As the winter nights grow longer, desserts fill our dreams and a festive baking spirit settles in.
Among the thousands of recipes for Christmas cookies, The Washington Post has been sharing a healthy batch of holiday cookie recipes written by renowned pastry chefs and cooks.
A recent star cookie came from baker and writer Rose Wilde, the pastry chef at Steve Samson’s Rossoblu Italian restaurant in Los Angeles. Chef Rose shared with the Washington Post a recipe for amaretti cookies dipped in red chocolate ganache that she created after watching actress Marilyn Monroe sing in a fuchsia evening gown in the 1953 film “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”
"Marilyn's best friends may have been diamonds, but mine have always been cookies – and, like diamonds, the greatest ones are stunning and rare," she wrote. "But that doesn't mean they're complicated."
Their mildly sweet nuttiness tastes even better with a touch of ruby chocolate – a nod to Marilyn's glamorous pink party dress. For a gleaming ganache, Chef Rose adds a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil to the “bombshell” chocolate bars instead of cream.
Amaretti cookies are most easily recognized in the square red tins made by the Lazzaroni brand, one of Italy’s oldest industrialized bakeries from the Lombardy region. But as Chef Rose said, these golden gluten-free cookies infused with Amaretto liqueur can be baked and enjoyed at home.
Read on for Rose’s essay and recipe. In addition to her position at Rossoblu, Rose owns Red Bread, a bread and pastry company in Los Angeles that will ship to anywhere in the country while funding a good cause. Fifteen percent of sales go towards culinary education and other initiatives that prevent food insecurity in the Los Angeles area.