Chef Ryan

Cajun Chef Ryan

Feeling & sharing a world of cooking ~ more than your average Cajun



 



Christmas Wreath Cookies

December 11th, 2009 · 20 Comments

Christmas Cookies

Inspired by Rose Levy Beranbaum and three of her books that I own, the first one in my collection is The Cake Bible, the second is Rose’s Christmas Cookies, and the third one of her many books is A Passion For Chocolate, and all of them are first rate books.  If you do not have any of these in your cookbook collection, I highly recommend them all for addition to your library.  In particular since I did not get any formal pastry or dessert training other than one introductory class in 1983 during my apprenticeship, most of my baking has been self taught or from cookbooks, such as Rose’s. Apprentices are given the choice of going the culinary route or the pastry route, thus I chose the culinary route.  In the holiday spirit,  I enjoy making Christmas cookies so for the next few days I will share with you three of my favorites. The first is the Christmas Wreaths made with cornflakes and marshmallows, Meringue Mushrooms, and then the Bûchettes de Noël to round out this short Christmas Cookie Series.

Christmas Wreath Cookies
Christmas Wreath Cookies

These are some of the cutest and easiest Christmas cookies to make; these wreaths are made with marshmallows, cornflakes, green food color and red-hot’s for decoration.  Not only are they great to eat, but you can make decorations out of them on the mantle, window frame, or Christmas tree by just air-drying them for several days uncovered.  The recipe will yield about 18 or so 2-inch wreaths.

One of the tricks with getting these cookies formed quickly is to keep the mixture warm while working the cookies into wreath shapes.  Once the cookie mixture is done, you will want to set the saucepan into another pan of warm water.  Alternatively, in my case I like to transfer the cookie mixture into a large stainless steel bowl, and then set the bowl over warm water bath in a large saucepan.  The cookies are dropped in heaping tablespoons onto wax paper and the formed into tiny wreath shapes, and before completely set-up, the red-hot’s are placed for decoration.  The ingredients and procedures in this recipe are modified but follow very closely with those found in the cookbook, Rose’s Christmas Cookies, by Rose Levy Beranbaum.

Ingredients
VolumeWeightIngredient
½ Cup4 OuncesUnsalted butter
3 Cups7.25 OuncesMarshmallows, Large (30)
1 ½ TspGreen food coloring liquid
1 TspVanilla extract
4 Cups5 OuncesCornflakes
2 Tbsp1 OunceCinnamon Red-Hot’s candies
Procedure Steps
1.Lightly grease or coat with non-stick spray a large sized saucepan. Also, have another large saucepan with warm water at the ready.
2.Add the butter over low heat and then add the marshmallows and melt them over a low heat, stirring constantly until smooth, or about 5 to 7 minutes.
3.Remove the pan from the heat and fold in the green food coloring and the vanilla extract until well blended with a wire whisk.
4.Stir in the cornflakes to evenly coat them well.
5.Transfer the cookie mixture into a large bowl, such as a stainless steel bowl and place this into the warm water that we set up in step 1. This is to keep the mixture from setting up to quickly.
6.Use 2 spoons or lightly greased fingers and drop heaping tablespoons of the cookie mixture onto wax paper. With the greased fingers, quickly form the wreath shape with holes in the center, and while the cookie is still sticky decorate with the red-hot candies.

These cookies will keep for up to a month when stored in an airtight container, or indefinitely as ornaments.

Both volume and weight measurements have been given in this recipe as professional bakers and pastry chefs utilize weighted products and specifications for their recipes and formulas. Weighted ingredients give more control over the product and omit any variation due to storage temperature, humidity and elevation differences

Christmas Wreath Cookies setting up
Christmas Wreath Cookies setting up in the parchment paper lined pans

Tags: Baking · Desserts · Recipes

20 responses so far ↓

  • 1 lululu // Dec 11, 2009 at 10:56 am

    awwwww…..fun to make and beautiful to look at !

  • 2 HoneyB // Dec 11, 2009 at 11:30 am

    I love these – I used to make this with my boys when they were young!

  • 3 foodlovee // Dec 11, 2009 at 11:31 am

    Looks like in mood for Christmas.very cute

  • 4 Miranda // Dec 11, 2009 at 11:36 am

    These are very lovely. My grandmal made a cookie just like these!!!

  • 5 Vegetable Matter // Dec 11, 2009 at 11:41 am

    These look adorable. And the colors are so nice and saturated, not easy to accomplish. Well done!

  • 6 Trix // Dec 11, 2009 at 12:03 pm

    These are so pretty, and they would make great presents!

  • 7 sippitysup // Dec 11, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    Okay, it’s officially Christmas!! Thanks for kick-starting me into the holidsays. GREG

  • 8 Jessie // Dec 11, 2009 at 2:13 pm

    very pretty cookies and festive for the holidays

  • 9 wasabi prime // Dec 11, 2009 at 2:37 pm

    ah, these are adorable!!

  • 10 Gera @ SweetsFoods // Dec 11, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    Holy cow! They’re lovely as a gifts 🙂

    Cheers!

    Gera

  • 11 Twitted by sweetsfoods // Dec 11, 2009 at 6:25 pm

    […] This post was Twitted by sweetsfoods […]

  • 12 Beatrice // Dec 11, 2009 at 8:36 pm

    I love these, even though they are technically not vegetarian (marshmallows).

  • 13 Drick // Dec 11, 2009 at 11:51 pm

    a favorite treat from childhood – thanks for bringing this back – haven’t made these in years…

  • 14 redkathy // Dec 12, 2009 at 12:13 am

    They are absolutely beautiful wreaths! My son would so enjoy these, he’s a marshmallow lover.

  • 15 dining furniture // Dec 12, 2009 at 1:45 am

    A treat my kids would probably love this Christmas. Thanks for sharing! I am planning to make some also for the kids in my neighborhood.

  • 16 Shirley // Dec 12, 2009 at 5:09 am

    These look gorgeous!

  • 17 The Gourmet Girl // Dec 12, 2009 at 7:33 am

    You’ve already made the cookies, why not enter them in the Gourmet Girl Magazine Virtual Holiday Cookie Crawl.
    They look wonderful! For details visit http://www.gourmetgirlmagazine.com click on the Virtual Cookie Crawl Link on the home page. (Right side bar)

  • 18 Doc // Dec 12, 2009 at 9:53 am

    Thanks Chef,
    They look fabulous and bring back memeories!

  • 19 penny aka jeroxie // Dec 12, 2009 at 11:20 pm

    That is soooo pretty! Thanks for sharing.

  • 20 The Foodie Forkful // Dec 15, 2009 at 4:55 pm

    How fun!