What should I bake?

I'm doing my annual Christmas-cookie bake-a-thon this weekend and am having trouble deciding what to bake. Help me decide by telling me what your favorite Christmas cookies are.

Hey, shorten up your sig line. It fucks up the screen,

Tried them in college. They're disgusting.

Perhaps more. I don't go shopping for Christmas, I bake cookies.

Chocolate Chip
Sugar Cookies
Oatmeal Raisin
Peanut Butter
Butter Cookies
Baklava
Gingerbread


That's all I can think of. Can't think of any exotic ones.

turns people off.

Ever notice that the green/pink/blue cookies are always the ones left on the tray?

I say make cookies that can be frozen so that you can bake a lot of different varieties and have them all be good by christmas.

Have a great time in the kitchen this weekend. :)

They're easy, awesome and no rolling, who cares if they aren't covered in icing and what not. Get some good fresh nuts to go in them. Follow the directions on the bag of semi-sweet Toll House Morsels.

they also have peanut, butterscotch and milk chocolate varieties. I'm baking those too this year.

Also the Rich Roll cookies from the Joy of Cooking. I roll them out and just throw some sprinkles on them. Use good Land o' Lakes butter and good unbleached King Arthur Flour. Awesome.

You can even make the dough the night before you bake them.
http://cookie.allrecipes.com/recipes/print_fullpage_scale.asp?nprid=26211&servings=60&size=3

4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 dash ground black pepper
3/4 cup molasses
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
Directions
1 In a large bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking
   soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and allspice. In a medium
   saucepan over medium heat, combine molasses and butter. Heat,
   stirring occasionally, until the butter is melted. Remove from
   heat and allow to cool to room temperature. When the
   mixture has cooled, beat in the eggs. Blend the molasses
   mixture into the dry ingredients until evenly mixed. Cover and
   refrigerate for at least 3 to 4 hours.
2 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease
   cookie sheets. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place them 2
   inches apart onto the cookie sheets.
3 Bake for 12 to 14 minutes in the preheated oven, or
   until firm. While cookies are still warm, toss them in a bag
   with confectioners' sugar and toss to coat. When cool,
   toss with sugar again.

They're classic, I know, but no one ever seems to want to eat them. Same thing with lebkuchen--it's classic but doesn't go over well.


So far, I think I'm doing sugar cookies, spritz cookies, ginger men, and angel slices. Still need a few kinds to round out the cookie selection.

:)

instead of Toll House. Slight differences, much better.

Cream together 1 cup Crisco, 1 cup granulated sugar, and 1/2 cup of brown sugar packed. (Either light or dark brown okay)

Add 2 medium eggs, and 2 teaspoons real vanilla (I use Mexican, just don't use the artificial crap).

Then add 2 1/4 cups unbleached white flour. I don't sift, but I do fluff up the flour and spoon it lightly into the measuring cups. DON'T use Wondra. DON'T use self rising.

Also add 1/2 teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda, as well as 1 teaspoon salt during the flour adding process.

Finally stir in 1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips (Bakers made the best in my opinion, but they've disappeared from the supermarket shelves). Again, use the real thing, not artificially flavored. If you like nuts, add about 3/4 of a cup of chopped walnuts or pecans.

Bake on a lightly greased baking sheet at 350 degrees with rack in the top (broil) position if you have an electric oven. Check them after about 11 minutes, rotate the sheet 180 degrees and cook an additional two minutes or whatever it takes for them to be done.


This recipe comes from a cookbook from the 1930's, when chocolate chips as we know them weren't available. The original recipe talks about chopping up a semi-sweet bar.

I'm very specific about brands (Crisco) and size of eggs, quality of the vanilla, because it makes a huge difference. If you start making a lot of substitutions they won't be the same. Fresh out of the oven these are phenomenally good, and when I'm taking classes at my local junior college, I always bring cookies on test days. Warm. I have a 4.0 GPA. I bake them for my kids' school and I'm wildly popular with all their friends.


I also have a recipe for chocolate frosted cookies. If you want it, PM me.

for chocolate chip cookies always use Flieshman's Original margarine. You can use crisco for other types of cookies but for chocolate chip Flieshman's RULES. Don't ask me why this is - it just is. :-) And other types of margarine are NOT the same.

Crisco is some kind of fake fat related to Twinkie filling--I won't go near the stuff.

I'm baking this weekend as well. I think everyone is. :-)

- red and green M&M cookies
- chocolate chip-toffee bit cookies
- white chocolate chip-craisin cookies
- sugar cookies
- gingerbread men
- chocolate stars (best recipe ever from Southern Living)
- outmeal-raisin-cinnamon chip cookies
- cranberry swirls (new for this year)
- espresso cookies (also new for this year - maybe)
- chocolate fudge (with and without nuts)
- white chocolate fudge
- peanut butter fudge

I think I'll do the white chocolate chip with dried sour cherries instead of craisins. And can you post the recipe for the expresso cookies? Sounds interesting.

about getting the espresso cookie recipe. It's over at my best friend's house. Note - we haven't tried it before so I have no idea what it tastes like. :-)

Let me know how the sour cherry thing turns out. One of the things I love best about the Tollhouse cookie recipe is that you can put practically anything in it and it'll turn out ok. We tried the white chocolate chips and craisins about 3 years ago on a whim and they turned out really good. They taste wonderful and the red color of the craisins is nice for the holidays. :-)

The ones covered with powered sugar are my personal faves.

She also makes chocolate rum balls-they're deadly!

ITALIAN RUM BALLS

1 cup soft butter
1/4 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons rum or extract
2 1/4 cups flour
Melted butter
Chopped nuts
Cinnamon-sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add rum and blend well. Gradually add flour to butter mixture. Blend in enough flour to make a smooth ball. Chill 1 hour.

Take pieces of dough and roll into balls the size of a walnut. Drop into melted butter, then nuts, and into cinnamon-sugar. Shake off excess and place on cookie sheets. Bake 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes 3 1/2 dozen.

middle; gingerbread cookies are good if they are the chewy kind; I hate crunchy cookies *lol*

These are fussy cookies, but are unbelievably good:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour
1/8 tsp. salt

Cream butter and sugar together until creamy. Stir in egg yolk and vanilla. Add flour and salt and mix well. If you have time, chill the dough for several hours.

1 egg white, slightly beaten
1 cup finely chopped nuts or flaked coconut
buttercream frosting (canned, if you like)
M&Ms candies

Form dough into 1" balls. Dip each ball into the slightly beaten egg white, then roll in nuts or coconut to coat. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 5 minutes. Remove from oven, and make an indentation in each cookie with your thumb. Return cookie sheet to oven and bake for 5 more minutes. Cool and fill with buttercream frosting (canned is just fine). Top with M&Ms holiday candies.

More:

http://busycooks.about.com/library/weekly/aa111302a.htm

mmm.... take your basic sugar cookie recipe and replace 1/2 the butter/shortening with tahini (make sure you stir the tahini well first). Then add about 1/4 cup toasted sesame seeds.

Absolutely my favorite cookie for this time of the year.

I like the sesame cookies in the Joy of Cooking.

But now I have a list I probably can't manage in one weekend:

• Spritz snowflake cookies
• Gingerbread men
• Angel slices
• White chocolate-chip/cherry cookies
• Tollhouse cookies
• Peanut butter kisses
• Rum balls (probably made with brandy because that’s what I happen to have)
• Pecan puffs
• Hazelnut biscotti
• Linzer cookies (hazelnut with raspberry jam)
• Almond stars
• Pizzelles
• Nut rolls
• Sesame cookies


Oh, the choices, the choices.

traditional Swiss also Basel-leckerli etc, you will have to google the recipes though.

somewhere. Some good recipes there!

brown sugar

I took a poll on cookies because I want to give them out as presents.

Since people are allergic to Peanut Butter I think that I will leave the peanut butter ones out.