Whenever I put a variety of cookies together, I try really hard to include something for every kind of cookie taste. For example, I always include some kind of buttery and crumbly sable, something uber-chocolate, something gooey, something jammy and fruity, and something nutty and spiced. I’m never short on ideas for these categories, but I always freeze when it comes to bars. I love including a bar cookie, no question, but with the dizzying variety, from cheesecakes to lemon bars to brownies, it’s almost another food category entirely and I just can’t decide.

This year was no exception, and an exhaustive research session with my stacks of cookbooks only left me feeling more bewildered. That’s when I decided to combine two of my favorite recipes of all time, this one, and this one (which resulted in EVK recently being featured on Saveur.com). The cookie love-child that resulted was absolutely worth my angst.

There’s just something so right about using a fresh ingredient, in this case, the cranberries in the topping, in holiday baking.  They make for a topping that’s both sweet and tart, and the addition of pecans lends a lovely toasted flavor and some crunch. The shortbread, which is the most crumbly (thanks to the semolina) and rich (ahm, butter!) that I’ve ever had. Together, get gooey, sweet-tartness layered over a cookie that crumbles as it melts in your mouth. With or without white chocolate drizzles, they’re a gorgeous addition to your holiday game plan.

Cranberry Shortbread
Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan and Cook with Jamie by Jamie Oliver

Cranberry topping

6 tablespoons butter
6 tablespoons sugar
2 cups fresh cranberries, coarsely chopped
1 cup chopped pecans

Shortbread

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon superfine sugar (or powdered sugar)
2 scant cups (a cup, minus a tablespoon) all-purpose flour, sifted
2/3 cup semolina
big pinch of kosher salt

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter the bottom and sides of an 8 inch x 8 inch pan with two inch sides.

Melt 6 tablespoons of the butter in a small saucepan. Sprinkle in 6 tablespoons of the sugar and cook, stirring, until the mixture comes to a boil. Pour this into the bottom of the pan, then scatter over the nuts and top with the cranberries. Set the pan aside.

Cream butter and sugar together with a whisk or wooden spoon or paddle attachment of a stand mixer until very pale, light, and fluffy. Add the flour and semolina. Mix very lightly with a wooden spoon and then with your hands until you have a smooth dough.

Pressed the doughevenly into your pan, on top of the cranberry mixture, poking it into the corners with your fingers – don’t worry about it having to look perfect. Bake in the preheated oven until slightly golden, 40-50 minutes. Don’t be alarmed if some of the cranberry caramel seeps up along the edges.

Allow the pan to cool completely. When you are ready to serve, dip the bottom of the pan in hot water for 10 seconds to help loosen the caramel and cut into squares. Use an offset spatula to remove the squares from the pan. Scrape additional cranberry mixture from the bottom of the pan and return to the tops of the squares.

Stores in airtight container in the fridge for 2 days.

This recipe has a sad name, which, I hope, will not mislead.  When I first saw it, I was reminded of this night when I was out with some girlfriends a few years back and I was in a really dark mood. I’m talking apocalyptic, what’s-the-point-because-with-global-warming-the-planet-is-doomed, we’re-all-food-for-the-wor

ms-anyways kind of dark. My friends drew stares from fellow restaurant patrons as they all, in unison, made these “Wotttt wahhh” sounds, which in my TV-less existence prompted me to google the SNL Debbie Downer sketch.

That is the opposite mood of this cake, the “upside-downer”, which is filled with optimism and light. And even though I have tons of cake recipes from other cookbooks, I can’t stop going for the Dorie Greenspan. I’m addicted, probably because every single recipe I’ve tried has turned out so drop dead perfect.

This recipe was so timely. No sooner had I flipped through my dog-eared copy of Baking: From My Home to Yours, than I stumbled upon this recipe. Which reminded me of that sad, aimless bag of cranberries that was sitting in the fridge, waiting to go bad in a month or so.

To make whole cranberries sweet, you nestle them into a syrup at the bottom the the pan. The oven does the rest, and the cranberries come out, almost completely intact, on the top of the cake when you invert the pan.

As with each cake recipe from Ms. Greenspan, the batter is simple. By following the sequence of directions, it is utterly foolproof.

Carefully smooth the batter over the cranberries and syrup. If you have leveled the cranberries well and anchored them in the syrup, very few will migrate up into the batter.

I brought this cake to Mike and Jo’s to round out our delicious small-plates meal. We picked at the cake as we attempted to decipher the convoluted rules of an impossible, cult-followed board game called El Grande and worked on what must have been our fourth bottle. At one point Mike began skimming off the cranberry topping, which he proclaimed to be the best part. I agreed.

Cranberry Upside-Downer Cake

Adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

1 ¾ sticks (14 tablespoons) butter

1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sugar

¼ cup chopped walnuts or pecans (I used pecans)

2 cups cranberries

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup whole milk

1/3 cup red currant jelly, for glazing (I omitted this and it still looked and tasted lovely, and in addition, made it easier to transport to Brooklyn)

Preheat oven to 350. Put an 8 inch round pan on a baking sheet. I used a springform and the baking sheet was a necessity. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

Melt 6 tablespoons of the butter in a small saucepan. Sprinkle in 6 tablespoons of the sugar and cook, stirring, until the mixture comes to a boil. Pour this into the bottom of the pan then scatter over the nuts and top with the cranberries. If frozen berries cause the butter to congeal, don’t worry, everything will melt in the oven.

Using a stand mixer, beat the remaining stick of butter until smooth. Add the remaining ½ cup sugar and beat until pale and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating one minute between each. Pour in the vanilla. Add half the dry ingredients, mixing only until they disappear. Mix in the milk, then the rest of the dry ingredients. Spoon the batter over the cranberries, and smooth the top.

Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Carefully turn out onto a serving platter. Warm the jelly and brush over the cake.

I’m not really a holiday season enthusiast per se, but I do find that it’s a great excuse to stretch my baking wings. With that said, it is highly unusual to find me putting up any Christmas trees (or menorahs for that matter). This cookie is about as red and green as I go, luckily, it is as delicious as it is festive. 

These cookies are another installment from the December 2006 Gourmet, which I thought was a particularly awesome cookie edition, for some reason. These cookies appeal to my need for real food (i.e. they are red and green naturally) and they are super easy. 

Orange zest is the secret “something, something” in these cookies. It compliments the cranberries and the pistachio amazingly. 

The cinnamon also does it’s part, appearing in a mysterious way that is not overpowering. With the citrus it takes on a pleasant flavor that you wouldn’t expect from cinnamon.

The labor for these pretty much only lasts for 15 minutes tops.

And then, true to retro roots, these refrigerator cookies must be chilled.

Shape them into squares by wrapping them in tin foil and squeezing and lightly pushing them into form.

Wrap them tight and put them in the fridge.

I left them in for about 24 hours. They were so pretty when I unwrapped them!

Brush the four outside edges with beaten egg and then roll them in coarse sugar.

I didn’t have colorless sugar, so I used Sugar in the Raw, which worked fine, except, as would be expected, it colored the edges brown. I recommend using colorless.

Slice the cookie log into quarter inch thick pieces and bake on a parchment or silicone mat -lined baking sheet.

They will brown just slightly on top and crack a bit when they are ready – watch them closely or they will burn. These can be stored in the freezer and thawed quickly in the fridge for impromptu baking when guests “stop by”. Or if you just feel like a cookie on a rainy day.