Holiday Cookie Exchange 2010 - Page 5

I was at the store last night, and picked up Mint M&Ms. then thought, what about chocolate cookies with the mint candy for a really simple change!

Growing up we did Mint M&M cookies, but the last few years I've had trouble finding them. I can only find them at one store and it is across town, and I really avoid going out that far.

Our Walgreens has had them. I got mine at Shop N Save grocery store last night.

Back to M&M's for a minute.

Does anyone know a store that's selling the bags of Baby M's? I can find them in the tubes in some drug stores, but haven't seen the bags in over a year.

Thanks -

Theresa

I saw the baby m's at Ralph and vons

Peppermint Pinwheel Cookies

Makes 4 dozen

1/2 C butter, softened
1 C sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1-2/3 C all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp red food coloring paste
parchment pepper
peppermint frosting (recipe follows)

Beat butter at medium speed with a heavy-duty stand mixer until creamy; gradulaly add sugar, beating until light & fluffy. Add egg & vanilla, beating until blended, scraping bowl as needed.

Combine flour, baking soda & salt; gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating at low speed until blended. Divide dough into 2 equal portions. Roll 1 portion of dougg into a 12x8 rectangle on a piece of lightly floured plastic wrap.

Knead food coloring paste into remaining portion of dough while wearing rubber gloves. Roll tinted dough into a rectangle as directed above. Invert untinted dough onto tinted dough; peel off plastic wrap. Cut dough in half lengthwise, forming 2 12x4 rectangles. Roll up each rectangle, jelly-roll fashion, starting at 1 long side, using bottompiece of plastic wrap as a guide. Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze 4 hours or up to 1 month.

Preheat oven to 350. Cut ends off each dough log and discard. Cut dough into 1/4 inch thick pieces and place on parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Bake at 350 for 6-7 minutes or until puffed & set; cool cookies on baking sheets 5 minutes. Remove to wire racks & cool completely (about 30 minutes).

Place peppermint frosting in a heavy-duty zip-top plastic freezer bag. Snip 1 corner of bag to make a small hole. Pipe about 2 tsp frosting onto half of the cookies; top with remaining cookies, gently pressing to form a sandwich.

PEPPERMINT FROSTING

1/4 C butter, softened
1 - 3 oz package cream cheese, softened
2 C powdered sugar
1 T milk
1/8 tsp peppermint extract

Beat butter & cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating at low speed until blended. Increase speed to medium & gradually add milk & peppermint extract, beating until smooth.

Just got back from the store.
Now I have on hand - mint M&Ms, milk chocolate Christmas M&Ms, cherry cordial Kisses, candy cane Kisses, mint truffle Kisses, Rolos, pretzels, cashews, pistachios, condensed milk, coconut, dried fruit, cake mixes, maraschino cherries, marshmallows, peanut butter, maple syrup...

Good thing our colds are all better, we have WORK to do next week!

Oh my!

Whoa, I haven't had time to browse the whole Google doc, so I hope this isn't a repeat:

Turtle Thumbprints

1 egg yolk
1/2 cup softened butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
16 chewy caramels, unwrapped
3 tablespoons whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups finely chopped pecans
3 oz. semisweet chocolate
1 teaspoon shortening

1. Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg yolk, milk, and vanilla.

2. In another bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture and mix until well combined. Wrap cookie dough in plastic wrap and chill for 2 hours or until the dough is easy to handle.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

4. In a small saucepan, heat caramels, whipping cream, and vanilla until melted and smooth.

5. Roll dough balls in chopped pecans, and using the back of a round measuring spoon, make an indentation in the cookie. Bake for 10 minutes or so until edges are firm.

6. Re-press your indentations after cookies are baked and spoon in caramel mixture.

7. Melt chocolate with shortening until smooth, drizzle over the tops of cookies. Let stand until chocolate is set.

It's a lot of steps but they're good! Sometimes if I'm feeling really ambitious, I'll use a homemade caramel instead of packaged caramels.

Butter Cookie

1 lb butter (4 sticks)
1 1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
about 6 cups flour (or enough so dough can be rolled)
2 t baking powder

You can also add vanilla, almond, lemon, or orange extract in this dough. I used vanilla for the cookies I was doing.


Bake these at 350. How long depends on the size. I bake until the edges start turning golden and the cookie is firm.

When I was a kid we brushed these cookies with beaten egg then sprinkled on colored sugars before baking.

For the Nutella cookies, you will cut out round cookies, two for each sandwich, bake and cool. Fill with Nutella and dust the tops with powder sugar.

We also do the same idea for a jelly cookie. With these, on the top cookie grandma always cut out a star out of the middle of the round cookie. Ive done them before using the different shaped mini cutters as well. You can fill them with any jelly. We like raspberry, apricot and blackberry. These also get dusted with powder sugar.

For the nut topped cookies, the nut mixture on top is finely chopped pecans, sugar and evaporated milk. The measurements I came up with (grandma was a by feel person here) it was 16ozs pecans, 1 cup sugar and about 3 to 4 oz evaporated milk. You want enough milk that the mixture holds together well. You will top the cookies with the mixture before you bake them. After they come out of the oven and cool you will make a glaze using powder sugar and lemon juice and put a little in the middle of the nut topping, it will spread down the cookies.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1513277921324&set=a.1275975348908.2036506.1515707372

I did some the other night. I think they were 3in round cookies and took about 14 mins to bake. I got about 7 doz topped with the nut mixture before I ran out and rolled out another 2 doz-ish to turn in to the nutella filled cookies.

This is probably a doubled version of the original recipe, so feel free to divide it if you arent like us and go over board on cookies.