Gingerbread aside, we don’t tend to celebrate Christmas with biscuits here in the UK, unless you count the entire tartan variety tin of shortbread you eat by mistake in a low moment in mid-January. In the US, however, biscuits (cookies) are A Big Deal, and almost a competitive sport. Taking their cue from the Germanic and Scandinavian tradition of plätzchen and lebkuchen, the American holiday cookie platter is, Chicago-based food writer Tim Mazurek explains, “a generous fantasia where butter cookies decorated like angels mingle with rugelach and rum balls. The cookie platter doesn’t care about your religion, or lack of one. It welcomes everyone and promises that you’ll find something you like.”
I was completely unaware of this custom until an American-born friend appeared on my doorstep last December bearing a handsomely wrapped package of no fewer than seven varieties of biscuit, so count me a convert, Lord. Less divisive than mince pies and fruitcake, and considerably easier than panettone, biscuits keep and travel well, and are open to all manner of glitzy customisation, making them the ideal edible present. Here I’ve stuck to the simplest sort, the rolled vanilla cookie, but once you’ve mastered that, the world is your glittery gift platter.
