by. If you have baking questions, you can call the hotline. While the holidays can be like a lovely, joyful time, also can be sort of stressful. So if we can alleviate some of that stress when it comes to baking, we are happy to do that. Thank you for tuning in and joining us here on Things Bakers Know. We are going to be off for the next few weeks, celebrating the holidays with our friends and family. But we will be back for a very special bonus episode about our recipe of the year in early January. Then we're going to be back with a full batch of episodes, season three in the spring. Yeah. Excited about that. In the meantime, please remember to like and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, on YouTube, on Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And leave us a review or share this episode with a friend. We will see you back here in a few weeks. In the meantime, very important round the holidays. Follow the recipe. Things Bakers Know is hosted and executive produced by me, David Timurkin. And me, Jessica Badalano. Rossi Anastapulo is our senior producer. Chad Shani is our producer and Marcus Bagala is our engineer. Original music by Megan and Marcus Bagala. This episode featured cookbook author and recipe developer Dan Pelosi, also known as GroCy Pelosi. You can learn more about his work and his latest cookbook, Let's Party at danpelosi.com. Things Bakers Know is a King Arthur Baking Company Podcast.