It is well known among the members of the Tea Adventurers' Guild that Auntie Duchess has a secret recipe book, the contents of which are quite coveted. However, despite even the best efforts of Mittens III AND Mittens IV, Auntie Duchess seemed to be impervious to all manner of winkling. It was only when thoroughly plied with a batch of the Highlander's Linzer Bars that she agreed to share with us a few select recipes from her book of secrets. Hardly believing our good fortune (and that we hadn't thought of it sooner) we decided that, in keeping with the joyous holiday spirit of giving, we would share our intellectual bounty with you. Below is the recipe for a crowd favorite: ginger creams.

Ginger Creams

The Lady's suggested tea pairings: The Scottish Tea or Alchemy

Yield: Approximately 3 dozen cookies
​
Ingredients:

For cookies:
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup water
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/​2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

For icing:
1 cup sifted confectioner's sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla flavoring (or whatever flavoring you prefer, lemon is also nice)
1 & 1/2 tablespoon cream

For cookies:
Mix butter, sugar, egg, molasses, and water thoroughly.
Sift in flour. Add salt, baking soda, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Blend it all together and chill the dough. Exact length of time for chilling is not too important. You just want the dough to firm up a bit.
​Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. 
Drop dough by teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake about 8 minutes, or until no imprint remains when touched lightly. While still warm, frost with flavored icing. 
Store in a sealed container so they don't dry out. They should be moist and soft.

For icing:
Blend together all icing ingredients and apply to cookies immediately, before it starts to set up.

Note: Getting every lump of confectioner's sugar out of the icing can prove to be an exhausting task. Please don't stress over it. A few small lumps of sugar are entirely undetectable to the mouth. We tested.

The following is a recipe for a most beloved cookie here at the Tea Adventurers' Guild. While we generally try to convince Auntie Duchess to whip them up for us, the procedure is simple enough that any one of us could, with only a minimum level of vexation, prepare them ourselves. However, slight variation is to be expected, depending upon the chef. The Highlander insists he has made them several times, but, likely due to his abiding love of adding Macallan Single Malt to anything near him in the kitchen, none of us can recall.

Linzer Bars

The Lady's suggested tea pairing: Cocoa Dragon or Dark Chocolate

Yield: 24 bars

Ingredients:
1 cup (3 & 3/8 ounces) almond flour (King Arthur suggested)
1 & 1/2 cups (6 & 3/8 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour (King Arthur suggested)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (3 & 3/4 ounces) packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup (4 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into pats
1 large egg
1/2 cup (6 ounces) raspberry preserves
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 9 inch square pan and line it with parchment, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides. Clip the parchment to the sides of the pan.

Spread the almond flour on a sheet pan and bake for 6 to 8 minutes, until it begins to brown. Remove from oven and cool.

Combine the toasted almond flour with the all-purpose flour, cinnamon, salt, and brown sugar in a large bowl. Cut in the butter until the mixture forms sandy pieces. Mix in the egg. Measure out 1 & 1/2 cups of the mixture and set that aside. Pat the rest into the prepared pan.

Mix the raspberry preserves and lemon zest together in a small bowl. Spread the mixture on top of the crust that is already in the pan.

Roll out the remaining crust mixture to 1/4 inch thick. Cut the dough into several 1/2 inch wide strips, and lay them 1 inch apart on top of the jam. Re-roll the scraps as needed to form enough strips to make a grid pattern on top of the jam.

Bake the bars for 25 to 30 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from the oven and cool on a rack. To slice, loosen the edges of the bars from the pan and use the parchment sling to remove the slab from the pan.

Recipe by King Arthur Flour Test Kitchen
Reid, Susan (Holiday 2017). A World of Cookies. Sift: A King Arthur Flour Publication. pg. 76

This post is in no way sponsored, we just happen to be rather fond of this particular treat.