<p>What is your favorite Christmas Cookie that you make each year? At our house there are several traditional cookies we make each and every year…but the one we can’t imagine Christmas without are Spritz (those fabulous butter cookies made in the cookie press) and topped with red or green sugar…</p>
<p>^ yep. Couldn’t and wouldn’t imagine a Christmas without them. Brings back many fond memories of making dozens of them with my Grandma years ago…
And I remember hers tasted so much better than the ones I make…</p>
<p>My sister-in-law makes the most fabulous cookies. She makes cut-out sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies that are iced and decorated. Every single one of them is cut out and decorated perfectly. And they are absolutely delicious!</p>
<p>She’s worked for a major corporation for over 30 years, and after seeing/tasting her cookies, they actually contact with her to make cookies for special events, despite the fact they have a corporate dining room with professional chefs!</p>
<p>My kids prefer anything baked by their aunt to anything I bake - and I do too!</p>
<p>Mmmmm…Christmas cookies. Spritz, of course! Mine are cookies in the shape of candy canes, wreaths, and trees, decorated with simple icing made from powdered sugar and milk, tinted red/green/white.</p>
<p>Gingerbread cookies made from the Mrs. Fields cookie book recipe.</p>
<p>Scandinavian nut cookies (thumbprint cookies) filled with grape jelly. Using my grandmother’s recipe.</p>
<p>Not a cookie, but I like to make cheddar cheese bread around Christmastime too. So good.</p>
<p>I make sugar cookies with Jelly center, which was H’s grandmother recipe. I only make it once a year. I make a lot of those cookies, put them in Chinese take out gift box and give them out to kids’ trachers. They all look forward it. Those cookies are basically made of butter, sugar, egg yorks and flour, no water.</p>
<p>Does a Candy Cane Martini count? After all, I leave one out for Santa every Christmas Eve…</p>
<p>;-)</p>
<p>I wonder what would happen to the guy if we all did that, ProudMom. ;)</p>
<p>Our favorite cookies are Russian Teacakes. Easy and addictive so we try to make them only at Christmastime. </p>
<p>Does anyone do a cookie exchange? Many of the senior ladies I work with do them with friends. Some of these folks can really bake and one of the perks of my job is that they usually make up a platter for our staff. Pizelles, homemade Italian cookies (who knew you could even do that?), meringue cookies, elaborately decorated sugar cookies, and other labor-intensive treats.</p>
<p>My mom makes these no bake cookies with crackers, peanut butter, and chocolate. I can’t eat them, but they’re so much fun to make. </p>
<p>Christmas cookies are ridiculous at my house. My mom is already baking them and won’t stop until Christmas. We don’t have much money so she sends people tins of cookies as presents. But she gives them to everyone- family, friends, neighbors, the gas station people, the meter reader, the mail woman, her work, the list goes on. The woman loves her Christmas cookies haha.</p>
<p>ProudMomof2, now “Santa Baby” is on an endless loop in my head! </p>
<p>Spritz were my favorite growing up. My family loves those candy cane cookies from my mom’s old Betty Crocker cookbook. </p>
<p>For Thanksgiving…Turkey cookies…2 vanilla wafers - 1 for base, one for tail, malted milk ball for body, canned chocolate frosting for glue, red mini m&m for wattle, 5 mini m&ms for tail feathers. My kids (and friends) have been making them since they were 5. I, myself, have never eaten one. Can’t get past the thought of all those 5-year-old fingers involved in the construction. :)</p>
<p>Justamom…Can you share the receipe for cheddar cheese bread? It sounds so yummy…</p>
<p>The butter teacakes with chopped nuts and dipped in powdered sugar !</p>
<p>Mmmm can’t wait to start making cookies…I go “crazy” too, but we have so many big kids in and out during the holidays that they all get eaten and the dog always manages to grab a few if one of the kids doesn’t snap the lid tightly shut. I have lots that I make every year, but my personal favorites are classic sugar cookies that melt in your mouth. I make them simple rounds and sprinkle half with red sugar and half of them with green. It took awhile to actually find a recipe that melts in your mouth rather than is doughy and I tried every combination of butter and/or shortening and/or even lard but I found the solution a couple years ago and it’s now a “new tradition.” It’s easy to remember because everything is 1/2 except flour and an egg (and unless you double the recipe). Oooh if I stop reading CC and get my work done maybe I can make a batch today as a surprise for H and S3.</p>
<p>Melt in your mouth sugar cookies:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 tsp. of salt
1/2 tsp of vanilla
1 egg
2 cups of flour
beat the butter, oil, sugar…then add the rest as you continue mixing. Chill the dough before rolling, cutting, hand patting etc. onto baking sheet. Before baking sprinkle with sugar and bake at 375 for 8-12 minutes depending on how “big” you made the cookies…the bottoms should be lightly brown. Transfer to rack and cool.</p>
<p>I also make spritz; they are versatile and it’s easy to turn out a lot of them. (I have one spritz recipe that makes a chocolate almond dough.) I love to make gingerbread boys and girls and personalize them for gifts; I also use them as “place cards” at Christmas dinner. My personal favorite is Maida Heatter’s “Cinnamon Almond Cookies”. Very tasty and made in a jelly roll pan so they are not too labor intensive. I also love pecan tassies . . . when some one else makes them. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Would you mind sharing the recipe? I love these but haven’t found a recipe I like, or that I am willing to spend hours churning out dozens. I go to a cookie exchange each year and would love to take these. Thanks!!</p>
<p>I make a thumbprint cookie- can’t remember the recipe-( maybe from joy of cooking) but it has citrus peel in it, critical is good flour & butter as well as a top notch preserve. More like a shortbread rather than a sugar cookie.</p>
<p>My mom also used to make a rosette cookie that is beautiful & fun.
[Rosettes</a> Cookies Recipes - Christmas Norwegian Cookies - Deep Fried Rosettes Recipes](<a href=“http://busycooks.about.com/od/cookierecipes/r/bestrosettes.htm]Rosettes”>Rosettes Recipe)</p>
<p>katie93mom - Sure! It’s from the Joy of Cookng…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This makes 2 regular size loaves. I’ve also made 6 smaller loaves for gifts.</p>
<p>I’m at work over three more hours without food. This thread is making me soooo hungry.</p>
<p>Yum…In the interest of cooking science I will be testing the cheese bread and sugar cookies today~ I can’t make Spritz until of the decorations are up…</p>
<p>What about Peanut Butter Blossoms with the chocolate star (or kiss) in the center?! Those are my favorite!</p>
<p>This is a roll dough- but to make thumbprints just roll into a walnut sized ball- squish in the center & fill the depression with preserves.
I like boysenberry to go with the lemon.
[Deer</a> Mountain Preserves and Jams, berry jam, raspberry, gooseberry blackberry, strawberry, loganberry, boysenberry, Deer Mountain Berry Farm](<a href=“http://www.deermountainpreserves.com/]Deer”>http://www.deermountainpreserves.com/)</p>
<p>
</p>