Baking!

aerinpegadrak

Since I waited until the last minute and had to pay out the butt for shipping out Christmas cookies last year, this year I'm beginning the process earlier.  So today's project is butterballs, which my mother advises me keep "forever."

So what are your favorite Christmas cookies?  Your favorite cookies in general?  Anyone have some good recipes to share?

tldh

My favorites are butter cookies and sugar cookies.  I wish I could share the recipes but they are closely held family secrets.  My great grandmother came here from France by herself and knowing no one in the US.  She opened a bakery to support herself and today has more than 100 descendants.  My grandfather was the only one to whom she gave her recipes.  My mom and I are now the only ones who hold them.

Have fun baking.

mkrupar

i love baking sugar cookies. I did the same thing last year Aerin. I baked and shipped cookies to the families. It was ridiculously expensive. I got the recipe off the box of cookie cutters I bought and it's delicious. I'd have to dig it out to get it to you.

I also love baking Irish Soda Bread. I got the recipe from my mom.

andamu

I do an orange sugar cookie, and then you dip it halfway into melted chocolate ... those are always a hit.

Also I do a Yule log at Christmas, which is one of my favorite things to bake all year, and then this year I am going to add some cake balls to my holiday repertoire.  I'm going to add some liqueur to them to make them extra-special for the holidays.

mbcdefg

Thumbprint cookies (shortbread with a dollop of raspberry jam in the middle) ... simple, fast, tasty.

I also like making Oreo truffles, putting them in cute dollar store jars, and giving them as gifts.

AdeleDazeem

Sugar cookies - simple and so yummy.

Peanut butter cookies with hershey kisses in the middle - ohmygod.

jagore08

Definitely the peanut butter cookies with the hershey kiss in the center. 

Manwaithiel

I love good old fashioned chocolate chip cookies. And brownies. I'll eat brownies all day long.

My mom makes the most amazing fudge. Ah. Maze. ing. It's not super sweet so you don't feel like you're becoming a diabetic as you eat it. And it's pretty addictive. I put macadamia nuts in it and I think I gain about 10 pounds from the experience.

aerinpegadrak

My absolute favorite are the little coconut cookies topped with chocolate.  My mom and my sister made a bunch of them for the wedding to fill out our dessert buffet.  Not many people ate them, so we just had to finish them all off on the honeymoon.  Oh darn.

I think I'm going to add something new to the mix this year, probably either a Bakerella or an Alton Brown recipe.

trix1223

These sound weird, but really are delish!  My favorite cookies are potato chip cookies.  They're really yummy, and not too sweet.  They were the recipe of the lady who ran our town's high school

food service dept. for many years and was also a long time member of our church.  We had a cookie exchange one Christmas, and she brought them.  I couldn't wait to get the recipe and everyone I've ever given it to raves about the too.

My next favorite are almond crescents that my mom always called "Dean's Christmas Cookies" because they were/are my dad's favorites!

aerin:  do you mean macaroons?  I do also LOVE them.  mmmmmm, this thread is making me hungry.  I didn't bake, but made homemade applesauce yesterday.  Does that count?

gottahavashorti

Every year an elderly farmer's wife gives my family a plate of cookies and we give her pizelles.  One of the cookies she makes for her cookie plates is a spotted cow, because they used to have cows.  My family always got one for each person because she found out that we had an annual tradition of fighting over who got the cow.  So I'm going to have to say her cow cookie.

I always have to make my great-grandma's crescent cookies.  They are melt in your mouth awesome.

1 c butter
5 Tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 c flour
1 c chopped pecans
confectioner's sugar

Preheat oven to 375.  Mix butter and sugar.  Add vanilla.  Slowly mix in flour, then nuts.  Shape into half moons or balls.  Bake 12-15 min until edges are brown.  Cool.  Dip in confectioner's sugar.

banana468

For Christmas, I love sugar and gingerbread cookies.

For the fall, I just made these:http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/butterscotch-apple-cookies/Detail.aspx

trix1223

gottahava:  those are exactly the cookies my mom called "Dean's Christmas Cookies".  They are melt in your mouth scrumdiddlyicious.

aerinpegadrak

The butterballs I'm making are a variation on that, gotta, but with powdered sugar instead of granulated, and walnuts instead of pecans.  My mom has a separate recipe for the crescents, for some reason, which uses Karo syrup as a sweetener.

Here's the recipe for the chocolate coconut ones:

6 T butter
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup flour
1T cornstarch
4 oz coconut
1/2 pkg chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in flour and cornstarch until well-blended.  Cover and chill for 1 hour.  Put coconut in food processor or blender and chop until very fine.  Using small spoon, roll dough into very small ball, roll in coconut and place 2" apart on greased cookie sheet.  Flatten with glass dipped in flour, and bake at 300 degrees for 15 minutes, until golden, but not browned.  Melt chocolate in microwave, using a bowl inside of another bowl filled with water to keep chocolate melted as you work.  Spoon small aount of chocolate onto flat side of cookie.  Chill to set.  Keep cool.

Working with melted chocolate is probably the bane of my baking existence.  I've yet to get the hang of it.

jaimed99

Scotch Shortbread...my grandma made them every year at Christmas time...I started making them about 2-3 years ago when she became unable to do so...but I lose the recipe every freaking year so I don't know if I can make them this year...I couldn't last year since she passed

marissa_claire

I made the most amazing sugar cookie sandwiches with a very rich almond icing in-between.  And you can color the icing, so we had them in Christmas colors, and they were just beautiful and delish. 

Also - the really simple ones I can't eat enough of - where you just take PB cookie dough, roll it into a small ball, put it into a mini-muffin pan (fill each one) and press in a mini-Reese's PB cup.  You bake for 10 or so minutes, but they are simply awesome.  

frogurt814

My all year round go to cookies are Snickerdoodles.

My fall cookies are Gingersnaps (I only make them in the fall)

And my Christmas cookies are 1) Sugar cookie cutouts in Christmas shapes, and then I decorate with icing 2) sugar cookies that have the tops dipped in colored sugar (my grandma use to make them every year 3) last year I made Pecan Sandies for the first time, and they were pretty good and 4) usually some Snickerdoodles

I love love love baking, and Christmas is my favorite time to bake.