VCE: Special 4-in-1 Cookie Mix

Debi shared this over at Our Way of Life, and they sound so simple and easy to whip up...the best kind of Christmas cookie :o)

We do one very similar to what they call Roly Polys every year called Snowballs. Plain, or with mini chocolate chips, or even fine-chopped pecans...yum.

If you read Country Living this is in the newest edition.

This is called Tea Cookie Dough and with this one recipe they give you four cookies that you can make.

I made the one called Roly Polys and they are very good. I didn't have any hazelnuts but will be trying them again with pecans.

So here is the basic recipe:

1 stick of softened unsalted butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/4 flour

beat the butter until fluffy then add in the sugar, vanilla and salt. Then gradually add in the flour.

Now to make the Roly Polys

Preheat the oven to 325.
you need to mix in 2/3 cup finely chopped hazelnuts once the flour has been incorporated.
Roll the dough by the tablespoons into balls and place 1 inch apart on baking sheets.
Bake until cookies are firm and just beginning to brown. about 20 minutes. Let cool about 2 minutes. Place 1/2 cup powdered sugar in a bowl, then gently toss the warm cookies to coat. Place them on a cooling rack to cool completely. Toss in powdered sugar one more time to coat thoroughly.
This will make 24 cookies.

A few notes on what I did. I used blue bonnet butter, I don't add salt to anything I cook. I also used fresh ground whole wheat flour. As I mentioned I didn't have any nuts so we just left them out, this time. I also doubled this. Yummy.

VCE: Chocolate Chip Shortbread

Sorry -- forgot to post this one here from my other blog. You get a bonus VCE for the day :o)

We've been making these for several years now. I love the taste of a really great shortbread cookie. Be careful when baking, though as they can very quickly go from delicious to rather dry.

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1 Tbs sugar

Blend as you would any cookie -- cream the butter and brown sugar, add in the vanilla and blennd, then work in the dry ingredients.
Form small balls and flatten as you would a sugar cookie. Bake on ungreased sheets, 300 for 25-30 mins.

Here are some other delicious shortbread cookies:

Another Chocolate Chip Shortbread, from Allrecipes.com
And a great collection of Shortbread Cookies from CDKitchen...they have recipes for some yummy ones, from almond to butter pecan and then some!

Be sure to go check out the cookies at Frugal Creativity and don't forget to sign my MckLinky!

VCE: Gingerbreads and More!

Wilton is hosting Cookie Exchange 2009 from Dec 7th -13th and they already have a great site full of ideas for cookie crafting, decorating cookies, treats and cakes, ideas on storing, transporting, showcasing and more. A perfect visit to get ideas on hosting your own real life cookie exchange recipes for baking new holiday favorites, and for packaging those pretty gift bags and trays to give away some holiday smiles to others. They offer a lot over there...do stop and visit!

My recipe goodie today is Gingerbread....either in rounds or cut-outs :o)

Wilton shares Grandma's Gingerbread Cookies

• 5 1/2 - 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons powdered ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 cup solid vegetable shortening
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/4 cups molasses
• 2 eggs beaten

Makes: 40 medium-sized cookies. Each cookie serves 1.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Thoroughly mix flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Melt shortening in large saucepan. Cool slightly. Add sugar, molasses and eggs to saucepan; mix well. Add 4 cups dry ingredients and mix well.

Turn mixture onto lightly floured surface. Knead in remaining dry ingredients by hand. Add a little more flour, if necessary, to make firm dough.

On floured surface, roll out 1/8 to 1/4 in. thick for cut-out cookies. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet, small and medium-sized cookies for 6-10 minutes, large cookies for 10-15 minutes.

Note: If you’re not going to use your gingerbread dough right away, wrap in plastic and refrigerate. Refrigerated dough will keep for a week.

Substitute 1 1/4 cups light corn syrup for molasses to make Blonde Gingerbread.

And if you are a fan of gingerbread, they also share recipes for Gingerbread Truffles and Gingerbread Spritz cookies.
Hey, just go visit and check out ALL the Christmas cookie recipes :o) Then go visit and register at FaveCrafts.com and find some fun crafts for the holidays (or any season) to work yourself or share with the children. There's an idea...Mom's get together for a Cookie Exchange and the kiddo's work on holiday crafts to share while waiting to taste some cookies :o)

Holiday Baking Links

The Twelve Days of Cookies.....oh yum!

100 Days of Holiday Baking...can you see that waistline expanding as you read????

Taste of Home's Holiday Recipes....everything is here. If you don't see the recipe you want, you don't need it.

100 Days of Holiday Cookies

OH YUM!

VCE: Peanut Butter Bon Bons

My mother makes these every Christmas. They are ultra easy and the children love making them.

4 Tbs melted butter
2 cups sugar
2 cups peanut butter (could use chunky if you prefer more crunch)
3 cups crispy rice cereal

Mix all together and form into balls. Dip into melted almond bark, chocolate or white.
Chill for 1 hour.

Virtual Cookie Exchange: Chocolate Chip Shortbread

We've been making these for several years now. I love the taste of a really great shortbread cookie. Be careful when baking, though as they can very quickly go from delicious to rather dry.

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1 Tbs sugar

Blend as you would any cookie -- cream the butter and brown sugar, add in the vanilla and blennd, then work in the dy ingredients.
Form small balls and flatten as you would a sugar cookie. Bake on ungreased sheets, 300 for 25-30 mins.

Here are some other delicious shortbread cookies:

Another Chocolate Chip Shortbread, from Allrecipes.com
And a great collection of Shortbread Cookies from CDKitchen...they have recipes for some yummy ones, from almond to butter pecan and then some!

Be sure to go check out the cookies at Frugal Creativity and don't forget to sign my MckLinky!

Ginger Spice and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies from Our Best Bites

Our Best Bites.....an absolutely delicious site! You have to go visit and take notes. Here are my two favorites so far...


Ginger Spice Cookies
recipe by Paula Deen

3/4 C Butter flavored Crisco*
1 C sugar, plus more for rolling
1 large egg
1/4 C molasses
2 C flour
2 t baking soda
1 t ground cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
1/2 t ground cloves
1/2 t salt

*I made these with butter once and they flattened like pancakes. Shortening actually turned out with a much better texture.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or a silpat.

With an electric mixer, combine shortening and sugar and cream until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes). Add the egg and the molasses and beat until completely incorporated.

Sift or whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and salt and then add to the mixture. Stir until combined. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls and roll in sugar.

Place on cookie sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes or until just set around the edges and you start to see "crackling" on the top.

They'll puff up while they're baking and as they cool they'll flatten. Don't overbake! You want to keep them nice and chewy-soft in the middle

And she even shares a great tidbit from Cooks Illustrated as to what makes a great cookie...

I was going to try to be a food scientist and tell you why the interesting things in the recipe make for a good cookie, but I'll let Cook's Illustrated tell you. Here's how they explain it:

Most cookies start with creamed butter. Creaming incorporates air into the dough, resulting in an undesirable (in these cookies) lightness. Our thoughts sifted to chewy brownies and blondies, both of which typically begin with melted butter. We tried both creamed and melted butter and found that melted butter did indeed give us the dense, chewy texture that we were after.

We turned to the one factor that we hadn't yet fully examined--the egg factor--and found that one whole egg plus one egg yolk keeps the cookies soft and pliable hours after emerging from the oven. Also, cooling the cookies directly on the cookie sheet promotes the soft, chewy texture. Finally, we had a thick, chewy chocolate-chip cookie that could rival any gourmet bakery's.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Cooks Illustrated
2 C plus 2 T flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
12 T butter (1 1/2 sticks) melted and cooled until warm
1 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
2 t vanilla extract
1 1/2 C semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower- middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

Either by hand or with electric mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.

Now, I'll share a method from Cook's Illustrated, and then the method I used. CI says the following:

3. Form scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Each half will have a jagged surface where it was ripped from the other; rotate each half up so the jagged surface faced the ceiling and press the halves back into one ball so that the top surface remains jagged. (The nooks and crannies you have created will give the baked cookies an attractive and somewhat rough, uneven appearance.) Place formed dough onto one of two parchment paper-lined cookie sheets, about 9 balls per sheet.
Bake until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 10-13 minutes. Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve or store in airtight container.

VCE: Amish Sugar Cut-Outs

These are our signature cookie, if you will. We are asked to make these quite a bit after taking them to gatherings. The icing is such that it cools and smooths out completely, and hardens, much like a store-bought sugar cookie. The icing is easily tinted to any color you wish, sprinkles added when first iced will stay and not fall off all over.

You can ice with any favorite recipe and simply keep them in the refrigerator to keep the icing from sticking about. These are absolutely great in the heat of summer fresh from the freezer, too. Yes, I said freezer :o) With the cream cheese in the cookie, they do not freeze solid....great for hot summer days!

It is not a cookie to be eaten plain, with the traditional sprinkled sugar topping, however. The cookie itself is actually rather bland we think.

4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup Crisco
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla

Blend dry ingredients and set aside. Cream together shortening, butter and cream cheese until fluffy. Add in egg and vanilla and stir to mix. Slowly blend in dry ingredients. Divide dough into manageable portions and wrap with plastic (we stick portions in baggies) and chill for at least an hour before rolling and cutting.
Roll out thin (hmmm...1/4 in perhaps) and cut out as desired. Bake on ungreased sheets at 375 for 7-9 minutes. Do not over-bake -- as the edges begin to lightly brown the cookie is done. Remove to cooling rack after a short time 'setting up' on the sheet.
When cooled, iced as desired.

Our Icing:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbs light corn syrup
2 Tbs milk

Blend well until smooth and thick. Divide and tint with coloring as desired. This icing will smooth out as it dries and become hard and glossy.

Virtual Cookie Exchange: Chocolate Truffles

These are some we've made a few times for special occasions. They are delicious plain, but I like to add a touch of peppermint extract to them for the holidays!

Chocolate Truffles
2 ½ pks (20 sq,) Bakers Semi Sweet chocolate
1 pkg softened cream cheese
Sprinkles or crushed nuts for topping

Melt 8 sq. chocolate. Beat cream cheese on medium until creamy. Add in melted chocolate and mix well (** see note on flavoring below). Cover and chill 1 hour until firm.
Cover baking sheet with waxed paper. Shape chocolate/cheese mix into 36 balls using 2 tsp. of mix. Place single layer on sheet.

Melt remaining chocolate sqs. Dip each truffle in chocolate to coat, top with sprinkles of choice, place on baking sheet. Chill until firm. Keep covered in refrigerator.

**can add 1-2 tsps extract, such as almond, peppermint, cherry, etc. if desired.

Virtual Cookie Exchange

I'm always looking for new recipes and what better time to share than as the Holiday Baking Rush gets underway?
Friendship Alley is hosting a Cookie Exchange, the first I came across while Googling...here are the "rules" for the exchange:

First, here’s the rules:

• make a post for a cookie recipe, pics are great if you have them!
• come back to my blog and sign the Mr Linky with the URL to your cookie recipe post, not your main page.
• grab my button and put on your sidebar - this will make me really happy and you can take it down after Christmas if you want.
• be kind and vist other participants and comment.
• try some new recipes…of course, I don’t really know if you do this but I love testimonials and comments so if you do, please let me know

• 
  

Joy of Baking

Christmas Ideas and Recipes at BusyCooks

Top 10 Christmas Cookie Favorites at BusyCooks

Cookie Recipes from About.com

Some bloggers doing a Cookie Exchange already - - Assertagirl, Friendship Alley, If Mom Says OK, Frugal Creativity...I'm sure there are more out there.

And recipes...Caramel Shortbread, Pioneer Woman Cooks has just too many recipes to even begin sharing, but this one and this one look like I need to try them out very soon! Here are some Candy Lasses, a spice cookie with peppermint drizzle on top, yum.

Cherry Cheese Rolls

Farmchick's Kitchen/Fresh From The Farm shared her great recipe for making crescent rolls ahead of time and we did a batch today to give them a trial run. Delicious!!!

We usually cheat and buy canned crescent rolls (yeah, I know...blew my whole plain and simple pantry image there, didn't I?) to make these just because it's so much quicker. But no more. I'm totally converted. This recipe is simply delicious and worked up super fast in the mixer!

1 can pie filling of choice...we usually do cherry
1 8oz package cream cheese softened
1 cup powdered sugar

Blend cream cheese and powdered sugar well. Spread a bit on opened crescent, top with a bit of cherry pie filling (blueberry is really good too...haven't tried raspberry or black raspberry yet, but I know they'd be just as yummy). Roll up as you normally would, from the long end. Lay out on sheet, spaced slightly, and bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes.

Now, just a note...cherries and crescents don't always roll pretty and you don't always get a nice looking crescent shape. If you're one of those Type A folks, get over it :o) These are just as delicious sort of globbed together as best you can as they would be in a pretty little crescent shape. Trust me...ain't nobody gonna turn them down because they look funny.

They will also drizzle out cherry filling on your baking sheets. Just wanna cover all the bases :o) They are still good...even if you are smelling cherries burning to your cookie sheets :o)

Mix up a bit of powdered sugar icing (on the thick side is better) and ice when they come out. The filling is hot...obviously...for a while, but I want to remind you so no one thinks I'm settling some lawsuit like McDonald's did over that coffee thing. Seems it happens quite a bit.

I could say more on that, but let's just leave it at this: Common sense, folks. Use it or lose it.

Delicious (and Easy) Crescent Rolls

Wow...Fresh From The Farm shared these and we already made a batch to see how they taste. Yum. A definite keeper for sure. And the best part is -- she shared them to let you know you can freeze them now for Thanksgiving -- 0r any other reason...but hey, anything you can prepare ahead of time for a great Thanksgiving meal with less stress is a big plus, right?

I can see a lot of yummy treats with these...not just crescents! I'm thinking Cherry Cheese Rolls (which we love) and quick cinnamon rolls, just off the top of my head.

Here is her great recipe -- do stop over at her Farmchick's Blog...it is well worth the visit, with the great reading, the wonderful craft ideas and of course, these great recipes!

Farmchick's Crescent Rolls

3 tsp yeast

2 cups warm water

1/2 cup butter, room temp.

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup mashed potato flakes

2/3 cup nonfat dry milk powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

6 cups flour (sometimes you need 1/2 cup or so more!)

------------------------------------

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Pour into mixing bowl. I use my kitchen aid but you don't have to...this can all be done by hand. Add the butter, sugar, potato flakes, milk powder, salt, eggs and half of the flour. Beat until smooth. Stir in the remaining flour a little at a time....until you have a firm dough. (don't overmix--you want light flaky crescents) If it is still really sticky add a little more flour. Turn out dough onto floured surface and knead 8-10 times. Divide dough in half.

Roll each half into 12 inch circles. Cut each circle into 16 wedges with a pizza cutter.
Roll up wedges starting at the wide end and place point side down on parchment paper lined sheet. Curve ends to form crescent shape.
Now, if you want to save them for future use like I am doing today. Arrange rolls on baking sheet-stick in freezer until frozen. Throw them in a ziplock bag and put back in the freezer!

To bake the frozen rolls--

Preheat oven 350 degrees. Arrange rolls 2-3 inches apart on parchment lined sheet. Cover and thaw in the refrigerator overnight. Let rise in a warm place for about an hour or doubled in size. Bake until golden brown--approx. 15 minutes.