Cottage Cheese Cookies are an excellent canvas for holiday themed sanding sugar, and the tang from the cheese makes them a little more interesting than your average sugar cookie. Affiliate links were used in this post.
I “got zen” as we say in my family several months back about this whole house building process. When it took us 2 months just to buy the property (I don’t mean choose it, I mean be allowed to buy the parcel we had picked–I did not talk about it at the time for fear of jinxing us) I realized there was just no point in getting worked up about it. I fell head over heels in love with the land and if it took longer, so be it.
My zen is fraying at the edges pretty badly as Christmas approaches.
We have an estimated move-in date of “within 3 weeks.” Which puts us at the week of Christmas. All of my Christmas stuff is packed and inaccessible–I have already resigned myself to a 4 ft artificial tree from Wal-mart. Something that can be carried without un-decorating if need be. No other decorations are coming out–which especially sucks since we have very excited small kids. Luckily a tiny tree is as wonderful to them as a big one.
The worst part however, the part I am not dealing well with is, is Christmas cookies. Normally I make tons, and have all sorts of varieties available to anyone and everyone the minute they come through the door. But I just don’t have the storage this year. At least not in this current kitchen–and who knows when we will make it over to the new house and get un-packed.
So my solution has been to make Christmas cookies, but not all at once, and to give away as many as possible. So my first batch, headed tomorrow for John’s algorithms class, is this Cottage Cheese Sugar Cookie.
Not the most alluring name I realize. Gourmet this year ran a very cool feature on the best cookies from each year the magazine had been publishing. This one is from 1962. The recipe can be found here (and here is the entire list). (2014 update: Gourmet no longer has this recipe online; my barely adapted version is below. Gourmet did subsequently publish these recipes in The Gourmet Cookie Book: The Single Best Recipe from Each Year 1941-2009
I am submitting this cookie to Food Blogga‘s Eat Christmas Cookies Season 2 blogging event. I will probably submit more along the way–not surprisingly I LOVE the idea of collecting oodles of Christmas cookies in one spot from bloggers all over the world–big shout-out to Susan for doing this! Head on over the on-going round-up page for oodles of Holiday cookie ideas.
- 2 cups (252 g) AP flour
- ½ t baking soda
- ½ t fine sea salt
- ½ cup butter, room temperature
- ¼ cup cottage cheese (I recommend 4% fat)
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 t vanilla
- 1 egg
- sanding sugar for sprinkling (red and green for Christmas)
- Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Set aside.
- Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- Beat the butter until creamy. Add the cottage cheese and beat until incorporated and creamy.
- Add the sugar and beat until fluffy.
- Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the egg and beat to incorporate. Beat in the vanilla.
- Gently mix in the flour mixture.
- Scoop 1-2 tablespoon sized balls of dough onto the prepared cookie sheet. Sprinkle some sanding sugar over each ball of dough.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes on your cookie sheet, before removing to a cooling rack.
Oh Laura, moving at Christmas! Yikes.
We actually had two Christmases where there was so much renovation going on in our house that I hardly decorated and only baked a couple batches of my favorite cookies. I love the traditions of our Christmas, and to have to do without was so disappointing! I’m sure that you are feeling the same way, too. But you are moving into that nice new house, with the kitchen o’ your dreams, and that should make up for the inconvenience, right?? Well, try to think of it that way… good luck. And a huge thanks for the link to the Gourmet cookie list– like I need more cookies to make! 🙂
~Vicci
Good luck with the new house!
These cookies are a great way to use up some leftover cottage cheese!
Yeah with a move in date like that it pretty much puts a kabosh on Christmas! You will make the best of it and remember it forever!
I have to say you were brave to try them. The cottage cheese part would have given me cause for 2nd thought! They look pretty! I’m going to check your link out later when I have more time and look into this cookie blogging event!
Your Christmas tree is darling. And hats off to your for having a Christmas time move-in date! I’m sure your cookies were the most exciting thing to ever enter an algorithms class. 🙂
These would be fun to make with my little niece and nephew.
The cottage cheese totally turns me off, I must admit…but THREE WEEKS for the house!! That’s awesome, congrats!! I know that Christmas must not be the perfect time to move, but I also know that you’re so ready to be in your own place and off of that golf course! Yay!!
Leila
How many cookies does this make?
To be really honest I dislike giving that information as a solid guarantee. In my experience, it never works out because everyone scoops differently, etc. The original recipe was from 1962, when such information would not have been (and was not) provided (Gourmet published the recipes in their original forms which means even the ingredients were not listed separately). I honestly did not take note (I stopped taking note when I realized how often my yield differed from a cookbook’s and it would make me frustrated). If I had to guess I am thinking around 30. I apologize I do not have a precise answer for you, but on the other hand I am also a little relieved because if you got a radically different number I would feel terrible and it seems to happen a lot.