My all-time favorite family tradition is cooking baking with my mom’s side of the family the Friday after Thanksgiving. While others are out fighting crowds in shopping malls, we women (me, when I am home, my grandma, my mom, my two aunts, my sister-in-law, my mom’s cousin and my cousin’s wife) are pumping out hundreds of dozens of Christmas cookies in a day. We have been doing this for almost 2 decades now and have gone through a lot of cookie recipes. Today I am going to share with you a few of the recipes that have stood the test of time and are some favorites for our family.
Peanut Blossoms
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
1 cup peanut butter chips
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/3 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup finely shopped nuts (optional)
granulated sugar
1 bag (9 ounces) Hershey’s Chocolate Kisses
Directions
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In saucepan over low heat, place butter and peanut butter chips; heat; stirring constantly, until melted.
3. Pour mixture into large mixer bowl; add brown sugar, eggs and vanilla, beating until well-blended.
4. Stir in flour, baking soda and nuts, blending well.
5. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar, place on ungreased cookie sheet.
6. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately place unwrapped chocolate piece on top of each cookie, pressing down so cookie cracks around edges. Remove from cookie sheet to cool.
Cowboy Cookies
Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup vegetable shortening
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup sifted flour
2 cups oatmeal
1 cup shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 6 ounce bag of chocolate chips (almost 3 cups)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Directions
1. Cream both sugars, shortening and eggs.
2. Mix in remaining ingredients.
3. Bake 13 minutes at 350 degrees
Chocolate Amaretto Balls
Ingredients
3 (6 ounces) packages chocolate morsels
1 (14 ounces) can sweetened condensed milk
3 tablespoons amaretto liqueur
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Finely chopped almonds (nuts)
Directions
1. In heavy saucepan over low heat, melt morsels with condensed milk.
2. Remove from heat. Stir in amaretto and almond extract.
3. Chill two hours. Shape into ¾ inch balls. Roll in nuts. Chill until firm.
4. Store at room temperature in tightly covered container.
Peanut Butter Temptations
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
10 ounces of mini peanut butter cups.
mini muffin cups
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Cream butter, peanut butter and both sugars.
3. Beat in egg and vanilla.
4. Blend in flour and baking soda.
5. Shape dough into 1 inch balls and place in ungreased 1½ inch muffin tins with mini muffin cups.
6. Bake for 8 – 10 minutes or until slightly browned.
7. Immediately after removing from oven, press a mini peanut butter cup into the center of each cookie, until only the top of the peanut butter cup shows. Let cool in pan.
Those are just a few of the selections. Here is a plate with some of the final products. If you see something there you would like the recipe for, let me know in the comments and I will send you the recipe.
Enjoy,
This was one of my first attempts back in June of producing a dairy free and vegan cookie. I thought they needed a little more flour, and possibly a banana to go with the flax seed egg to help hold them together, but for some reason, I really liked the photo, so I am sharing the picture before I get my recipe together. 
My original recipe is here if you want to give it a try.
I generally pick some of the best photos for the blog, and my baking posts of the last month definitely fall under that category. On this day after Christmas, however, I share a picture of the “others.” For those of you who don’t know, I often times cook and bake with my son. He turned four on the 19th, so this sometimes produces results that are less than beautiful. None the less, we enjoy the time together.
Concentrating
Gingerbread Snowmen, The Boy Style
I really enjoy gingerbread cookies, and there’s something about them that makes me feel less guilty than regular cookies when eating them. Logical? I think not. Haha! I got this recipe from some awesome Williams-Sonoma 3-D cookie cutters than my friend, Bethany, gave me a few years ago.
The Players (All at room temperature)
5 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbs ground ginger
4 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated if you can)
1 tsp allspice
1 1/2 tsp salt
16 tbsp (2 sticks) butter
1/2 cup brown sugar (I don’t pack it)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (I use Turbinado)
1 cup unsulfered molasses
1 egg
The Fun
1. Sift together flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice and salt. Set aside. (sometimes I mix them all together in a separate bowl to avoid sifting)
2. In the Kitchen Aid mixer bowl (I highly recommend using an electric mixer with the flat beater), beat the butter on medium high speed until fluffy and pale yellow (4-6 minutes). Add the brown and granulated sugars and beat for 1 minute. Reduce the speed to low and add the molasses, beating until well combined (about 1 minute). Add the egg and beat until combined (about 30 seconds).
3. Add the flour mixture in four additions, beating in each addition before adding more. Beat just until combined, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.
4. Turn teh dough out onto a floured surface. Using floured hands, form the dough into a smooth mound and divide into four equal portions. Shape each in to a disk and wrap separately with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours (or up to 2 days).
5. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.
6. Remove 1 dough disk at a time from the refrigerator and let stand for 10 minutes. Place the dough between 2 sheets of parchment or waxed paper and roll out to a thickness of 1/4 to 3/8 inch.
7. Dip the cutters into flour just before using and cut out the shapes. Using a spatula, caerfully transfer the cutouts to the baking sheets.
8. Repeat with each disk. Gather up the scraps, reroll them and cut out additional cookies.
9. Refrigerate cookies until firm, about 20 minutes (especially those that don’t go in the oven first).
10. Bake the cookies until lightly browned on the bottom. Depending on the size of the cookies, this takes from 4-10 minutes.
11. Allow cookies to cool 5 minutes before removing from the baking sheet. Transfer to wire racks and allow to cool completely before decorating.
What’s a good sugar cookie without some frosting?
The Players
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
1 tablespoon of water
Food coloring (optional)
The Fun
Mix all ingredients in a small bowl with fork until smooth and spreadable.
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