What are you baking?

[Remudamom]

Our house is overrun with cute little cookies from a cookie press and reindeer kisses.

 

What are you making?

 

And btw, if you have a good recipe to use with a cookie press, hand it over. My cookies are adorable but they taste like straw. So far that hasn't bothered the teenage boys in the house.

[simka2]

Gingerbread!!!! Smelled yummy...kinda strawish too :glare:!

[Annie]

I have lemon ricotta cookies with a lemon glaze (from Food Network) on the counter to harden. Tomorrow I'm going to try this recipe for traditional ginger bread from The Fresh Loaf.

[TN Mama]

Haven't started baking here yet, but will make cracked sugar cookies, cut out cookies with icing, katula squares (graham crackers with a brown sugar/butter sauce, topped with chocolate & pecans) and maybe adding neopolitans this year. Looking forward to getting started!

 

The kids can't wait for the chex mix either!

[Beatusduo]

We have already made several batches of cream cheese cookies. These are good for cut outs. We just need to frost.

Pizzelles

Gingerbread

 

I also made one batch of press cookies. I loved the flavor, but they did not press well. I ended up rolling them out, cut with a biscuit cutter and put sprinkles on them.

I need to work with the recipe and get it to work in the press.

[ladydusk]

I have lemon ricotta cookies with a lemon glaze (from Food Network) on the counter to harden.

 

Link?

[HRAAB]

Speculaas for St. Nicholas Day. The house smells wonderful.

[Annie]

Link?

 

Here you go:

 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/lemon-ricotta-cookies-with-lemon-glaze-recipe/index.html

 

This was my first time making them, and I like how they turned out. They are more cake like than crispy, but I like the texture with the thin crisp of the glaze. I like a little more lemon flavor, so I might up the zest in the cookie a little bit next time.

[ladydusk]

Thanks!

[Belacqua]

I took some cheddar shortbread topped with red onion jam to a party yesterday, and responses were mixed. Some people loved them, others found them a bit weird.

 

Annie, have you found a way to keep those lemon cookies from getting soggy? Whenever I make them, they're lovely for the first few hours, then they start getting a bit squishy. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

[LisaKinVA]

cream cheese mints

butter caramels

chocolate caramels

fudge

peanut butter fudge

candy bar fudge

spiced pecans

cinnamon divinity

 

Okay, not really baking...yet. Candy comes first.

 

After the candy, I'll make up some cinnamon rolls, and bread, sugar cookies, and I don't know what else.

[Jane in NC]

Chocolate-Dipped Lemon Cookies. The recipe is from the Ghiradelli website.

 

I am mailing these to my son and a niece as sustenance while they prepare for final exams.

 

P.S. I do have a decent cookie press recipe, the original one that came with my mom's press. I'll look for it later if another recipe is not forthcoming.

[joannqn]

A few days ago, I made shortbread and chocolate-vanilla shortbread swirled cookies. Yesterday, we made Mexican Wedding cookies, chocolate pretzels, and some sugar cookies. Today, we'll finish the sugar cookies and make macaroons.

 

We're having a party on Saturday, so I have lots of baking going on this weekend. On my list are more shortbread swirls, more mexican wedding cookies, more chocolate pretzels, snickerdoodles, chocolate crinkles, chocolate peanut butter bars, and fudge.

[Annie]

Annie, have you found a way to keep those lemon cookies from getting soggy? Whenever I make them, they're lovely for the first few hours, then they start getting a bit squishy. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

 

This is the first time I'm making them, and they are pretty cake like. Do you think it could be the glaze seeping in that makes them more squishy? I baked last night and glazed this morning so maybe that could make a difference. I'm a fan of cake like cookies, but I know that's not everyone's cup o' tea.

[Remudamom]

 

Annie, have you found a way to keep those lemon cookies from getting soggy? Whenever I make them, they're lovely for the first few hours, then they start getting a bit squishy. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

 

You're not eating them fast enough. How do you keep cookies in your house for that long anyway? My teen boys are eating mine almost faster than I can cook them. I finally hid them in the laundry room under some dirty clothes. I know they won't go in there.

 

I did find a good recipe for cream cheese cookie press cookies if anyone needs it.

[rwjx2khsmj]

We mixed our dough for sugar cookies and spicenuts last night. We'll be baking fools this evening.

Edited December 7, 2010 by rwjx2khsmj

[Beatusduo]

I did find a good recipe for cream cheese cookie press cookies if anyone needs it.

 

 

I would like to have your recipe.

Thanks

[Parrothead]

Today I've got St. Nicholas gingerbread cake in the oven.

[TN Mama]

I'd love a good spiced nuts recipe. :) Pretty please.

[Classical Country Mama]

Just made cherry s'more brownies for tonight's Christmas party.

 

It was SO much more fun than cleaning. Less impressive a reason to have cancelled school for the day, however.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

Just bought all the cookie supplies today to start baking tomorrow. We will be making spritz cookies, sugar cookie cut outs and thumbprints.

[Tammyla]

I want to bake something, honestly I do, but I don't want to mess up the kitchen. I'm thinking maybe this weekend we'll do a major baking session, but for right now, I'm just not owning it.

[OnTheBrink]

I plan to make Rachael Ray's 5 Minute Fudge, but am not sure about what else. Spiced nuts sound good. So does divinity!

 

A lady on Freecycle gave me about 20 small cigar boxes (about 4" x 4") and we plan to cover them completely in Christmas wrap and use them to give away cookies and fudge to friends. The boxes don't smell like tobacco at all. I think the cigars were individually wrapped.

[Soph the vet]

I'm going to figure out how to make Pistachio Cake...just heard about it today.

[i.love.lucy]

I plan to make Rachael Ray's 5 Minute Fudge, but am not sure about what else. Spiced nuts sound good. So does divinity!

 

A lady on Freecycle gave me about 20 small cigar boxes (about 4" x 4") and we plan to cover them completely in Christmas wrap and use them to give away cookies and fudge to friends. The boxes don't smell like tobacco at all. I think the cigars were individually wrapped.

My dh smokes cigars and orders them online but they never come in boxes.:glare: I wish they would, I love those things. Great idea to wrap them and use them to give away treats!

[Jen in PA]

I just mailed out round two of food gifts! Yesterday we made all sorts of dipped and decorated pretzel rods, spiced nuts, and I added minced crystallized ginger and dark chocolate baking chunks to my basic sugar cookie dough, which came out great. The first round of baked goods (some of which is still in the cookie jar) was peanut butter cookies, white chocolate chunk cookies, and sugar cookies.

[Pretty in Pink]

I've been baking apple pies since before Thanksgiving and I made a pear & cranberry crisp this morning. We haven't tackled cookies yet.

[Ali in OR]

Okay, someone post a spiced nuts recipe please! We bought some in Williamsburg and I would love to learn how to make them. The ones I bought were "Wingnuts"--spicy peanuts that are supposed to be like buffalo wings.

[Crissy]

I baked snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies this weekend, but I'm done.

I eat far too many cookies when I bake.

Even putting them in the freezer hasn't kept me away.

[lynn]

Cranberry Bliss, fudge, andes mint cookies, ginger snaps, pumpkin scones, snickerdoodles, sugar cookies, sparkle cookies, german marble cake, cherry oatmeal cookies. I think that is it for the season.

[HollyDay]

almond bars

Latvian ginger cookies

sugar cookies

spritz

thumb print cookies

fudge

Nigella Lawson chocolate fruit cake

panettone

peppermint bark

 

For dds' recital this weekend:

double chocolate chip cookies

peppermint bars (new recipe!!)

 

For dd's ballet teacher:

Pumpkin bread

[unsinkable]

I took some cheddar shortbread topped with red onion jam to a party yesterday, and responses were mixed. Some people loved them, others found them a bit weird.

 

Annie, have you found a way to keep those lemon cookies from getting soggy? Whenever I make them, they're lovely for the first few hours, then they start getting a bit squishy. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

 

I hope they found a gentler way to phrase it than weird...unless you didn't care how they phrased it!

[TN Mama]

peppermint bars (new recipe!!)

 

 

 

 

:001_huh:

I didn't see it posted...

:D Care to share?

[unsinkable]

My dh smokes cigars and orders them online but they never come in boxes.:glare: I wish they would, I love those things. Great idea to wrap them and use them to give away treats!

 

Do you have a cigar store nearby?

 

Maybe your DH can go buy a few locally and make friends with the owner...then the owner can give you some boxes.

[Medieval Mom]

Just about everything in the 1950's Betty Crocker cookbook :D We "missed" a traditional time/opportunity for baking and festivities for the last two years. It seems we're making up for lost times! Even my ds7 has been inspired to bake cookies, making his first batch entirely independently (except for handling the oven) yesterday.

Edited December 7, 2010 by Medieval Mom

[unsinkable]

Cranberry Bliss, fudge, andes mint cookies, ginger snaps, pumpkin scones, snickerdoodles, sugar cookies, sparkle cookies, german marble cake, cherry oatmeal cookies. I think that is it for the season.

 

please, pretty please can I have the recipe?

 

I looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooove cranberry and I need some bliss.

[Mom-ninja.]

I've been baking apple pies since before Thanksgiving and I made a pear & cranberry crisp this morning. We haven't tackled cookies yet.

 

 

I made an apple and cranberry pie yesterday. It's already gone.

[rwjx2khsmj]

My recipe (and what we were making) is for spicenuts not spiced nuts. Either way, if you want the recipe. Enjoy!

 

Spicenuts

 

1 c. shortening, butter or margarine

1 c. sugar

1 c. brown sugar

3 eggs beaten

grated rind of one lemon

grated rind of half an orange

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

3/4 c finely chopped walnuts

1 tsp baking soda

4-5 c. flour

 

Cream shortening and sugars. Add eggs, rinds and spices. Mix well. add nuts, soda and flour. Chill overnight. Roll into long, pencil size ropes and cut in thin slices. Bake at 350 degrees for 7 minutes.

 

This is a huge batch for a lone baker. Try cutting it in half unless you have lots of time or lots of help.

Edited December 7, 2010 by rwjx2khsmj

[T'smom]

cream cheese mints

butter caramels

chocolate caramels

fudge

peanut butter fudge

candy bar fudge

spiced pecans

cinnamon divinity

 

Okay, not really baking...yet. Candy comes first.

 

After the candy, I'll make up some cinnamon rolls, and bread, sugar cookies, and I don't know what else.

 

I would LOVE to have the caramel recipies! Pretty please?

[i.love.lucy]

Do you have a cigar store nearby?

 

Maybe your DH can go buy a few locally and make friends with the owner...then the owner can give you some boxes.

He's known there, not friends or anything, but they sell the boxes. $1 each. I've grabbed them for the kids because you know how kids are with boxes and collections of things. Too spendy for use to give treats in!

 

I've baked german chocolate cookies, pumpkin bread, and white chocolate spice cookies to give away. Right now in the oven is a pumpkin crumble, but that's just for us.:tongue_smilie: Tomorrow I will tackle buckeyes and those butter crunch pretzels someone posted a while ago. Those two are planned for our librarians, garbage men, mail man, etc.

[BeckyFL]

Cranberry cake for a Christmas party. :)

[Belacqua]

I hope they found a gentler way to phrase it than weird...unless you didn't care how they phrased it!

 

Most were more diplomatic. :) I have a reputation among these women as the one who takes the, er, untraditional dishes to potlucks, so I expect that not everybody will be enchanted. At least the red onion jam went over slightly better than the chicken liver toasts I made last year (note to self: do not spring organ meats on a bunch of unsuspecting partygoers).

[hsbaby]

I am making cream cheese cookies with the cookie press. Topped with a maraschino cherry, of course. It's my grandma's recipe and my all time favorite cookie. I am also baking an Apple Cinnamon loaf for a little breakfast buffet the moms are secretly arranging for our dd's gymnastic coaches. Seriously, it is the best loaf. Ever.

[kwg]

I am living vicariously through all of you :drool:. I am dieting and there is no way I could bake without eating :glare:

 

I have read the thread twice :lol:

[unsinkable]

Most were more diplomatic. :) I have a reputation among these women as the one who takes the, er, untraditional dishes to potlucks, so I expect that not everybody will be enchanted. At least the red onion jam went over slightly better than the chicken liver toasts I made last year (note to self: do not spring organ meats on a bunch of unsuspecting partygoers).

 

I think wonderful advice for the holidays and all thru the year! :D

[unsinkable]

I made 4 batches of fudge yesterday, 6 batches of truffles, 8 dozen molasses cookies and 8 dozen almond butter cookies today. Tomorrow is Sacher Bites and 3 Chip Cookies and gingerbread on Thursday. Then to wrap up the 50 fruitcakes that have been soaking in brandy since Thanksgiving and getting it all sent off!

 

I'd love to see you prepare all this in time-lapse photography!

 

That is an amazing amount of food.

[Halftime Hope]

....while we Americans just call it a Cookie Press cookie, right????? :lol:

 

This is my grandma's (Ruth Emily Lyngaas Johnson) recipe. She was a bonafide Norwegian--got off the boat when she was six in 1902, and her father settled them into an Italian neighborhood in Chicago so they'd all learn English! ;) They valued education tremendously; she went on to get a master's in organ performance and married Oscar, who became a Lutheran pastor. The two of them served in the pastorate for 55 years (!) together, and my mother swears that Mom Johnson's were the best sprutas in the entire church. From my own experience having eaten other sprutas that did taste like straw (RemudaMom's comment!), I'd have to say I believe my mom's opinion. Nana was a wonderful cook with a very generous heart: she would be pleased that I'm sharing her recipe.

 

Ruth Johnson's Spruta Cookies

 

1 c. butter

2/3 c. sugar

3 egg yolks

1 tsp. almond extract

1 tsp. salt

2 1/2 c. sifted flour (include in this 1 Tbsp. corn starch, or use half and half cake flour and regular flour)

 

Combine butter and sugar, creaming very thoroughly. Add yolks one at a time, mixing very well between additions to cream the mixture very well. Combine dry ingreds. and mix in. Chill dough to cool it moderately (not a "hard chill", though) and handle dough as little as possible. Fill spruta mold (cookie press) with dough and extrude dough to make

cookie shapes as desired. Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes until just set. Cookies will continue to cook on the baking sheet, so do not overbake. (Cookies are done when they are just *beginning* to turn pale golden brown on the bottoms if you are using a plain cookie sheet.) Cool, then remove from the cookie sheet. Cookies freeze very well, if any make it to the freezer. LOL

 

One other note: if it is very warm in the kitchen, the dough will try to separate, butter oozing out, so make these in a cool kitchen. Never try to make them if you happen to be a homesick missionary living near the equator where a cool day "only" reaches 108 degrees F. You might end up with spruta rocks.

 

Shapes we do:

 

Make two batches of cookie dough and color one batch deep green for wreaths and Christmas trees: (I use a lot of food coloring to make it deep green. Once a year doesn't kill me, but ymmv!) Many people also use red to make the poinsettia shaped cookies.

 

For wreaths, use the tiny six-point star to pipe out a curved 2 - 2.5 inch long piece of dough. With a table knife cut off the dough from the cookie die, then form the two ends of the dough into a petite circle. The dough will spread a bit, and "gangly" big old wreaths aren't pretty, so make them petite. For the red bow on the wreath, cut a few marschino cherries into 8ths, making little red triangles. Put one piece on the wreath before baking--it makes a decently recognizable wreath impression. :lol:

 

For trees, we usually decorate with multicolored dot sprinkles, and we used to use one silver dragee at the top for the star. I don't know if the dragees are available any more; we've just gone without since they aren't available in the grocery store.

 

We make camels (undecorated), poinsettias and another flower shape with red and green sugar, and if the mood is right, we might even make that flat shape with the grooves in the top and dip it (when cooled) in choc glaze, but that's pretty rare.

 

Trust me when I tell you that sprutas are *so much easier* than rolled cookie cutter cookies. I've given you an excessive number of details, hoping that the "tips for perfection" will make it easier and that you'll have success with them, instead of having a steep learning curve.

 

However you say Bon Apetit! in Norwegian....that.

 

Tomorrow I'll try to post the other best-of-the-best, "world class" cookie recipe that I have, this one the best ever Ginger Snap recipe, which even my mother-in-law thought was the best she had ever tasted. In the mean time, for those with a penchant for lemon cookies who were turned off by the "sogginess," google "Melting Moments". They are a cross between an iced cookie, a lemon cookie, and a Mexican Wedding cookie--scrumptuous!!

Edited December 7, 2010 by Valerie(TX)

[angela in ohio]

We give away a lot of cookies, so we make many kinds. We make pretty much the same thing every year, except that we are adding chocolate covered cherries this year.

 

Cookies:

Peanut butter kiss cookies

Chocolate cookies with mint M&Ms

Spritz

Russian tea cakes (with walnuts)

Candy cane cookeis (with almond extract)

Raspberry almond thumbprints

 

Candy:

Oreo truffles

Chocolate dipped peppermint meringues

Buckeyes

Chocolate covered cherries

Peanut butter and chocolate fudge

Peppermint bark

[RanchGirl]

I am so in the mood to bake and cook right now!! Sunday I made:

 

yummy bars

magic cookie bars

lemon bars

volcanoes

 

And I have LONG list of things to make in the next couple weeks, especially things that are more Christmas-y than bars!

 

Remudamom, here is a Spritz recipe that we love. I always sprinkle them with colored sugar on top but otherwise I don't add anything.

[KrissiK]

Well, at this very moment in time (Tuesday, 2;17pm) I am baking the pieces to about 1 1/2 dozen gingerbread houses for our church's children's Christmas Party. This week I am planning on baking: chocolate crinkles, peppernuts, checkerboards & pinwheels, biscotti and something else, I haven't decided yet. I make cookie plates for all the neighbors.