Guest Author - Deborah Markus

There's nothing like holiday baking -- it warms the house and the heart. I have friends and family with a wide range of allergies, religions, and food philosophies, and when December hits, I can find something to bake for any and all of them.

Except the chocolate lovers. There are no chocolate holiday cookies.

It's odd, really. Many of us have happy memories of chocolate coins and chocolate Santas. 'Tis the season for chocolate kisses and chocolate-covered peppermint pattie. But go into the kitchen, or your favorite cookbook, or a holiday-themed magazine, and where is the chocolate? They've used it all up in the hot cocoa, and have none to spare for cookies, cakes, or puddings.

I find myself wanting to wrestle with this tradition. I don't want to bruise it, or shake things up too badly. I just want to throw a little chocolate baking into the holiday mix.

Brownies are as nice in December as they are at any other time. If you want to dress them in holiday garb, simply take your favorite recipe -- or mine -- and add a few drops of peppermint extract. If you're feeling really ambitious, wrest a few of those peppermint patties out of the hands of your loved ones and throw them into the batter. You can leave them whole or chop them up a bit. Stir them gently in, and serve the brownies while they're still warm and the patties are wonderfully squooshy.

Chocolate chip cookies also translate very well into winter treats with very little work. Just add a few tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder to the batter. There's something about the double blast of chocolate that seems to be waving a cheerful defiance to the worst of winter. You can also add a few drops of peppermint extract to this batter, or hammer a candy cane into smithereens and throw the fragments into the mix.

My favorite winter bake is shortbread. It's so simple and sweet, a gentle contrast to all the busy, heavy desserts we're surrounded by. This year it occurred to me that, as much as I love my plain three-ingredient butter-flavored shortbread, cocoa shortbread would be almost as simple and just as good.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Soften up three-fourths of a cup (a stick and a half) of butter. With an electric mixer, cream in half a cup of granulated sugar. Take your time -- you really want this to be light and fluffy.

Add some unsweetened cocoa powder. I like to use three tablespoons, for a rich chocolate flavor; two will give you a milder taste. Still using the mixer, beat this in thoroughly.

Now clean off your beaters and get out your heaviest wooden spoon. Add two cups of flour, a half a cup at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and roll it out to about ¼ inch thick. Cut it into whatever shape you like -- rough rectangles are nice for shortbread, as are small circles. These won't get much bigger in the oven, so whatever size you cut out, that's basically what you're going to end up with on your plate.

Bake the cookies for about fifteen minutes, turning the tray around halfway through. Take them out and let them cool thoroughly. I like my shortbread a little on the soft side; if you do too, leave it on the tray to cool. If you prefer very crisp cookies, transfer them to a wire rack.

Enjoy what may be the beginning of a new tradition.