Never Too Many Christmas Cookies

Successful Cookies 

Helpful Hints

• Read First Read the recipe all the way thru first before starting
• Ingredients Make sure you have all the ingredients you need before starting to mix your recipe
• Preheat your oven Before you start to combine your ingredient turn your oven on and start it preheating so it will be all ready when you finish mixing your recipe together(*note: if dough needs to be refridgerated before molding or rolling do not preheat oven until you are ready to begin putting cookies on baking sheet.)
• Flattening If your recipe calls for you to flatten your dropped or molded cookie a sugar coated juice or tumbler glass bottom is usually perfect.
• Air Pans I love Air Bake pan. They cook your cookies evenly so your cookies do not get too brown and crisp on the edges.
• Parchment Paper This was the best thing someone ever advised me to use for cookies. A sheet of baking parchment paper between the dough and the pan saves on cleanup time, makes the cookies release so much easier, and makes for a prettier cookie. One sheet of parchment paper can be used many times. Once you give using parchment a try you will never go back to baking without it.
• Storing I like to store my cookies in a tight sealing plastic container. Rubbermaid or tupperware containers are perfect. They can be used in the freezer too.
• Freezing Most cookies can be frozen. Plastic containers such as mentioned in the hint above are perfect to freeze your cookies in. Cookies with delicate decorations might not freeze nicely and the decorations crumble from being stacked.

Cookies as Gifts 

• The Office- Bring a big covered platter of cookies to the office as a gift to all. Leave in the breakroom with a Christmas card signed with your name.
• The Mailman- We always leave a plate of cookie in the mailbox for our postal carrier. Address the gift to your mailman so they know it is meant for them. Make sure your offering is sealed so as to keep the ants and other critters from stealing your mail person's treat.
• The Babysitter- A take home plate for the babysitter always seems to go over well. Tho do still gift your babysitter with a bit of $ for the holidays too. That holiday cash seems to make her more available on short notice all year long. Cookies just make her smile.
• Party Host or Hostess- Going to a party? Bring a container of cookies for your host. Don't pressure the host to put them out on their well planned spread. You might even hint it is a treat just for them for after everyone has gone home. Maybe a fun card included about relaxing and cleaning up.
• Extended Family- If your family is anything like mine it is just too darn big to get everyone a gift. A card seems too small an effort but a gift just isn't in the budget. Cookies come to the rescue. I assemble family cookie plates for all our extended family and close family friends. They are really enjoyed by those with not enough time to bake their own. I always make sure there is at least one of every kind of cookie for every family member of the recipient family. So the bigger the family of the extended family member the bigger the plate they get.
• Neighbors- We always give a plate to all our neighbors we know. Some have kids, some are elderly, some we only know in passing but come Christmas time they all get cookies. Some exchange gifts of other food stuff with us others just thank you and slip inside their door and later tell you which were there favorites(so you can add more of those next year :) The nice thing about cookie gifts is that no one ever dislikes your gift and no one feels badly about not getting you a gift afterall it is just cookies.

The 2006 Christmas Cookie Baking Season 

• Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprint Jammers - Tasted Just like PB & J sandwich, the kids are sure to like them
• Big Soft Ginger Cookies - Recipe found in the BH&G baking Book, very good cookie, the taste of a ginger snap but but soft and cakey.
• M&M Cookies - This is a family favorite it is made every year. The Nestle tollhouse cookie recipe is used but with M&Ms instead of chips.
• Chocolate Peanut Butter M&M Cookies - Got some peanut butter M&Ms on clearance after Halloween, adapted a chewy chocolate cookie recipe to use with them. They were a bit too rich for me but my mom loved them.
• Chocolate Coconut Cake Mix Cookies - I kinda just threw this one together. I hoped they would come out tasting closer to a mounds bar but the tasted more like brownies with coconut. Still good but not quite what I had intended. They had a great texture.
• Kissable Cookies - My mom really wanted to try making cookies with these Hersey Kissable candies. We made a double chocolate brownie cookie recipe found in a Hersey chocolate baking book she had and added the Kissables to it. It was very chocolaty. Too much for me but perfect for mom.
• Big Fat Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies - Found this recipe in the book 'Cake Mix Cookies' by Camilla V. Saulsbury. I made the cookies smaller than the recipe called for so ended up with about double the 2 dozen the book said it should make. The cookies were soft, cakey and spicey.
• Coconut Macaroons - These are yummy. The recipe came from the same book as the previous cookie. The cookies were cakey and chewy and moist. Perfect.
• Chocolate Mint Chippers - This was another thrown together recipe. It had a swiss chocolate cake mix starting point. I added some peppermint extract, then a bit of left over mint chips and some white chocolate/milk chocolate swirled chipped. They came out quite well, not as cakey as I thought they would but still semisoft.
• Strawberry Bananarama Softies - Also from the 'Cake Mixe Cookies' book. These are darn tasty. The recipe is actually just for bananarama cookies but I used a strawberry cake mix instead of the yellow cake mix the recipe called for. A nice melt in your mouth soft texture too. I sprinkled with red decorating sugar to make them festive.