Introduction: ONE DOUGH Holiday Cookie Gift Box

About: About healthy living, great food and lifestyle.

This is one of my favourite recipes to use and gifts for friends during holiday season! They're actually very easy to make, and they're just soooo pretty. All my friends always "WOW" at this gift when they open the box and will say "WHAAAT" when they found out it's all homemade. They'll talk about the cookies for a long time and share with other guests, and the expensive wine & chocolate I brought as well? Everyone already forgot about them!

I think homemade gift always have a very warming message to the receiver: you're someone special that I'd like to spend my time to make something special for you. That's why everyone loved them.

Leftover cookies? Well they won't last long in the house either as everyone loves a few for snack during the holiday season...

The best part of this recipe is that all the cookies all made from ONE DOUGH, and the ingredients are so easy to get. All you need for presentation is to either buy a plastic tray to put you cookies as in the second photo, or a nice box to stack your cookies in the box like the first photo.

Supplies

The main dough

Butter, softened to room temperature 320g

Powder sugar ( Icing Sugar) 120g

Egg white 60g

Salt 2g

Cake Flour 150g

That's all for the main dough, you will have about 600g in total. Seperate them into 4 doughs (150g each), or to any proportion you want, and let's make the twist based on the main dough. The following recipe is the add on based on each 150g portion dough. We name them #1,2,3 & 4 Dough.


Vanilla cookie (#1 Dough)

Basic Dough (Above) 150g

Cake Flour 70g


Matcha cookie (#2 Dough)

Basic Dough (Above) 150g

Cake Flour 62g

Matcha powder 8g

Chocolate cookie (#3 Dough)

Basic Dough (Above) 150g

Cake Flour 60g

Cocoa powder 10g

Linzer cookie (#4 Dough)

Basic Dough (Above) 150g

Cake Flour 70g

Almond Meal 40g

Step 1: Make the Main Dough

1. Make sure butter is at room temperature and very well softened. The texture should be like in the first photo. If your butter is too hard or if it's melted instead of softened, it's hard to get a clear textured cookie.

2. Sieve your powdered sugar (icing sugar) into the butter, using a spatula to mix them together.

3. Add egg white in 3-4 times, mix well after each addition.

4. In a mixing bowl, mix cake flour & salt, sieve it into the dough. Mix well with a spatula. The texture should be like in the last photo.

After this you will get 600g of main dough, divide it into 4 portions, about 150g each. Wrap with cling wrap.

Step 2: Making Cookie #1 Vanilla Cookie

1. Take out your Dough #1, add the additional 70g cake flour and a few drops of vanilla extract (optional). Mix well with a spatula.

2. The texture of the dough is very soft, use a piping bag and a big star nozzle to squeeze out the shape you want. Here I squeezed some "S" shaped cookies, but any shape works - as long as the shapes are consistent.

3. Reserve the piped cookie in the fridge for later use.

Step 3: Making Cookie #2 Matcha Cookie

1. Take out your Dough #2, add the additional 62g cake flour and 8g matcha powder. Mix well with a spatula.

2. Use a piping bag and a medium size star nozzle to squeeze out the shape you want. Here I squeezed a Christmas Wreath shape, and a normal flower shape with a cashew nut in the middle.

3. Reserve the piped cookie in the fridge for later use.

Step 4: Making Cookie #3 Chocolate Cookie

1. Take out your Dough #3, add the additional 60g cake flour and 10g cocoa powder. Mix well with a spatula.

2. Use a piping bag and a small size star nozzle to squeeze out the shape you want. Here I squeezed a round shape with a hollow middle, and a long square shape with star nozzle and an almond in the middle.

3. Reserve the piped cookie in the fridge for later use.

All the process for cookie #1, 2, & 3 are the same, also I piped more shapes just for the instruction and inspiration purposes, you don't have to make this many shapes if you don't want to. Stick with one shape but in different color is already good enough for a homemade cookie gift box.

Step 5: Making Cookie #4 Linzer Cookie

1. Take out your Dough #4, add the additional 70g cake flour and 40g almond meal. Mix well with a spatula.

2. This dough is tougher than the previous 3 cookie doughs as it's for cutting not for piping. Shape it into a dough and wrap with cling wrap. Put in fridge for about 30 min to relax the dough for roll out later.

3. Take out the dough and roll out between baking papers. Cut several round shapes and cut half of the round cookies with a hole in the middle. You can also use little stars for the hole.

4. You will have some leftover dough after cutting, don't throw them, you can color them with some food coloring and cut into little stars, flowers, hearts or even gingerbread man, snowflakes etc to create some extra contrast in your gift box, also some little cookies are perfect as "hole fillers" in a gift box.

5. Put the cut out cookie on a baking tray in fridge to relax and firm up before baking.

Step 6: Baking!

1. For Cookie dough #1, 2, 3, preheat the oven to 330°F (165℃) , and bake for about 17 min. Please adjust the time based on your cookie size & your oven temperature.

2. For cookie dough #4, preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) for 8-10 min or until the sides are slightly golden brown.

3. Take out the cookies to cool them on a tray for later decoration.

Step 7: Decorate Cookies

Actually you can leave your cookies un-decorated, or you can decorate with anything you have or you like. Here I'm going to share some ideas I have for my cookie box - again, I did a little bit extra than I would normally do for one cookie box just for the instruction & inspiration purposes. These are all the options but you don't have to do everything.

1. First I melted some white chocolate, and filled the hole in the middle for the chocolate cookie.

2. Then I dipped my matcha wreath in the white chocolate, and sprinkled some chopped dried fruits for decoration.

3. The leftover white chocolate can be put in a tiny piping bag and squeeze out on cookies to decorate.

4. Also I melted some dark chocolate to dip a corner of my vanilla cookie.

5. For cookie #4 - linzer cookies, put some jam in between the cookies (I used a homemade cherry jam hence the color is darker, but any jam from strawberry, raspberry to cranberry would work). The jam will show up from the little window.

6. You can also dust icing sugar- but it's not very ideal for putting them in a gift box as icing sugar will get everywhere and start to get sticky. So I left my linzer cookie just plain on top.

Step 8: Get Your Cookies Ready!

I took a group photo of all the cookies I made, you will yield about the same amount of cookies with this recipe - depending on the size of cookie you made you might have slight difference in amount. Reserve the cookies on the tray with a covered wrap until the day before of giving out the box to prevent from getting soggy.

Line a baking paper at the bottom of the box, and start to put cookies in the box!

You can leave a food grade silica gel to absorb moisture in the box as well.

Step 9: Notes & Tips:

1. When you bake cookies, try to bake same sized cookies on one tray to avoid uneven baking.

2. You can also use just egg yolks or whole eggs instead of the egg whites (in same amount), the more yolks the texture will be more crumbly, more whites it will be more crunchy. I chose all white in this recipe for easy measuring and also easy to color.

3. If you don't have matcha powder or cocoa powder, that's fine, you can also use food coloring to color the dough. However I love the contrast in flavors.

4. If you're not good at piping, that's OK too, make more of the last cookie (linzer cookie) but also add matcha powder, cocoa powder, or coloring into the dough, then your cookie box will have more cutout cookie than piped cookie. They're both tasty.

5. Be flexible and creative on your own decoration, as I said before this recipe is just for instruction and inspiration for you, you can make any version of your own.

Step 10: Give It Out As a Surprising Gift!

Now ready to surprise your friends with your cookie box! I'm sure they will love it.

I hope you find this Instructable helpful and useful, and Bon Appetit!

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