Christmas Cookie Exchange '15

Welcome to my blog. Thanks, Carol, for giving us this opportunity to share cookie recipes with others.  I know I have seen some great recipes this week that I want to try!

It was a great time for me to do a virtual cookie share.  My two beautiful granddaughters were here the entire week before Thanksgiving.  We have been making lots of candy, cookies, noodles, and pies.  I have taught them well.  They are 13 and 10, and they can make pies and noodles by them-selves, not to mention the cookies and candy.

The first cookies we made were spritz cookies, a recipe my mom used to make.  She would "hide" them in the upstairs bedroom of our old farmhouse--the room we didn't use in the winter because it was too cold.  We would sneak in and sample them long before Christmas.  They are made with a cookie gun.  We used an old metal one when we were growing up.  Now, the girls and I use a Pampered Chef gun.

SPRITZ COOKIES

1 lb. butter                                1 1/4 cups sugar

2 eggs                                       1 tsp. baking powder

4 1/2 cups flour                        1 tsp. vanilla

Cream butter (be sure to use real butter) and sugar.  Add unbeaten eggs.  Combine flour and baking powder.  Add flour mix and vanilla.   Divide the cookie dough into 2 parts and swirl green coloring into half of the dough and red coloring into the 2nd half.  Press with a cookie press onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.  

I asked Julia and Lauren to bring a recipe to share, also.  They chose jello cookies that their Grandma, Carolyn Ogren, has been making since their mother was a child.  They are made with lime or raspberry jello.  Make 2 batches if you want colorful red and green cookies.  We used lime jello.

JELLO COOKIES

3/4 cup butter, softened                                               1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup sugar                                                                2 1/2 cups flour

1 3-oz. package jello                                                    1 tsp. baking powder

2 eggs                                                                           1 tsp. salt

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix thoroughly butter, sugar, jello, eggs, and vanilla.  Blend in dry ingredients.  Roll dough into 3/4 inch balls.  Place 3 inches apart on ungreased baking sheet; flatten each with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar. (We use a glass with a design imprinted in the bottom so that there is a design on the cookies.)  Bake 6-8 minutes.  Makes about 4 dozen.

I want to share just a few pictures of our candy-making.  We made 2 batches of peanut brittle, caramels, peppermint bark, and peanut butter fudge.

Grandpa came in to supervise.

Lauren's peppermint bark.  Yummy!

                                    Julia making caramels while Lauren stirs the peanut brittle.

                                             Stretching the peanut brittle--soooo good!

We also had time to walk in the woods, go out for pizza and have a great Thanksgiving dinner.  I hope you were as blessed as I was on Thanksgiving.

Thank you, Carol at Just Let Me Quilt, for a great hop!

Please stop by for yummy cookie recipes from our blogger friends today:

December 4

Linda at Food Storage Moms

Susan at Super Mom – No Cape!

Kathy at Just Quilt it

Lindsay at Lin's Kitchen

Carol at Just Let Me Quilt

Thanks for stopping by!  Happy cookie baking!