Cookies are good any time of the year.
This years' cookie parade had to be slightly modified from my usual tradition of making one cookie every day of Christmas because we were on vacation visiting family far away from home. I still got to make twelve new cookies, I just spread them out over the whole of December/ January and shared them on the twelve days of Christmas.
For the first day of Christmas I made 5-Ingredient Peppermint Chocolate Truffles. I shared these with my kids's school board of directors for our holiday party. They were very well received! I didn't bring many home. It was a really easy recipe with no changes required. Highly recommended!
For the second day of Christmas I made Eggnog Snickerdoodles. This recipe is billed as "healthy", I guess because it says to use dairy free or light eggnog. I didn't do that, because it's not healthier and I don't make cookies to be healthy, I make them to indulge. She also goes in to detail about measuring the flour correctly, but I just weighed it. It's more accurate and faster. The bake time in the recipe is far too short. They were definitely underdone, so I cooked them a little more. Another note, this recipe is only for 12 cookies, and I only got 11. Basically no one got to taste these. If you try them, double or triple the recipe and bake them longer. Despite all of that- they were still quite tasty and I would make them again.
For the third day of Christmas I made Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies. These were very good. I had the opposite problem of the previous cookies- I over baked these a little and they weren't as fudgy as they should have been. The flavors were delicious though and we all still enjoyed them.
For the fifth day of Christmas I made Eggnog Cheesecake Cookie Cups. These were soooooooooo good. Everything about them was delicious but if I made them again I would make one important change- I'd use mini muffin cups. The recipe specifically says to use standard muffin cups but they were just too big as a cookie. I also highly recommend using silicone muffin cups. It's so much easier to get the muffins or cookies out. (I also use them when I'm making eggs for breakfast sandwiches!) I also needed to bake the gingerbread cookie cups slightly longer. You do need them to be somewhat soft in the middle so that you can press them down in to cups, but they were a little underdone with the bake time in the recipe. Really, these were so, so good. Highly recommended!
For the sixth day of Christmas I made Red Velvet Shortbread Cookies. These were really not that good. They were too dry and not very flavorful. I wouldn't recommend. The recipe also says to knead the dough until smooth, but that is contrary to everything I know about making shortbread cookies, so I didn't. I shaped the dough in to a log, wrapped it in plastic wrap and chilled it, then cut the log in to cookies. The amount of handling specified in the recipe would only lead to cookies that are tough as nails.
For the seventh day of Christmas I made Christmas Tree Peanut Butter Blossoms. My mom specifically requested peanut butter blossoms this year, so I decided to try this cute fancied up version! Makayla got to decorate them and she loved it. For some reason, I decided to use the recipe I linked, instead of my own recipe that I've been making for years. That was a mistake. Mine is better. Here is what I SHOULD have done:
Christmas Tree Peanut Butter Blossoms (Kate McAfee edition)
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1 egg
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar for rolling
Hershey Kisses
Preheat oven to 350F. Cream together shortening, peanut butter, sugars, baking powder and baking soda. Beat until light and fluffy. Add in egg, milk and vanilla. Mix until combined. Add in flour. Mix until just combined. Roll dough in to 1 in balls. Roll in granulated sugar, place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes. Immediately press Hershey Kiss in center of each ball. Remove to wire rack to cool. Allow to cool and harden completely before decorating.
Buttercream Frosting
1/4 cup butter
1/3 tsp vanilla
2/3 tbsp milk
2/3 cup powdered sugar
Beat butter until light and fluffy, beat in powdered sugar. Add vanilla and milk. Adjust milk level to achieve desired consistency. Put in piping bag with writing tip. Start at the bottom of each kiss and swirl up to the top. Add sprinkles and decoration.
For the eighth day of Christmas I made Grinch Heart Raspberry Filled Sugar Cookies. The dough for these was a bit finicky. It wanted to stick to everything and keeping the hearts in the correct shape was kind of difficult. Still, they were really good and super cute. 8 out of 10 would make again.
For the ninth day of Christmas I made Lemon Pistachio Wreaths. These were so pretty and so fresh! The cookies and the icing had a nice lemony flavor and the nuts were an excellent addition. The picture on Pinterest also had cranberries to top them but that wasn't in the recipe so I didn't have them. It would probably be delicious though! We loved them!
For the tenth day of Christmas I made Dark Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies. Something went wrong for these and they spread too much. It was probably my mistake- I either softened the butter in the microwave instead of waiting for it to come to room temp, or I used cold eggs instead of room temp. So the texture was wrong, and they didn't win any beauty contests- BUT they were STILL delicious. They also used an ingredient I was unfamiliar with (and had to head to Amazon for) black cocoa powder. It's used mostly as coloring agent to make cookies really dark instead of the usual chocolate brown. I have so much extra, I'll have to make these again. Maybe I'll get the texture right this time!
For the eleventh day of Christmas I made Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies. I actually made these at the start of December for a cookie exchange at the kids school. I thought they were great! I couldn't find Hershey Candy Cane Kisses anywhere this year so I used the crushed candy cane option which gave good flavor, but I think the melted kisses would have been better, personally.
For the twelfth day of Christmas I made Gingerbread Thumbprint Cookies. This recipe came from the same place as the shortbread cookies that no one liked. These ones were great though! Gingerbread with a delicious chocolate pool in the middle. Loved everything about them!
So there you have it! The Twelve Cookies of Christmas 2018! Try some out- hope you enjoy them as much as we did!
