It is Christmas time. And in the Barefoot Hippie household, Christmas is synonymous with cookies. Biscotti, lemon bars, toffee bars, sugar cookies, goodie bars, gingerbread men.
We go whole hog and bake them all. Usually on the same day. Check out my last Christmas Baking Day Bonanza. It is my second most popular post. Craziness personified.
In the interest of less harried-ness, I am actually considering NOT doing one BIG baking day this year. Whoa! That is unheard of!
I made a batch of biscotti on Tuesday and I am making sugar cookies after school today. I whipped up a pan of lemon bars Wednesday and toffee bars and goodie bars yesterday. It seems like I have decided by default to spread out the baking goodness over a week or more this year. It is working better with our school and life schedule.
But, since I usually make multiple batches of goodie bars and toffee bars and biscotti and sugar cookies, I might still have a baking day in my future this December. We'll see.
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| Lemon Bars, Toffe Bars, Goodie Bars (recipes here) French Bread (recipe here) |
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| Chocolate Dipped Walnut Biscotti (recipe here) |
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1 cup shortening
5 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup molasses
2 eggs
2 T vinegar
2 t baking powder
2 t ginger
1 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon
1 t cloves
Buttercream Frosting
Cream together the shortening, sugar, egg, molasses, and vinegar. Add the flour, baking powder, soda, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger and mix well. Cover and chill for 3 hours.
Divide dough into half and roll out on a lightly floured surface. Cut into shapes. Place on a greased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes or until lightly golden. Cool on a wire rack. Ice when cool.
For the icing, make the Buttercream Frosting below, but use additional milk until more a drizzling consistency. Dip top side of cookies into icing, and let extra icing drip off into icing bowl. You can add decorations for buttons, etc. Let icing set before storing. Makes 3-4 dozen gingerbread men.
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| these really are the best tasting sugar cookies I have ever had. They don't taste pasty or flour-y. |
Sugar Cookies
4-1/2 cups flour
1/2 t salt
4 t baking powder
1 cup shortening
2 c sugar
4 eggs
1 t vanilla
2 T milk
Cream together sugar and shortening. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Add flour, baking powder, salt and milk and mix well.
Divide dough in half. Roll out on a lightly floured surface until a scant 1/4" thick and cut into shapes. Sprinkle with colored sugar or other decorations OR leave plain and frost with Buttercream Frosting after baking. Place on a greased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes (decorated) or 9 minutes (undecorated) or until golden.
Cool and frost and decorate if desired. Makes about 6 dozen, depending on the size cookie cutters you use.
Buttercream Frosting
1 pound powdered sugar
1 stick butter
1 t vanilla
2-4 T milk
dash of salt (optional)
food coloring (optional)
Cream together, adding enough milk to make easily spreadable. Add food coloring after everything else is well combined.
Well, I'm off to bake my family (and church family) some sugar cookies. Tell me, what are you favorite Christmas cookies or treats?
