Christmas cookies

[thyme4change]

What are your best cookie recipes (or ideas)?

I'm bored of my two best - chocolate chip and decorated butter.

What else should be in my cookie jar this year?

[billisonboard]

Dec 13, 2020 10:03:56 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

What are your best cookie recipes (or ideas)?

I'm bored of my two best - chocolate chip and decorated butter.

What else should be in my cookie jar this year?

My hand.

[Miss Tequila]

I love pepper cookies! 

Since I have nothing but time on my hands, I decided to make the decorated sugar cookies.  Holy freaking nightmare!  They came out absolutely adorable but it took me about 8 hours, all in.  I told my dd to enjoy them because never again!  Or at least I won't make them again until Valentines Day when I can do all one color.  I didn't think through all of the different icing and tips I would need to make Frosty, Christmas Trees and santa...I'm not this crafty!lol

[giramomma]

I made walnut bars (two batches, one didn't last a day, and 6 people), 7 layer bars, cream cheese mints, working out cut out cookies if Miss M would stop locking herself in rooms. <sigh>.

Fudge, peanut butter blossoms, m&m cookies, thumbprint cookies with home made jam from a friend are also on the list.

Maybe snickerdoodles.

[irishpad]

My niece is 18.  When she was about 3 she was "helping" her mom make Christmas cookies.  Her job was to put the sprinkles on the cookies.   Mom had her phone camera on.  When mom turned to put a batch of cookies in the oven, my niece would take the sprinkles and eat them straight from the bottle, everything caught on camera.    We laughed so hard and tease her to this day about that episode.  

[thyme4change]

Dec 13, 2020 10:49:49 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

I love pepper cookies! 

Since I have nothing but time on my hands, I decided to make the decorated sugar cookies.  Holy freaking nightmare!  They came out absolutely adorable but it took me about 8 hours, all in.  I told my dd to enjoy them because never again!  Or at least I won't make them again until Valentines Day when I can do all one color.  I didn't think through all of the different icing and tips I would need to make Frosty, Christmas Trees and santa...I'm not this crafty!lol

Decorated cut out cookies take me so long. And then my family runs in and eats them in like 12 minutes.

Argg

[empress of self-improvement]

Chocolate crinkles. My mother used to make those.

[billisonboard]

Norwegian Krumkake.

[Deleted]

Chocolate chip cookies aren't Christmas cookies! Sheesh. They're anytime cookies.

I have a couple of recipes for "real" Christmas cookies. 

Spritz

1 lb butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 whole egg plus 2 yolks
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup finely ground almonds (optional)

Cream butter and sugar.
Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
Add flour sifted with baking powder, a little at a time, mixing by hand.

Push through cookie press onto ungreased cookie sheet.

If you like, sprinkle colored sugar on cookies before baking.

Bake at 380F about 10-12 minutes until cookies are browned lightly around edges.

Tip: If using the ground almonds, make sure they are finely ground so that the dough doesn't stick in the cookie press.

Stained Glass Refrigerator Cookies

1 stick butter or margarine, softened
1 cup brown sugar, packed tightly
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp grated orange rind
1-3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt1 tsp baking powder

1 cup diced candied fruit
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Beat together butter/margarine, sugar, egg, vanilla and orange rind.
Combine dry ingredients and add a little at a time, mixing well.

Add candied fruit and chopped nuts.

Chill dough and either roll into logs about 2" in diameter, wrap in plastic wrap and freeze before cutting into 1/2" slices OR drop chilled dough onto cookie sheet by spoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 400F for 6-8 minutes.

To keep stained glass cookies soft and chewy, keep them in a tightly covered container with a slice of white bread or a section of orange on top.


Mincemeat Cookies

The only good use of mincemeat!

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup shortening
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 beaten eggs
1/2 of a 28-oz jar of mincement

Sift dry ingredients. Cream shortening and sugar, add beaten eggs and beat until smooth. 
Stir in mincemeat.
Add flour mixture, mixing well.

Chill.

Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375F for 10-12 minutes.


Peanut Butter Blossoms

1 18oz jar creamy peanut butter (2 cups)
1-1/4 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
48 Hershey's kisses (a 9oz bag has 53 of them)

flour for rolling

Preheat oven to 350F. 

Stir peanut butter, sugar, eggs until thoroughly blended.
With floured hands, roll into 1-1/4" balls.

Place cookies 1-1/2 apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 12-14 minutes until tops crack (they might smell like they're burning while baking).

While the cookies are baking, unwrap kisses.

Remove cookies from oven and quickly press a kiss into the middle of each while still on the cookie sheet.

Let them sit for at least five minutes before very gently moving the cookies from the cookie sheet to a cooling rack. Let cool for a couple of hours.

[Deleted]

I'll post these in the recipes section, too. There's no section for cookies so they'll go in the "Desserts" section.

The peanut butter blossoms roll easier if the dough is chilled. This is a good recipe to make with kids.

The stained glass cookies are easier if made like drop cookies because the "logs" start thawing before you can get them all uniformly sliced.

IIRC, the stained glass ones make about 3 dozen, the mincemeat 3-4 dozen, the spritz about 10 dozen.

[Knee Deep in Water Chloe]

Dec 13, 2020 10:41:04 GMT -5 billisonboard said:

Dec 13, 2020 10:03:56 GMT -5 thyme4change said:

What are your best cookie recipes (or ideas)?

I'm bored of my two best - chocolate chip and decorated butter.

What else should be in my cookie jar this year?

My hand.

[giramomma]

I've learned to bake the cut out cookies  on a separate day from decorating.

We don't get all fancy like with the piping. And with 6 people, it takes like 30 minutes to decorate them.

When DS was a preschooler, he'd put on like an inch of sprinkles, jimmies etc on the cookie. It was easy to figure out which ones were his.

[Ava]

I can post my alfajores de maizena cookies.
I can tell you, they are very different from traditional American cookies and always a hit. Everybody loves them.
I posted the recipe a couple of years ago, but I'll post it again. 
Probably tomorrow because I'm going out right now and I have to get ready.

[cktc]

I like to do almond brittle, and peppermint meringues, but the rolo turtle pretzel cookies are everyone's favorite and super easy to make so they will probably be the only ones we make this year.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Cook's Illustrated just published a recipe for soft, spicy, not horribly sweet gingerbread cookies that I made once and will probably make again.  You throw everything in a food processor.

3c flour
3/4c packed dark brown sugar
1T cinnamon
1T ground ginger
3/4t baking soda
1/2t cloves
1/2 t salt
12T melted butter
3/4c molasses
2T milk

Throw dry ingredients into the food processor to mix.  Add the rest and process until no streaks of flour remain and a soft dough forms.  Turn out onto a sprayed countertop with cooking spray and knead into a ball.  Divide ball in half, form into a disk, wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate.  
Work with one disk at a time, roll out between parchment about 1/4” thick, cut cookies out and put on parchment lined cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 deg 9-11 min until puffy and just set around the edges.  Let cookies sit on sheet until cool (this cooks them a bit longer).  

You can decorate with icing, but we like them plain.

[Deleted]

Dec 13, 2020 13:18:31 GMT -5 cktc said:

The rolo turtle pretzel cookies are everyone's favorite and super easy to make so they will probably be the only ones we make this year.

I'd forgotten about these! They are good and so easy to make. Another one that would be good to make with kids.

[Deleted]

I don't make cookies but I just drooled on my phone when a friend posted photos of oatmeal cookies with caramel chips.  He's diabetic so they are working to find recipes that fit his needs.  He said they taste like apple pie

[Deleted]

cktc I can't find the note where I wrote down instructions for Rolo turtles. Is it mini-pretzel, Rolo, soften in the oven at 200F for a few minutes, then press a pecan half on top? I haven't made them for years and just plain can't remember.

[wvugurl26]

Chocolate caramel chip cookies. Hershey's sells the bags of salted caramel chips. Recipe is on back of bag.

[cktc]

Dec 13, 2020 15:35:00 GMT -5 @missrigby said:

cktc I can't find the note where I wrote down instructions for Rolo turtles. Is it mini-pretzel, Rolo, soften in the oven at 200F for a few minutes, then press a pecan half on top? I haven't made them for years and just plain can't remember.

300 and 4 minutes.  The recipe is usually on the rolo bag too.

[dannylion]

Every year I say I'm going to try to replicate the candy-cane cookies my mom used to make, and every year goes by without my having done so.  I don't have the recipe, but they were not particularly elaborate.  I think the dough is just sugar cookie dough with almond extract flavoring.  The dough is divided in half with one half dyed red.  Ropes of dough are made from each color, which are twisted together and then formed into a candy cane shape.  The cookies are sprinkled with crushed peppermint candy cane before baking.  When I eventually make them, I think I'll just make almond-flavored sugar cookies with smushed candy cane on top and forego the fuss of making them into candy cane colors and shapes.  The almond flavored cookie with the peppermint candy on top was one of my favorite Christmas flavor memories.  I should make some.  

[lynnerself]

Dec 13, 2020 16:11:06 GMT -5 dannylion said:

Every year I say I'm going to try to replicate the candy-cane cookies my mom used to make, and every year goes by without my having done so.  I don't have the recipe, but they were not particularly elaborate.  I think the dough is just sugar cookie dough with almond extract flavoring.  The dough is divided in half with one half dyed red.  Ropes of dough are made from each color, which are twisted together and then formed into a candy cane shape.  The cookies are sprinkled with crushed peppermint candy cane before baking.  When I eventually make them, I think I'll just make almond-flavored sugar cookies with smushed candy cane on top and forego the fuss of making them into candy cane colors and shapes.  The almond flavored cookie with the peppermint candy on top was one of my favorite Christmas flavor memories.  I should make some.  

I remember seeing this recipe in an old Betty Crocker cook book. I looked, but it must have been in one I no longer have, maybe in storage somewhere. Given to me almost 50 years ago.

[dannylion]

Dec 13, 2020 16:26:46 GMT -5 lynnerself said:

Dec 13, 2020 16:11:06 GMT -5 dannylion said:

Every year I say I'm going to try to replicate the candy-cane cookies my mom used to make, and every year goes by without my having done so.  I don't have the recipe, but they were not particularly elaborate.  I think the dough is just sugar cookie dough with almond extract flavoring.  The dough is divided in half with one half dyed red.  Ropes of dough are made from each color, which are twisted together and then formed into a candy cane shape.  The cookies are sprinkled with crushed peppermint candy cane before baking.  When I eventually make them, I think I'll just make almond-flavored sugar cookies with smushed candy cane on top and forego the fuss of making them into candy cane colors and shapes.  The almond flavored cookie with the peppermint candy on top was one of my favorite Christmas flavor memories.  I should make some.  

I remember seeing this recipe in an old Betty Crocker cook book. I looked, but it must have been in one I no longer have, maybe in storage somewhere. Given to me almost 50 years ago.

I would not be surprised if that was where Mom got the recipe.  I remember she had a Betty Crocker cookbook.  Sadly, I think I did not manage to get home with that when I packed up the house (with the assistance of an estate company who packed most of the boxes) after my dad passed away.  I don't know what happened to my mom's recipes.  I'm hoping they are in one of the boxes in the basement, but I fear they are not.  At present, they are sort of Shroedinger's recipes -- I will not know whether they are there until I open all the boxes and learn whether they are in any of them.  

[lynnerself]

dannylion

Look what Google found

www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/candy-cane-cookies/93832e29-3b4f-4977-ae5a-9820053b254c

I notice peppermint extract, not almond though.

[dannylion]

Dec 13, 2020 17:46:20 GMT -5 lynnerself said:

dannylion

Look what Google found

www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/candy-cane-cookies/93832e29-3b4f-4977-ae5a-9820053b254c

I notice peppermint extract, not almond though.

Thanks, lynnerself!  Those do look exactly like the cookies my mom made.  But I know she was making them long before 1963 because I remember helping put the crushed candy on them when I was 7 or 8, and the recipe link mentions the peppermint-flavored ones are from 1963 when I would have been 15.  Maybe the almond-flavored ones were an earlier version.  In any event, replacing peppermint extract with almond extract is an easy thing to do, so maybe I will manage to make them this year.  

[happyhoix]

Cowboy cookies and snickerdoodles probably

[jerseygirl]

All the cookie recipes sound so delicious! Jersyguy is borderline for diabetes but avoiding sugar allows avoiding meds. So no cookies in this house when it’s just the 2 of us
So this year will be satisfied just thinking about the scent taste crunch and gorgeous variety at Christmas

[lynnerself]

I make these cookies that I have no name for. Not usually for Christmas. They are extra chewy. With oats, coconut, Grapenuts cereal and macadamia nuts.

[crazycat]

I usually bake dozens and dozens of cookies . Spritz , snickerdoodles , oatmeal raisin, oatmeal butterscotch.  I also make fudge , mini bundts and or mini loaves , chocolate covered pretzels , crockpot moonshine , etc . Normally I make up a big platter for each of DH’s employees ( 15) , plus friends and family . This year though I’m not really feeling it . So I haven’t even made up a list at this point . 

[finnime]

For the past few years I've made many dozens of these, with a recipe I created. I call them Hum a Few Bars.