Don’t get me wrong – I love to bake – but I did not anticipate having to bake Christmas Cookies twice this year. I made the first ones – and they were delicious – but I forgot that I live with Cookie Fiends. Yes, I am talking about my sister, but also
Jessi’s Christmas Cookie’s
my mother. Christmas is the only time my mom really eats alot of sweets. Probably because it’s the same recipe that she used when she was a kid, way back in the fifties (don’t tell her I told you that…). Anyway, it only took like four days for all my cookies I made to dissapear.
And then on Wednesday (December 19) my sister tells me that they are having a cookie exchange at work and could I please make more… I agreed. Only this time, I made a double batch so that there would be some for us at home on Christmas Day. So I made ANOTHER batch of cookies yesterday. =) But I’m not complaining – I got to bake.
Our Christmas Tree this year.
So today is Little Christmas Eve – and for those of you who may not know what that is – it’s what we call December 23rd. My mother is part Norwegian, and in Norway, Little Christmas Eve is the day they would go out, find the Christmas Tree and bring it home and decorate it. Now, we don’t do that at my house, we actually decorate the tree on Thanksgiving, which I did this year in addition to cooking the entire meal.
But we aren’t talking about Thanksgiving, we’re talking about my Christmas Cookies. I made both the cookies and the frosting from scratch, which is truely the only proper way to do
My cookie
any cookie. Store-bought? No thank you, that’s not right. I hate those commercials that tell you “Make the holiday’s right this year,” and are talking about this mix that you just add water to and roll it out and cut the cookies. And the ready-made frosting… Whatever. I found a really easy recipe to make for my frosting that is also really cheap, you probably have all the ingrediants (except maybe one) in your house as it is – plus there’s no shortning… in the frosting.
So, the recipe I used is from my grandmother’s old Better Homes and Garden’s cookbook that is so old, that my mother had to take it apart and put it’s pages in sheet protecters and put it in a binder, because the orginal book wasn’t holding together anymore. Of course, grandma loved to bake, just as my mother did, and same as I do, so the book has gotten alot
of wear and tear – it as afterall, from 1939, she got it just after she and grandpa got married. I treasure it. I also have my dad’s mother’s cookbook as well, although I think this one is
Ready to be decorated cookies
from the 1960’s (it’s still in it’s original binding). I also have two other cookbooks, but they’re from the 90’s.
Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies – that’s the name – which means they are indeed, old fashioned since I’m still using the recipe in 2012. The recipe is at least 70 years old – and it’s still the best sugar cookie I have ever had. And anyone who eats them also tells me the same thing.
It’s not a family recipe, but you can hardly find any sugar cookie recipe’s like this anymore, which is a shame, because it taste’s far better than most cookies you find in the store today.
Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies
Christmas Cookies
Ingredients:
1/2 cup shortning
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cream together shortning and sugar, make sure blended well. Add egg, beat in well. Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with milk and vanilla extract. Roll onto slightly floured surface, cut with floured cookie cutters, and place on GREASED cookie sheets in oven about15 minutes at 350 degrees.
My Big Christmas Tree
– That’s what the recipe says, however I find that 15 minutes is a bit too long. Usually about 8 to 10 minutes is pretty good. Just until they just start to brown on the edges, usually it’s perfect then. Although I had a batch in for like 20 minutes, and they were over baked, but still edible… tasted really good after it was dunked in milk.
– Also, if you double the batch, it throws off the ratio of the recipe, so you will probably have to add just a little extra flour, until it becomes less wet, don’t add a lot, too much flour is hard to fix. Be sure to take a look at the dough before you add any extra flour, conditions around you, such as weather, can influence these things.
– Make sure that you use baking POWDER and not baking soda, could be an easy mistake to make if you don’t usually bake. Gives the cookie it’s extra pop in the oven, by which I mean rise, kind of gives them a plump look.
For the frosting I looked around on line to find a really good recipe, but not one that was over complicated, it is afterall, sugar cookies, so I didn’t need any fancy flavors. And I found one, I don’t remember where I found it now, I had it written down in my baking notebook, but I tore out the page to take to the store and lost it. So, this recipe is not mine, I did not create it – but it works super well for my sugar cookies.
Sugar Cookie Frosting
Merry Christmas!
1/2 cup butter softened
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup whipping cream
Additonal Notes: 1/4 cup extra whipping cream may be needed.
1 – In mixing bown combine butter, sugar, vanilla and cream. Add additional whipping cream as needed to reach spreadable consistancy. 2 – Add food coloring, if desired. 3 – Frost & decorate cookies
– Pretty simple. However, you WILL need the additional whipping cream, trust me. But do not add the extra cream until after you’ve
Christmas Cookies
mixed together the original ingrediants, otherwise you may add too much. You should be able to tell with ease when it’s the right consistancy. Also, the recipe doesnt’ say so, but for good measure, after it’s all combined and I’ve added the extra ingrediants, I turn the mixer on real high to kind of whip the frosting. I find it gives it a better quality.
– The butter NEEDS to be soft. When I forget to set my butter out to soften, I microwave it five seconds at a time, flipping the sides between each set so that no side is sitting down on the microwave bottom too long. Ten seconds is usually good, fifteen is pushing it and DO NOT do twenty seconds. I only do fifteen IF the butter is still to hard to work with. Also, you get better results if your butter is UNSALTED. I post the original recipe and then explain what I would do, or did.
– It takes extra time, but I find that coloring the frosting by mixer, gives you a much more even consistancy. I use wilton gel food coloring, because it gives you a much better richer color. If you want to get the colors I used, I used, “Kelly Green,” “(No Taste) Red,” and “Golden Yellow” mixed with “Lemon Yellow” to make the color brighter, but not so flourescent, which is what lemon yellow looks like by itself.
I did the first batch of cookies by myself (which can be identified in the pictures by the ones with the reindeer and the
The finished Christmas Cookies
rocking horse). I baked and decorated them all myself, no help. The second one, I made the dough and cut out most of the cookies myself, but my friend Jessica (yes, we have the same name, she will hereby be referred to as Jessa), did some of them. And Jessa, Amy and I all decorated them together. Although, any writing you see on any cookie was done by me (the ones done by all three can be idenified in teh pictures as the ones with the round poinsetta drawings and the santa).
Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, I will be making a Black Forest Cake and Chocolate Cream Pie – It’s going to be delicious. Also for dinner, I’m making pork chops, but I don’t know what the sides are. Afterwards, we’re having Con Queso Dip – which is just Velveeta cheese and rotel tomatoes (with green chiles) – like they show on the commercials, only it tastes alot better when you add evaporated milk, makes it not as thick, which is better consistancy to eat it with. And later we’ll have Whiskey Sours – something that my mom and dad have been having since I was a little kid, and that I’ve been allowed to have since I was 18. Unfortunately, my dad never got be around to see my face when I first had one… that was the year he died. I’ll have pictures of the dip, and the sours, the cake, the pie, and Christmas dinner up within the next week hopefully.
Me – Jessi
Hope everyone has a good holiday! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!
– Jessi
jessiblue3 