My Granny Neal Only Made Her Famous Maple Coconut Christmas Bars Once a Year

There were always two things on the table when we came into Granny Neal’s living room on Christmas morning: a full set of Norman Rockwell books, as if to instruct us on how that holiday was meant to look, and tins of homemade Christmas cookies. When I was little in the 1970s, I looked forward to Christmas morning with all the eagerness small kids do, but not for the reasons you may think. I liked the gifts well enough, and the twinkly lights on the tree were mesmerizing, but for me it was all about those tins of cookies.

I grew up on a commune in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, with all the austerity that implies. We raised the food we ate, inclusive of chickens, some rather nasty rams, honeybees, and vast gardens my father expertly tended. We made massive quantities of food to feed the commune and additionally sold granola and beeswax candles (made from the aforementioned beehives) at fairs and co-ops. It was an earnest lifestyle, to say the least. Raisins and carob were pawned off on me as candy, from my well-intending hippie parents. I ended up a pastry chef, so you can clearly see how I ultimately responded to their dietary restrictions. The only time of year I was permitted to eat sugar, and as much as I wanted, was at my Granny’s house on Christmas. 

Granny Neal had rituals she never strayed from on that Rockwellian holiday. Every year all the kids in the house would line up at the top of the stairs until Granny, perfectly coiffed and bejeweled, slowly drank her cup of coffee. When the anticipation at the top of the stairs had reached a frenetic crescendo, she’d announce the festivities had begun and we’d slide down the banister to find presents under the tree. Her coffee, as if by magic, would become a tumbler of white wine on ice, and she’d have a cigarette elegantly balanced between her fingers, like a movie star. 

I don’t recall any other occasion when my granny cooked or baked — except the dozens of Christmas cookies she’d make for that one day a year. There were decorative tins of them on every table, in every room. I would search through the layers of cookies within each tin for my favorites, digging past the Russian tea cakes and peanut butter kisses to find the shortbread cookies that had a sticky coconut topping and a rich, buttery bottom. As the day progressed, the exhaustion of post-Christmas revelry always had a way of turning things a bit melancholy, but I would hunker into the couch with a tin of her blissful cookies and savor another year of the sweetness of Christmas, because I knew the next day it was back to carob. 

These cookies are a combination of my Granny’s coconut bars, which I later realized came straight from the pages of The Ladies Home Journal, and my own need to add a modern spin to her traditional bars. I browned the butter in the crust, so the cookies have a toasty, rich, nuttiness. In homage to my hippie Vermont roots, I also added a bit of pure maple syrup to the sticky coconut layer to give it a more complex flavor and hit of nostalgia. They are still very much reminiscent of the delicious layered Christmas bars my Granny made, but sometimes traditions can be added to and made anew, without losing their original magic.

My Granny has long passed, with her went the wine and cigarettes, but I was just at my dad’s house and he still has her set of Norman Rockwell books prominently displayed, and I will make these cookies in her honor.

At Kitchn, our editors develop and debut brand-new recipes on the site every single week. But at home, we also have our own tried-and-true dishes that we make over and over again — because quite simply? We love them. Kitchn Love Letters is a series that shares our favorite, over-and-over recipes.