Cookie Time!

Earlier this week we had our annual family cookie making day at grandma's house.  It was my sister, grandma and I making our Christmas treats.

This year our day had an interesting twist with the oven deciding not to open and keeping the lemonade cookies that my sister was baking inside.  The repairman was able to free the cookies the next day and the birds got a special treat.  It ended up that the motor went out on the auto-clean feature (which grandma has never used) and the oven automatically locked the door.  The auto clean has been permanently disconnected to prevent a reoccurence of the problem.  So we were able to make about half of the cookies that day.  I also had to take one chilled recipe home to bake in my non-automatic oven.

Here are the two recipes that I chose this year!

Melting Snowman Cookie Balls from Kraft Foods 

(click on highlighted recipe name for direct link)

Ingredients:  

1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
24 NUTTER BUTTER Cookies, finely crushed (about 3 cups)
2 pkg. (6 squares each) BAKER'S White Chocolate, melted
48 Mini OREO Bite Size Cookies
2 Tbsp. decorating icing

Instructions: 

MIX cream cheese and cookie crumbs until well blended. SHAPE into 48 (1-inch) balls; place in single layer in shallow pan. Freeze 10 min. Dip balls in melted chocolate (use two forks to coat & transfer); place in shallow waxed paper-lined pan, allowing excess chocolate to pool at bottom of each ball and place oreo on top for hat. REFRIGERATE 1 hour or until firm. Decorate with faces. Keep refrigerated.

Notes:  Well our cookie balls had a tan color from the 1/4 cup peanut butter that was mixed into the chocolate per the original recipe instructions.  I just visited the kraft website and they have removed the peanut butter from the recipe.  Next time we will just use white chocolate only for the coating.  We may also play with replacing the nutter butter cookies with oreo cookies and see how that works out.  Either way, these were very delicious. 

My Great-Grandma's Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup margarine

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup sugar

1cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

2 eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda

4 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon cream of tarter

1 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

Cream vegetable oil, butter and both sugars.  Add vanilla, lemon extract and eggs.  Sift dry ingredients, then stir and blend all together.  Chill one hour.   Roll a teaspoon of soft dough into a ball, flaten down a little on greased cookie sheet and sprinkle with sugar (I use the bottom of a drinking glass that has been dipped in sugar between each cookie).  Bake approximately 12 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  Makes 8 dozen.

Note: I use parchment paper on my baking sheets and that cuts the baking time down to about 6 minutes, so keep an eye on the first batch to get the proper timing down.  These are a favorite of mine since I was a little kid.  I remember visiting my great-grandma (whom lived several hours away) and she would pull these cookies out of her freezer and we would decorate them with colored icing before eating them.  Enjoy!!!

My sister chose lemonade cookies and a turtle treat (which has yet to be made, darn oven).  Grandma make a chocolate cookie bar and was going to make another oven requiring treat.  I think they may be finishing the rest of the cookies this coming week.

What treats are you making this Christmas season???