Stop reading now if you’re on some crazy New Year cleanse or avoiding carbs, sugar, fat and all things fun. Just stop reading because the next sentence is going to tempt you. I’ve come across one of the best cookies I’ve ever made or eaten in all my 32 years. Please meet the Gooey Butter Cookie.

I am a cookie dough girl. I love tracing my tongue along the beaters, scraping my finger across the spoon and pinching off little morsels from oddly shaped unbaked cookies. I remember eating more refrigerated English Bay cookie dough than English Bay cookies as a teenager. The next person to open the tub would come upon finger tracks that revealed many a chocolate chip, but not enough dough to surround it. Pure, unadorned dough of sugar, fat, flour and eggs is all I wanted. No nuts or chips or raisins or whatever. I love the dough. And that is what these cookies taste like. Dough dough dough.

But they’re fully cooked, of course, and the high amount of butter and sugar means they are reminiscent of shortbread. But then the cream cheese gives a toothsomeness that shortbread never has. Oh, and then there’s the vanilla seeds and the vanilla extract that add both a heavenly perfume and flavour. And how could I forget that you’re to eat them cold? Yes, cold. Just like cookie dough from the fridge. As I’ve suggested before, cold cookies are a thrill worth seeking out.

I am sorry that I had to share these with you post-holidays. As I made them only two days before Christmas, there would have been little time for you to shop for and make them—because you really must shop for and make them—and then whoooooosh, January. It’s the time to work off other people’s cookies so that you can now try these.

Gooey Butter Cookies
adapted from Lottie + Doof

I got about two dozen of the size shown and another dozen and a half wee ones.

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
250 g cream cheese
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 vanilla bean, scraped
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Icing sugar for rolling and dusting

Stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.  With your hands, with a hand-held mixer or in the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the cream cheese, butter, vanilla bean seeds, and sugar together until fluffy.  Add the egg and vanilla extract.

Incorporate the flour mixture.  Chill for at least 30 minutes.  Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Half fill a small bowl with icing sugar. When the dough is chilled enough to be formed, scoop balls that are about 1-2 tablespoons (I used a cookie scoop over an inch in diameter) and toss in the icing sugar.  Place on a baking sheet, lined with parchment, a couple of inches apart.  Bake until they spread and puff slightly, about 12-16 minutes.  (In my oven they were ready at 12 minutes.) They will be really soft in the center.  If they start to brown, they’ve gone too far.  Cool to room temperature.

It is suggested that at this point you can refrigerate them on the tray because as the cream cheese and butter get cold, they’re easier to pick up. It is a good tip.  These cookies are best served straight out of the fridge.

These will keep for up to a week in the fridge or can be frozen for longer (and then thawed in fridge).

Simple recipes are always loved. But it’s rare that a simple recipe makes you think, Huh? What?! I mean, you can be surprised at how easy a recipe is and what marvelous results it yields despite its ease. But how often are you surprised-surprised by a recipe? One that contains less than five ingredients yet tastes like it’s been cooking all day? And/or is comprised of many ingredients that you can’t put your finger on because they marry so harmoniously?

Enter Marcella Hazan’s famous tomato, onion and butter sauce. Reproduced by many of the big name bloggers, this pasta sauce makes jaws drop and tongues wag. A quick simmer of, wait for it, a can of tomatoes, one onion and some butter, leaves you with one of the most delicious and satisfying red sauces ever.

We’re raised on simple and perfect marinara and pomodoro sauces that usually start with garlic sautéed in olive oil, maybe with some onions, tomatoes and almost always with some form of fresh or dried herbage. That is red sauce.

Sorry, this is red sauce. And shockingly, there’s no garlic, no olive oil, no sautéing. Cut an onion in half, stick it in the saucepan with the tomatoes and the butter, read a few magazine articles, cook some pasta, and then eat the lusciousness that some people say doesn’t even need cheese. I couldn’t be that rebellious but encourage you to try.

Tomato, Onion and Butter Sauce
Adapted from Marcella Hazan

28 oz canned whole peeled tomatoes (the best that you can find, e.g., San Marzano)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium-sized yellow onion, peeled and halved
Salt to taste
1 lb of pasta

Put the tomatoes, onion and butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring the sauce to a simmer then lower the heat to keep the sauce at a slow, steady simmer for about 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, crushing the tomatoes against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Remove from heat, discard the onion, and add salt to taste. Reduce heat to low while you prepare your pasta.

When I was looking for some salad inspiration, I ran across a crostini recipe by Jamie Oliver that I thought sounded rather unique as it brought together lemon, chilies and fresh mozzarella. To avoid more carbs at a pasta meal, I created a salad that followed a similar theme. Atop greens dressed in a balsamic vinaigrette, I added tomatoes, mozzarella and chopped chilies. I spooned more dressing over the top and then sprinkled with lemon zest.

Today’s Special:  Bagel crevices

When I slice open a bagel and see a large hole, I know it’s going to be a good day. Today’s Special was created for moments such as these.  Small pleasures, such as a bagel crevice full of melted butter, that can turn a frown upside down.

Photo: Alexandra's Kitchen

The internet is a great source for all things foodie, and we’re constantly bookmarking, starring, and emailing intriguing recipes, food porn, and inspiration. Here’s a selection of clippings we think are worth checking out.

These buttermilk scones have me all hot and bothered.

DIY brown sugar? Here’s how.

Sometimes, non-alcoholic beverages are needed and wanted. This list of DIY sodas (no high-fructose corn syrup!) looks like a good place to start.

Next time you make guacamole, don’t just mix all the ingredients at once. Try this technique, which involves letting the garlic hang out in the lime juice for a bit.

How do chefs cook everything in butter (rendering them delicious) but never worry about it burning? Clarified butter. Make some!

If I inspired you to make your own ricotta, perhaps you should use it to make these lemon ricotta cookies?

Love, hey?  Maybe not so much. 

My bake-a-thons become like a night of heavy drinking.  The next day I swear “I’m never going to do that again.”  My nausea comes in the form of the dishes upon dishes waiting to be cleaned.  My headache is the flour and sugar and spices that coat the floor.  The spins occur as I curse my inadequate kitchen equipment.

But like any good party, the fond and fun memories come to the fore as the headache fades.  And the next time you are in a similar situation, you don’t pass on the wine.  Hangover shmangover.

I’d do dishes upon dishes upon dishes for the feeling I get when someone says they enjoy my cookies.

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Whipped shortbread is my “must.”  It’s the only cookie that holds any Christmas nostalgia for me.

Without fail, Christmas dinners at my aunt’s old house would end with movement toward the basement for cozy couches and a wood-burning fireplace.  Festive festive.  My little girl ears were always overstimulated with adult conversation and a crackling fireplace.  Respite from the storm?  A jaunt to the furnace room where the deep freeze lived.  I would be on tiptoe as the frozen coffin revealed its cold wonders.  A tin would be reached for and opened right there and then.  Whipped shortbread branded with red and green maraschino halves.  Solid, cold, white like snow.  The tin would be brought to those round the fire for late-night snacking and added holiday indulgence.  My preference was always for the one I ate while the freezer top closed.  Cold on my lips with a noticeable bite; the butter not yet warm enough to leave greasy fingertips in my warm embrace or melt too quickly in my mouth.  Like a nice Christmas kiss.

I’ve left the maraschinos in the 1980s. 

Whipped Shortbread

1 pound unsalted butter (454 grams)

1 cup icing sugar

0.5 cup cornstarch

3 cups flour

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Cream butter. 

Sift together icing sugar, cornstarch, and flour.

Beat together dry ingredients, butter, and vanilla until the consistency of whipped cream (I use only a handheld mixer, hence the cursing.)

Drop by teaspoonful onto parchment lined cookie sheets.

(I flatten slightly with a fork.)

Bake for 8–10 minutes.

Makes 60+ cookies.