Christmas Crescents

This special cookie recipe was included in the Chicago Tribune holiday cookie contest. It was submitted by Bim (Barbara) with her personal essay, which honors Joey and Vince's Nana. Her essay follows the recipe.

½ lb. butter
½ lb. cream cheese
2 cups flour
1 egg
1 jar pineapple preserves
Confectioner’s sugar

PASTRY:
In a stand up mixer, with the paddle, cream butter and cream cheese. Add flour and egg. Combine into soft dough. (You can do this by hand also.) Roll in waxed paper and refrigerate several hours or overnight.

TO ASSEMBLE COOKIES:
When the dough is chilled, remove a portion, place it on a floured surface, and roll with a rolling pin until it is very thin. Cut into circles with a biscuit cutter or a drinking glass (approximately 2 ½ inches diameter). Place about ½ teaspoon pineapple preserves in the middle of the circle, then fold the pastry over, so that it is a half moon shape with the preserves inside the pastry. Press the edges of the pastry together tightly with the tines of a floured fork to seal the edges.

BAKING:
Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 375° for 10–12 minutes until they are just barely beginning to brown. Cool on a rack. When thoroughly cooled, dust a small amount of powdered sugar through a sieve onto the cookies.

TIPS:
The pastry will be more tender if the dough is rolled thin. Too thick, and it gets tough. I have tried this cookie with other types of preserves or jam, but I like the pineapple the best. The cream cheese makes the dough slightly sour tasting so the very sweet taste of the pineapple preserves is yummy. The edges must be sealed tightly with the tines of the fork or the preserves will run out of the cookie. Sometimes, even with a tight seal, a little runs out, or the pastries open up a little during cooking. Don’t worry -- most of the preserves do stay in the cookie. But be sure to bake them on parchment paper or cleaning up the sticky preserves on the pan is a tough job. It might take a few batches to get the hang of this cookie, but it will be worth it. These cookies can be made in advance and frozen until Christmas.


Nana's Christmas Crescents

My father once said my mother taught us all how to love. It was true, though we didn’t realize it as it was happening. She was Christmas spirit in the flesh: warm, caring and giving of herself cheerfully, even joyfully. She filled our home with laughter -- and with beautiful music. (She was a professional vocalist, and I remember hearing her sing the aria from Samson and Delilah as she did her house cleaning. At Christmas, I always waited breathlessly for the high "C" in Gesu Bambino.) She also filled our home with wonderful tastes and aromas, as she was a great cook. How I miss her cooking! She loved to cook for a crowd and was happiest when she had a house full of people. She had a knack for making each person feel like the most important thing in the world to her.

Each Christmas she made several hundred cookies. She would say, "This year I made 692 cookies!" We used to laugh at how she counted each one, but now I and several of my six siblings do the same, making -- and counting -- hundreds of Christmas cookies every year. (Last year my total was 735!) This particular cookie was my mother’s specialty. It was the cookie she made for special people in her life: family and friends, the parish priests, those she really wanted to take care of. This cookie’s unique flavor comes from the contrast of the pleasingly sour dough made with cream cheese, and the sweetness of a filling made with pineapple preserves. It's also a very pretty cookie: crescent-shaped, with regular tine marks along the sealed edges, then a sprinkling of confectioner's sugar like new-fallen snow.

The recipe is somewhat labor intensive, and as a working mother I understand the value of things that are quick and easy. But these confections are worth the work, and you can make it easier by spreading the work over several days. On the first day, make the dough. On the second day, cut, fill, and bake the cookies, though you can also spread this step over a couple of days. These cookies are a good family project; the more hands helping, the faster it goes. My brothers and sisters and I used to help my mother. As a child it seemed almost magical to me that the raw ingredients could turn into these delicate little half moons, each with its dusting of powdered sugar. They were always everyone’s favorite.

I call them "Nana’s Christmas Crescents" because my mother had eleven grandchildren who remember how much fun their Nana was, especially at Christmas. Also, the word "pineapple" in Italian is ananas, from the root nana, meaning "exquisite fruit." And for centuries, a pineapple carved above the door was used to symbolize hospitality. The pineapple thus serves as a tribute to my mother’s generosity of spirit and her talent for making people feel at home.

I hope you enjoy the recipe. Consider it a gift from my mom, who taught us all how to love.