Galletas de Navidad or Tita’s Christmas Cookies

Do you have a special cookie recipe that you just absolutely must make each Christmas? One that actually defines the holidays for you? Maybe your family is like ours and each parent brings their own must-have cookie to the mix. For us the special Christmas cookies are the Chocolate Drops that my grandma and now my stepmom makes each December, and Tita’s Galletas de Navidad (Abuelita’s Christmas Cookies). Because Tita lives so far away from us it’s up to me to make the Galletas de Navidad and bring the taste of Christmas into our home.

We’re not sure where the recipe for Galletas de Navidad came from – Tita grew up eating them but we don’t know how the recipe came into her family. They’re vaguely german – somewhere between pfeffernusse cookies, lebkuchen and springerle. We roll the cookies out and cut them into shapes, then glaze them with a lemon sugar icing. The warm Christmas spices of cinnamon, anise and nutmeg give a great traditional flavor and the cookies keep well too.

Galletas de Navidad / Tita’s Christmas Cookies
makes approx. 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup honey
• 1 egg
• 1 TBS cinnamon
• 2 TBS cocoa powder
• 1 TBS ground cloves
• 1 tsp anise seeds steeped in 1 TBS hot water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1/4 cup water
• 5 cups flour

Directions

1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

2. Mix in the honey, egg, cinnamon, cocoa powder, cloves, salt and anise seed (with the water it was steeped in).

3. Mix in 3 cups of the flour and the baking soda with its water.

4. Mix in the remaining 2 cups of flour one at a time.

5. Chill for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator.

6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

7. Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness, cut out shapes with cookie cutters and put them on baking sheets lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

8. Bake cookies for 8 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet and then cool completely on racks.

9. Ice with your favorite sugar cookie icing or (our favorite) a simple confectioner’s sugar and lemon glaze.