Cocoa vanilla cookies - getting a start on Christmas posts!

It's raining cats and dogs outside, as I write this post. Tomorrow's a bank holiday and I'm putting up the Christmas tree, though I've already been spreading some of the usual decors around the house, my son's insistence making me cave, as always. This post is not going up until Friday, when it's already December, and it will start the festivities when it comes to Christmas- y posts. The truth is, I can never beat last December when it comes to beautiful Christmas posts, I think I managed to outdo myself and set the bar far too high. I don't think I've managed to take better photos nor do better styling the rest of the year. Those posts were the best this blog has ever seen, and they are still the best. There hasn't been a dethroning of them posts. I only hope I can come close to it.

I won't be sharing many homemade Christmas presents, this year, mostly because my mind's been a blank about it. Most food blogs are doing it, this time of the year, sharing goodies you can bake or make at home so you can gift your loved ones, and there's so much inspiration out there I get a bit overwhelmed. Also, I have done quite a few of those last year, and you can always refer to this post, for a spot of homemade vanilla essence, or this one, for my vanilla sugar, and even this one, featuring seasoning mixes of herbs and salt both for fish and meat. If you're feeling rather more adventurous, last year our hampers featured miniature homemade panettones and you can get the recipe here. But to me, the star of last Christmas were these tiny cupcakes that make for a so pretty gift worthy of a snow queen or fairy of sorts.

Of course I will also suggest that if you're looking for Christmas gifts, you could go ahead and offer my eBook, sold here, or wait for my upcoming novel, which should be out soon enough. Books are always a good thing, and in this fast paced, technologically savvy society of ours, an eBook comes quite handy, as you can read it on the go on your tablet, or iphone, your android and even your laptop. Books are always welcome, if I do say so myself. Much like cookies, I think. Homemade cookies are special, they taste different, they warm you up in a way storebought cookies cannot do. These keep for the longest time, you have no idea, and they retain all their flavour and their freshness. I am a sucker for chocolate so to me, nothing beats a smouldering cup of milky tea and a couple of chocolate cookies on those days that, much like today, rain pours down non stop and I feel chilled to the bone!

So here's the how to for these babies:

• 1 tsp baking powder
• 100 gr butter
• 175 gr sugar
• 1 egg
• 50 ml milk
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 50 gr unsweetened cocoa powder 
• 325 gr flour

Mix the flour with the baking powder and the cocoa on a smooth surface. Make a hole in the middle. of this mix with your fingers. Place the rest of the ingredients on that hole, and slowly add the flour to them, kneading the dough gently until it's smooth and silky. Wrap it up in cling film and refrigerate it for 30 minutes. After that time, bring it out and roll the dough into about 3mm thick. YOu can cut into whatever shape you want, if you have cookie cutters you can pull all the stops! Bake in a pre heated oven at 170º c for about 15 minutes, and then let them cool on a rack. Once they are cold, you can fill jars and tins with these babies, they will keep for quite sometime! Gift a tin to those you love, and they won't forget the gesture - nor these cookies, I assure you!