International holiday cookie recipe exchange!

I love a good cookie exchange but since I don’t exactly need tons more sweets in the house, I was thrilled to happen upon the International Holiday Cookie Exchange, organised by Adrienne of Gastroanthropology and Lori of Fake Food Free. Participating bloggers were assigned a partner who sent them a recipe to make and post about by December 15th. A roundup of the goodies will be up later this week and I can’t wait to see what everyone made!  I sent the recipe for Cranberry Pistachio Blondies to Michele at 5am Foodie and her post is beautiful!

I received the very unique recipe for Beijos de Dama from Valentina at Trembom. I had never tried them before so it was a fun project. I decided to put my own spin on the recipe, using peanuts instead of Brazil nuts because I liked the idea of a peanut shortbread dipped in or drizzled with chocolate!

I actually had a lot of trouble with this recipe – I found it to be super dry and ended up adding an extra egg yolk to the mix. It was still pretty crumbly but I managed to roll the dough and cut it.  They are pretty “shortbread-y” but overall I was really pleased with how they came out.  The peanut flavour is subtle and does not hit you over the head and the chocolate (I used semi-sweet) a perfect hit of sweetness.

These are cookies you won’t want to share, but since t’is the season and all, I am bringing them to work to share with colleagues today. Because we can all use some cookies on the third last day before the winter holidays, right?

52 thoughts on “International holiday cookie recipe exchange!”

  1. I love making shortbread and sugar cookies and am always trying out new twists on recipes, but have never made peanut ones before. Given that I love peanuts and chocolate together, I will have to try these out. Your photos are gorgeous and I would quite like to eat one of them right now!

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  2. they look lovely and sound delicious! i always love trying new things this time of year. it’s a good time to pick up new recipes!

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  3. Your co-workers are going to be delighted with you yet again. The shortbread looks great and your photo presentation is beautiful. Checked Michele’s post too and she did a great job with your blondies recipe. Lovely post.

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  4. I like short-bready cookies, I think I would definitely like these. Lovely photos. (And thank you for your comment about Pete on my blog, I am blown away at the support I got.)

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  5. That sounds like a fun idea!!! I hope I remember this for next year. I was thinking it would be cool to do a foodie book club after the holidays are over and we all get our lives back, but logistically it would be difficult to ‘discuss’ books so to speak. It might be nice to do it like Dorie Greenspan’s? The booksellers would love that I bet. They would get a spike in sales that day for sure! Maybe they would sponsor us.

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  6. I’ve always got peanuts at home and love the idea of a peanut shortbread! Love the shapes and they look so festive.

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  7. What a fun project! We have the same cookies you got to make in Italy (baci di dama) but it is true….they can be weird cookies if you don’t have the right recipe. Once I tried to make them and mine instead totally smashed. You did a great job. I’m glad you were able to fix the recipe 🙂

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  8. Now that’s a fun thing to do and a great project. Your cookies look superb, now….. could you please pass me one 😉

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  10. Oh! Missed out on this! Will loved to have joined… another time I hope. Now I shall wait for the round up for all the cookie ideas.

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  11. Lovely Christmas cookies. Just reading your dry dough issue, funny I was having the same issue with some pastry dough today. Ugh. 🙂 Glad these turned out good. I feel like a cookie now.

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  12. Oh, I love your touch to this recipe. They are indeed very shortbread like. Brazil nuts are a tad oilier than peanut butter. The chocolate addition just dressed them up very pretty indeed, and the start shape gives it a lovely holiday feel. I am heading home for the holidays and I will definitely be making those with my mom. o ) Love family baking – don’t get much of an opportunity to do that. Happy Xmas to you and yours!! Lucky the ones who are getting some cookies.

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  13. How very nice of you to share these little marvels with your colleagues, however I think they would be appreciated even more by a certain little person who doesn’t get to enjoy a winter break from work. [hint, hint] 🙂

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