Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Some of my Favorite Christmas Cookies

I am going to follow what VE and Pepper started this week and give a couple more recipes.
These are two of my favorite Christmas cookie recipes. The first one was my Grandmothers recipe and the thinner they are sliced the better.

Luckily My Grandmother had written down measurements instead of just a pinch of this and a dash of that. 

Mother’s Icebox Cookies:
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
1 cup melted butter
2 eggs
2 ¾ cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup chopped nuts (we use walnuts, but you can use your choice)

Mix together.
Form into a long loaf shapes.
Chill in refrigerator until stiff.
Slice thin and bake in moderate oven until brown.
(moderate oven= about 325.  being so thin they don’t take long to bake.)

The nice thing about these is you can bake as many or as few as you want at a time.

The next recipe is a simple cookie but stands well on its own.  This is not your common shortbread cookie, these are actually rolled out and cut.

Brown Sugar Shortbreads:
1 cup softened butter (or margarine)
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2½ cups flour
Cream butter and sugar until light,
add flour
Refrigerate if necessary.
Roll out and cut. 
I keep these on the thin side also.
I use small cookies cutters and sometimes I top them with chocolate sprinkles.
Bake 10 minutes, until light golden brown 300- 325 degrees
decorated brown sugar shortbreads
This link gives a little history about Christmas cookies.

My mom always used to try and bake a least a dozen different kinds of cookies each Christmas. So a lot of the cookies she would bake also freeze well.
We always love when my mom brings us a plate of her cookies. There is always something everyone likes.

Happy Baking
jj

2 comments:

VintageEmbellishment said...

Yummy! The more cookies the better in my world :)

I think I will try the brown sugar shortbread cookies with the Splenda brown sugar...if they taste right that would be another cookie for Mr. B.

Thanks, And Mr. B thanks you too!

goodgosh said...

Did you actually make those cookies in the photos?
I love anything sweet like me!

Make me some! :)