Christmas Cookie Recipes

Mom's easy lemon drop cookies are so good nobody will guess that you "cheated" by using a cake mix as the base. They're slightly crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside, and festively decorated with sifted confectioner's sugar (or icing sugar).

Ingredients

1 lemon cake mix (between 18 and 19 ounces)
2 eggs
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tsp grated lemon zest
1 tsp lemon extract
1/3 cup of confectioners sugar or icing sugar

Method

Preheat your oven to 375 F.

Put cake mix in a bowl. Add all other ingredientsexcept the confectioners sugar. Mix until they are blended.

For best results, refrigerate your dough over night. You can bake the cookies now, but the dough will be sticky and difficult to handle. Refrigerating solves that problem nicely.

When you are ready to bake these Christmas cookies, place the confectioner's sugar in a small bowl. Scoop up one teaspoon of cookie batter and swirl it around in the confectioners sugar until it is coated. Place your cookie on an ungreased cookie pan. Repeat until all dough is used up.

Bake for about six to nine minutes. Do not over bake.

You can modify this cookie recipe by using less or more lemon extract, lemon juice or lemon zest.

You can also use other types of cake mix with other flavorings. Mom's Easy Lemon Drop Cookies are yummy to eat and the recipe is versatile.

Adding ice cream to the dough gives these Christmas cookies a wonderfully rich and creamy texture. Vanilla ice cream is the typical choice but you could use any other flavor that strikes your fancy. Cinnamon or peppermint might be lovely. Or how about a coffee flavored ice cream? Yumm.

Ingredients

1 pint of vanilla ice cream (or other flavor)
2 cups of butter
4 cups of flour
1/2 cup of filling -- suggested fillings are fruit preserves, cooked fresh fruit, jam, nutella, etc.
confectioners sugar or icing sugar for dusting on top of the cookies

Method
Mix the butter and flour together. Using a pastry blender is a good idea. Next, work the ice cream into the dough. Your hands will be very cold unless you use gloves. Better yet, use a mixer with a dough hook.

When well mixed, refrigerate the dough overnight.

When you are ready to cook your Christmas Cookie recipe, preheat the oven to 350 F.

Using a rolling pin dusted with flour, roll this dough out so it is about 1/8 inch thick. If necessary, use additional flour so they will roll okay. Take a round cookie cutter or use the top of a glass, and cut out circles.

Place the circles on an ungreased cookie sheet. Make a thumbprint in the middle of each circle. Fill the thumbprint with a small amount of the fruit preserve or whatever filling you have chosen to use.

Bake your cookies for twenty minutes, or until done. When they have cooled, dust them with icing sugar or confectioners sugar.

Optionally, you could roll the cookie dough as thin as possible, cut in squares or circles, add filing, then fold the dough to make pop-overs. Both are great recipes.

Sugar cookies are a staple among the Christmas cookie baking crowd. You can cut them into fancy shapes. You can dust them with colored sugars. You can ice them with fancy or plain icing. You can sandwich them by sticking two together with an icing filler. You can add a candied cherry, nut or other fruit to the top before baking.

This particular recipe for sugar cookies is especially good and rich.

Ingredients

3 cups of flour plus some additional for rolling
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of butter
1 1/2 cups of white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla
decorations as desired

Method

Sift the dry ingredients together. Melt the butter. Cream together the butter and sugar, beating until the mixture is fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla extract and mix well. Add the dry ingredients, stirring until all is absorbed.

Chill your sugar cookie dough in the refrigerator for at least two hours.

When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat oven to 350 F.

Using small chunks of the cookie dough at a time, roll the cookie dough out so it is 1/4 inch thick. Do not make this too thick. Cut into shapes using a cookie cutter, and transfer to a greased cookie sheet.

If desired, add a candied cherry or nut to the top, or sprinkle with colored sugars or icing sugar.

Bake for approximately six or eight minutes. Do not over bake. The cookies should be only sightly tinged with brown. They will continue baking somewhat after removing them from the oven.

When cool, ice if desired, or fill with jam or icing and create "sandwiches."

You'll soon decide that this is your favorite sugar cookie recipe.