Cardamom Cookies: Crisp, Delicate Little Bites
Taste the Season
Cardamom Cookies | Dara O’Brien
By Dara O’Brien
Creative Director, Lake Isle Press
Baking is one of my favorite holiday rituals; by Thanksgiving I’m usually in full cookie mode. I fill the freezer with baked goods, give them all away, then fill it again. In my busiest baking years, I might make up to 40 dozen cookies (not to mention quick breads, cakes, or muffins) to bring to gatherings or give as gifts.
Last year was a different story. Nary a ho ho ho to be had. No parties. Few dinners. Hardly any gift exchanges. And shipping took forever and cost a small fortune. All I could do to get through the season was to hope that it would be as isolated from all past and future holidays as we New Yorkers were then from each other.
Yet here we are once more. Welcome to Coronamas 2.0. Caution, calculation, isolation—could it be that, yet again, that’s how the holiday cookie crumbles?
Restrictions still abound, yes, but so does resilience. Like restaurants that kept going by adding increasingly elaborate outdoor dining spaces that brought our streets back to life, we adapt. Smaller gatherings, testing, boosters, masks, somehow we’re finding our way through. Things can change on a dime in Covid World. But for now, we go on.
So my baking tradition continues, albeit on a smaller scale. And as I do every year, I’m adding a new cookie to my holiday mix. This year it’s Cardamom Cookies. The recipe is from “Jim Fobel’s Old-Fashioned Baking Book,” published by Lake Isle Press.
Most of the cookies I make are kind of big and chewy. These crisp little bites are a departure. They have a delicate taste that lingers quite pleasantly in your mouth, and they’re so light you could eat half a dozen as easily as one. And I think you may want to.
They’re not just easy to eat, they’re also easy to make. There’s a total of just three ingredients to mix into the 4-ingredient flour mixture, and melted butter means you don’t have to wait for it to soften. The only challenge is that the dough is very sticky. Even with a coated teaspoon I had a hard time getting each drop onto the cookie sheet. Eventually I worked out a technique. I also rounded each teaspoon since those bits of dough seemed so impossibly small, so I got 4 dozen cookies rather than the 6 dozen yield the recipe estimates.
I experimented with baking the first sheet for 12 minutes, then tried the next for 10 minutes. I preferred the batch with less time in the oven. The 12-minute bake was fine, not at all burnt, but very crisp and browned. At 10 minutes, they were still quite crisp, but had a bare hint of softness at the center and a lighter color. Either way, very tasty, and very delicate. Handle them carefully, they will break easily.
When times are hard or uncertain, sometimes the little things can get us through. A daily run. A great book. Meditation. Homemade cookies. My baking tradition may be constrained by this battered season, but fa-la-la-la-la, it endures.
Cardamom Cookies | Dara O’Brien
Cardamom Cookies
INGREDIENTS
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 large egg
3/4 cup granulated sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, melted
Makes about 6 dozen
PREPARATION
Position two racks in the top two-thirds of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Grease and flour two baking sheets, tapping off the excess flour.
In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and cardamom.
In a large mixing bowl whisk the egg until frothy. Whisk in the sugar and butter. With a spoon, stir in the dry ingredients.
Using 1 level teaspoon of batter for each cookie, drop it onto the prepared sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until lightly browned (when baking only one sheet at a time, cookies will be done in about 12 minutes). Transfer to a rack to cool. Use cooled sheets to bake the rest.
CARDAMOM COOKIES RECIPE
from “JIM FOBEL’S OLD-FASHIONED BAKING BOOK”
by Jim Fobel, Lake Isle Press, 1996
OTHER RECIPES FROM THIS BOOK
Blueberry Muffins Recipe
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe
Cinnamon Cake Recipe
Grandma’s Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe
Lemon Layer Cake Recipe
Mystery Cake of 1932 Recipe
New York CheeseCake Recipe
Orange Coffee Cake Recipe
Inspired by his grandmother, mother, and aunts, the late Jim Fobel collected the best of their old-fashioned recipes and re-worked them for today’s cooks. He was a protégé of James Beard and frequent contributor to Family Circle, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, and a noted food writer.
“Charming nostalgia...mouth-watering, the way fruit pies cooling on the porch should be.”
— THE NEW YORK TIMES