Sugar and Spice Cookies

Every year at Christmas I try and find a new cookie or two to try.  I saw this one a day or two before I started baking and thought I would give it a try.  It is a nice blend of sugar cookie and spice cookie.  It has similar spices that are in my gingerbread men without the molasses. This recipe makes a lot of cookies so if you need to take cookies or are participating in a cookie exchange they would be a good one to make.

You don't have to put the sanding sugar or whatever sugar you plan on putting on top if you don't want to.

I know it looks like a lot of ingredients but it is mainly just some good ole spices.

Start with 2 sticks of softened butter.

4 oz softened cream cheese

1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon of vanilla.  Mix well and the butter is nice and fluffy.

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cloves.  I love the smell of cloves.  This is the smell of Christmas for me.

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups all purpose flour.  Mix well.

Cover and chill at least one hour.

Take out of the fridge.

Roll into 1 inch balls.  Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

I tried using a glass to flatten the cookie but it stuck to the glass so I just used my fingers to flatten them.

Then sprinkle with sanding sugar.

When they all have been flattened place in a preheated 350 oven and bake for 12-14 minutes. Cool in the pans for about 5 minutes.

When cool store in an airtight container.

Sugar and Spice Cookies Recipe

3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
2 sticks softened butter
4 oz softened cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
sanding sugar

Preheat oven to 350.  Flatten balls of dough and sprinkle with sanding sugar.  Bake 12-14 minutes.

Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies looked so pretty in the Pinterest recipe.  I loved the flat sprinkles that was used in this recipe.  So I pulled the recipe to try.  Then the task at hand was to find the sprinkles.  I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to find these flat round sprinkles.  I ended up finding them on Amazon.

These are festive cookies and a nice change from plan chocolate chip cookies.

It uses both part of a cake mix and flour.

Start with 3/4 cup softened butter.

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla.  Mix well until nice and fluffy.

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 cup yellow or vanilla cake mix.  Now you will have about this much left over of the cake mix so you could make two batches.

1/2 cup white and 1/2 cup chocolate chips.  You can use all of either if you prefer.

1/2 cup sprinkles

Fold the sprinkles into the batter.

Scoop out onto parchment lined cookie sheets.  Bake in a preheated 350 oven for 10-12 minutes.

These turn out really pretty and festive.

Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/4 cup yellow or vanilla cake mix
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips can split between white and chocolate
1/2 cup sprinkles
You can color coat the sprinkles for other holidays beside Christmas
Preheat oven to 350.  Bake 10-12 minutes.

25 Days of Christmas Cookies: Day 9 Ma Ma's Fruitcake Cookies

I know some of you turned your nose up at the word fruitcake.  Fruitcake has gotten a bad rap lately.  I will admit there are bad fruitcakes out there but there are some good ones too. This recipe is very special to me.  Growing up my grandmother use to make these fruitcake cookies for Christmas. And they were/are good.  Mine are a little different from hers but they are similar.  These might start becoming a holiday regular.

My cookies look different to MaMa's.  I bought the precut candied fruit which was in very small pieces.  It also had some citrus included.  My grandmother would hand chop green and red cherries.  So the pieces were larger.

Oh and this recipe uses buttermilk too.  I don't know about you but it isn't something I keep in the fridge.

Start with 1 cup shortening or butter.  I used butter flavored shortening.  If you are using butter soften it first.

2 eggs

2 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup buttermilk.  Mix well.

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

3 1/2 cups plain flour.  Mix well.

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans.  You can rough chop them or like I did and put them in the food processor.  The pieces will be smaller.

This is my candied fruit.  See the pieces are really small.

2 cups of the fruit. You can also put in 2 cups of dates.  My grandmother did not like dates so she did not put them in her cookies, so I didn't either.

Mix that well.  Chill for at least one hour.

Scoop them onto a parchment lined cookies sheet.

The directions say to place a cherry on top of the cookies. Yes Hallmark Christmas movies are the perfect thing to watch while baking cookies.

Now some of you might remember the discussion of cherries on pear salad.  I don't usually cut my cherries but I did for these cookies.  And believe it or not I didn't put cherries on all of them.

So just place the piece on a cookie.

Here you can see I did about half and half on the cherries.  You could use green ones too. Place in a preheated 350 oven. Now I got this recipe from my mother.  I am going to tell on her a little bit here and she doesn't know this yet.  She didn't tell me how long to bake the cookies.  So I had to play a little guess and seek.  I started at 5 minutes and worked up. It ended up being about 9 minutes.  So check them at about 9 minutes and see if they need to brown a little more.

Fresh from the oven.

MaMa's Fruitcake Cookies Recipe

1 cup shortening or butter(softened)
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
3 1/2 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups pecans
2 cups candied cherries chopped
2 cups dates chopped
Chill at least one hour.  Scoop out the cookies onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Top with cherry.
Bake about 9 minutes in a 350 preheated oven.