Cocoa & Garam Masala Snickerdoodles

Hello and welcome to Newsletter No 9 here on Substack! Thank you for stopping by. Grab a seat if you are interested in recipes as well as tips and tricks to make the most of our increasingly eclectic pantries - and make sure you hit that subscribe button if you don’t want to miss any future posts!

We are barely halfway through the first week of December and already we are being inundated with listicles and “Best of …’ Articles for the ultimate Christmas cookies. Not that I mind actually - in fact, come November I stalk the website of German women’s magazine Brigitte like a hawk waiting for the annual drop of their Christmas cookie recipes to look for some inspiration (if you read German, I highly recommend checking out their Christmas cookie section - it’s full of great ideas for whichever type of cookie you are looking for). It’s also a good reminder it’s about time I got on with my Christmas shopping! 

But let’s talk about today’s recipe for Cocoa & Garam Masala Snickerdoodles! They take their inspiration not just from Blue Bottle’s Saffron Vanilla Snickerdoodles, but also some Chocolate Curry and Coconut cookies I saw at Baked in NYC several years ago as well as one of my favourite chocolate bars (a milk chocolate bar studded with Garam Masala spices and coconut). Rich and chocolatey, crisp-edged and soft-centred, these Cocoa & Garam Masala Snickerdoodles are all you could ask for in a cookie and more. And the warming Garam Masala spiced sugar coating makes them the perfect addition to your mixed cookie plate this Christmas! 

I don’t often bake with Garam Masala, but as it turns out chocolate is the perfect canvas for Garam Masala – it tames its slight earthiness and savoury notes while the garam masala somehow makes the chocolate taste more intensely chocolatey. I hope you give these a try - and who knows, maybe they will even find their way into your list of annual favourites to bake come December!

Like many of us I also have my favourite Christmas cookies (and other Christmassy cakes and bakes) without which Christmas just doesn’t feel right - 

• Elisenlebkuchen - heavily spiced, soft and practically flourless gingerbread cookies served either plain, covered in a thin glaze or enrobed in dark chocolate. A few years ago I was lucky enough to have my recipe featured on Food52 as part of a Cookie Map of the World. 

• Vanillekipferl - crescent shaped little cookies made with plenty of nuts and rolled in Vanilla scented powdered sugar. Not unlike Polverones or Mexican wedding cookies, they lend themselves easily to adaptation - I like these Rye, Walnut and Cardamom ones. 

• And thanks to a Greek friend of my sister Helena, Christmas no longer feels right without a plate (or two) piled high with syrupy Melomakarona (aka Baklava in cookie form). 

• While more than a decade of living in the UK was not enough to enamour me with the likes of Christmas pudding or brandy butter, a night of carol singing while munching on warm (!) mince pies and sipping mulled wine in the Shaw Library at LSE during my law degree sealed the deal for me on mince pies. 

• Last but not least, and while not a cookie, Christmas for me is not Christmas without a loaf of Stollen (which in my case for the past five years has meant this Cardamom, Mahleb and Saffron Stollen with Apricots, Figs and Pistachios). 

Time permitting I also like trying out new recipes each year to see whether there are any I want to add to my rotation. High on my list this year is perfecting my recipe for Mincemeat Swirls aka Pains au Mincemeat. And coming up with my own recipe for Linzer cookies - maybe a black sesame & kumquat preserves version? What are your must-have cookies for Christmas? And if you are trying something new this year, what will you be making? Let me know in the comments below!