Mathou's Christmas cookie recipe
Who is Mathou?
Mathou is part of the small Waïloa team. Every year, as soon as the cold settles over the Pyrenees, she brings out the same Christmas cookie recipe — the one she's been making for years, partly out of family tradition, partly because it makes the whole workshop smell divine. This year, she agreed to share it with you.
She's not a trained pastry chef — more the type to test, fail and try again until she finds the version everyone on the team loves. It's that version, the definitive one according to her, that we're sharing with you today.
The recipe, step by step
Ingredients (for about thirty cookies)
- 250 g flour
- 125 g softened butter
- 100 g sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 pinch of salt
- A little powdered sugar for decoration
Method
Mix the softened butter and sugar until creamy. Add the egg, then gradually work in the flour, cinnamon, ginger and salt. Shape the dough into a ball, wrap it in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for at least an hour — the step Mathou never skips, even when she's short on time.
Then roll out the dough to about 5 mm thick, cut out your favorite shapes (stars, Christmas trees, reindeer...) and bake at 180°C for 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are just starting to turn golden. Let them cool before dusting with powdered sugar.
Mathou's tips
For a more fragrant version, she sometimes adds orange zest to the dough. And if you don't have ground ginger on hand, a pinch of nutmeg works very well too.
These cookies keep easily for about ten days in an airtight tin — enough to last until the holidays, as long as you can resist tasting them every day.
A recipe to share
At Waïloa, we love these little traditions that have nothing to do with clothes but are part of the team's end-of-year atmosphere. If you try Mathou's recipe, we'd love to see the result.
