Christmas Cornmeal Cookies — The Corn That Brings It All Together

Helen's Wheat went on the Lakefront taproom board on Wednesday. I saw it when I came in for my shift. Just a name on a chalkboard, handwritten by the taproom manager: HELEN'S WHEAT — Honey Wheat Ale w/ Rye — Jake K. My throat closed up. I stood there like an idiot until Marcus walked by and said, "You going to stare at it or are you going to brew more of it?" which snapped me out of it. It sold well. Really well. The taproom poured through the first keg by Friday night. Marcus said the feedback was overwhelmingly positive — the honey note was the thing people kept mentioning. One guy apparently said it was "the best wheat beer in Milwaukee," which is a bold claim in a city with a lot of wheat beers, but I'm not going to argue with the man. I brought Mom and Dad to the taproom on Saturday. This is not their scene — Mom drinks white wine and Dad drinks Miller Lite, and a craft brewery with Edison bulbs and reclaimed wood makes them both visibly uncomfortable. But they came. Dad ordered a Helen's Wheat, and he drank it slowly, and he looked at the chalkboard, and he said, "Helen's Wheat." Just the name. Then he drank some more. Mom ordered one too, even though she doesn't like beer, and she took a sip and said, "I can taste the honey," and then she took a picture of the chalkboard and sent it to Aunt Debbie and Uncle Stan and probably everyone at church. The best moment was when a couple at the bar — strangers, maybe in their fifties — asked the bartender what Helen's Wheat was named after. The bartender pointed at me and said, "His grandmother." The woman looked at me and said, "That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard." The man raised his glass. I don't think I'll ever forget that. At home, I'm deep into summer cooking. Made a batch of Polish-style grilled corn this week — charred on the grill, then slathered with butter, sprinkled with smoked paprika and fresh dill, finished with a squeeze of lemon. It's not traditional — Babcia never grilled corn in her life — but it's Polish-adjacent in that it uses butter and dill, which are basically the Polish national condiments. The corn was sweet and smoky and perfect, the kind of thing you eat with your hands at a cookout while beer runs down your arm. I'm twenty-one and I have a beer named after my grandmother on a taproom board in Milwaukee. This is not the life I planned. It's better.

The week Helen’s Wheat debuted on the taproom board, I found myself cooking with corn in every form I could find — grilled cobs slicked with butter, cornmeal stirred into batter — because something about that grainy, golden sweetness felt right for a moment this big. These Christmas Cornmeal Cookies landed in my rotation the same way the beer did: by accident, through instinct, and with butter at the center of everything. Babcia would have approved of a cookie this simple and this good.

Christmas Cornmeal Cookies

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup fine yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries, roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons coarse sugar or sparkling sugar, for topping

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
3. Add wet ingredients. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract until fully incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
4. Mix dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry mixture to the butter mixture and stir until a soft dough forms. Fold in the dried cranberries.
5. Scoop and press. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Gently flatten each cookie with the palm of your hand to about 1/2-inch thickness. Sprinkle the tops with coarse sugar.
6. Bake. Bake for 11—13 minutes, until the edges are just golden and the centers look set. Do not overbake — they firm up as they cool.
7. Cool. Let cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 148 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 8g | Carbs: 18g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 42mg