Christmas Cookies: Biscochitos and Dark Chocolate with Sour Cherries

I tried two new recipes from Martha Stewart's Cookies.  The Dark Chocolate with Sour Cherries was not a recipe I thought I would love.  I don't bake chocolate cookies, although I do appreciate a good chocolate cake and love dark chocolate.    I love these cookies.  The chocolate is dark, rich and chewy with occasional bites of fruity dried cherry that are just the right contrast in the rich chocolate cookie.  I plan to make these every Christmas.  They're going into my Christmas File.  They were not hard to make. 

Then I became intrigued by the Biscochitos, also in Martha's Cookie book.  This is, apparently, the state cookie of New Mexico.  I couldn't imagine the flavor of a cookie that contains vanilla, Grand Marnier, orange zest, anise seeds and cinnamon and lard (in addition to the usual cookie ingredients).  Well, this dough almost went into the trash.  It was sooo soft that I almost couldn't work with it.  I didn't have the traditional shape of cookie cutter so I used my chicken cutter.  The dough kept becoming messed up as I tried to transfer it from the dough board to the cookie sheet.  I finally got enough cookies cut out to bake some of them.  The flavor turned out to be really good.  I was so glad I stuck with these.  I love that combination of flavors.  The texture is softly crisp.  The next time I make these (And I WILL make these again), I'll probably cut them into square or diamond shapes so I don't waste any dough scraps and will be able to transfer them more easily.

 Both of these are now definitely added to our favorites.