Delights of December Day 7 ~ Whipped Shortbread Cookies

Whipped Shortbread has been one of our very favorite Christmas cookies for years and years. The cookies require very few ingredients and are super easy to make.

WHIPPED SHORTBREAD

3 cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted if very lumpy
4 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups cornstarch
Colored candy sprinkles and/or halved candied cherries and/or red and green colored sugar

Using a heavy-duty mixer, beat butter on medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually add dry ingredients, beating constantly until well blended. Roll dough into 1-inch balls (dust hands with additional cornstarch if necessary); dip balls in either colored candy sprinkles or colored sugar. Place balls, decorated side up, on ungreased cookie sheets. Press each ball lightly with a fork. (If you wish to decorate cookies with cherries, do this: Do not dip balls in colored sprinkles or sugar. Instead, place plain balls on cookie sheet and press lightly with fork. Then top each cookie with a cherry half.) You may wish to do an assortment and trim some cookies with candy sprinkles, some with colored sugar, and some with cherries. Bake cookies at 300º for 20 to 22 minutes, or until cookies are set but not browned.

Yield: 16 dozen cookies

This is a very big recipe, but it is very easily divided in half (or even in thirds) if you wish to make a smaller batch. It is so easy, but produces many beautiful cookies quite quickly.

Delights of December Day 6 ~ velvet ribbon garlands

Here's an easy idea to trim that hard-to-decorate area -- make these ribbon garlands to drape across your window tops.

Years ago, I wanted to make something special to help decorate our living room for Christmas. The problem was that the colors in this room -- gold, green, rust, etc. didn't look all that great with what I could find for trims.

However, I had been given some spools of stiff velvety craft ribbon about 3/4-inch wide. Among the usual reds and Christmas greens there were also some spools of gold and moss green ribbon. I cut pieces of ribbon perhaps 4 inches long, formed one into a loop and stapled the ends together. Then I slipped the next piece of ribbon through the loop and stapled its ends... and so on, and so on, exactly as one would do to make a paper chain. I alternated the gold and moss green colors in the chains, and made each chain long enough to drape across the top of a window, with part of the chain hanging down straight at each end. I simply pinned them in place with straight pins. They really dressed up the room while not clashing with its colors.

Of course you can use any type of craft ribbon you like. I would not recommend using ribbon any wider than one inch, however, and I wouldn't use any sort of ribbon that frays easily. But use your imagination when it comes to colors and ribbons. I can picture a garland of red plaid ribbon looking very nice indeed, for example.

These garlands may be used anywhere you'd like, of course -- mantels, hutches, corner cupboards -- even on the Christmas tree.

Have fun with this idea!

Delights of December Day 5 ~ Sacher Torte Cookies

For today's special feature, here is one of our favorite Christmas cookies. I have made these each Christmas for at least 25 years and it would just not seem like Christmas without them.  One of my daughters likes these so much that I give her some for Christmas each year on a special new holiday plate or in a special holiday tin.

SACHER TORTE COOKIES
1 cup butter, softened
1 (4 1/2 oz.) pkg. instant chocolate pudding mix
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup apricot (or raspberry) jam
1/2 cup chocolate chips
3 tablespoons melted butter

Heat oven to 325°. 

In a large mixing bowl, combine butter and pudding mix; cream together until fluffy. Beat in egg and extract. 

Gradually add flour, beating at low speed with mixer until dough forms. Shape dough into 1” balls. Dip balls in sugar. Place 2” apart on ungreased cookie sheets. With your thumb, make an imprint in center of each ball. 

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until cookies are firm; remove from sheets immediately to wire racks to cool. When cookies are cool, fill each indentation with about 1/2 teaspoon jam. In a small saucepan, or in microwave, blend chips and butter over low heat until chocolate melts, stirring constantly. Drizzle about 1/2 teaspoon chocolate over each cookie.

Yield: About 4 dozen cookies.

This is one of our very favorite Christmas cookie recipes. They look pretty and fancy but are very easy to make. I believe I found the recipe in a Yankee magazine article about the Wellesley Cookie Exchange.

Delights of December Day 4 ~ A small but thoughtful care package

Do you have faraway friends you'd like to remember with a little something at Christmas time? Here's what I did one year. The friends I sent this to were so surprised and pleased. I wanted to send them just a taste of Christmas in our home, and they said they really felt a part of our Christmas.

I lined a small (recycled) box with red and green tissue paper, then filled the box with a few things that would give them a taste of our Christmas. Things like:

* A small foil package of holiday fudge

* A small tin of some favorite Christmas cookies

* A homemade packet of spices for hot cider

* Some handmade sparkly heart ornaments -- the ones with bells sewed on, so our friends would hear a festive jingle as they opened the package

* Shreds of red & green paper (the type sold as filler for gift baskets)

* A few little hemlock cones from our woods

* A sprinkle of metallic Christmas confetti

You could include many different things, keeping the emphasis on "small" and "lightweight". Be imaginative and send your friends something that will really help them to feel they are sharing in your Christmas joy. (I buy things like the confetti and the red & green paper shreds when they are on sale at season's end and just store them until the next Christmas.)

A package like this doesn't cost much at all to send, but it is such a nice surprise for your friends to receive!

Delights of December Day 3 ~ Simple but fancy cookies for your cookie trays!

These cookies are easy but very pretty and fancy looking.  The first one starts with a baked pan of brownies.  My mother (who invented these as far as I know) always used the brownie recipe from the Betty Crocker Cookbook, but certainly it will work with any brownie recipe or even a brownie mix. 

The second idea is one I heard on Gus Saunders' Yankee Kitchen radio program, which I often listened to years ago.  Someone called in this idea, which uses purchased fig bars, and I tried it.  Delicious, pretty, and almost no work.

Here are two ideas that will make your cookie plates look fancy with very little work on your part:

1) Poinsettia Brownies

My mother always made these to add to her gift trays of cookies at Christmas. Bake brownies as usual and let them cool. Before cutting, frost the brownies with a simple white butter frosting and mark them into squares. Using slices of candied cherries (note: NOT maraschino cherries, which could make quite a mess), form poinsettias on the top of each square. Cut the brownies along the marked lines. You can make this even simpler by using brownie mix and canned frosting.

2) Fancy Fig Cookies

These start with purchased fig bars (like Fig Newtons®). Cut the bars in half lengthwise to make sticks, or in half diagonally to make triangles. Dip the pieces in melted chocolate, then in chopped nuts. Place on foil-lined baking sheets and chill until chocolate is set.

Enjoy! 

Delights of December Day 2 ~ Sparkly Heart Ornaments

Today's feature is a simple and fun craft project.  Even children who can safely handle a needle and thread could make these!  The photo really doesn't do them justice, as this is an older ornament I have had for awhile and the jingle bells are no longer as bright and shiny as they once were.

For today's feature, I thought I would share how to make some very pretty ornaments from simple supplies most crafters might have on hand. I have made many of these for gifts and for decorating my own home. I like to use them on my front-door wreath, but they are also nice for hanging on the tree or anywhere else you like. Some folks I have given them to like to hang these sparkly hearts from the kitchen cupboard doorknobs, to spiff up the kitchen with a holiday air. They would make nice package tie-ons, too. Years ago, I saw some similar ornaments for sale in a catalog and figured out an easy way to make them. Here's how:

SPARKLY HEART ORNAMENTS

You will need:

Red felt
Polyester fiberfill
Needle and red sewing thread
Gold star sequins
Gold glass seed beads
Red rocaille beads
Small shiny brass jingle bells, optional

For each ornament you wish to make, cut 2 heart shapes -- I trace around a a heart cookie cutter to make them uniform -- out of red felt. Add beads to one heart from each pair as follows: Thread a needle with red thread, then bring the needle up through the back side of the heart to the right side. Thread on a gold star sequin, then either a gold seed bead or a red rocaille bead. Insert the needle back into the star sequin and through to the back side again, so that the thread holds the bead tightly in place. Repeat this process to add as many sequins/beads as desired. (I used about 7 beads/stars on most of my ornaments.)

Now, using small neat stitches, sew the 2 heart shapes together about 1/4 inch from the edges, leaving an opening for stuffing the ornament. Stuff the heart ornament tightly with fiberfill (it won't take very much) and sew up the opening. If desired, sew a jingle bell to the bottom point of each heart. Now use the needle to pull a length of thread through the center top of each heart; knot to form a hanger.

The sparkly beads and sequins on these ornaments catch the light beautifully, and if you use the jingle bells, they add the sound of Christmas as well. Another really nice thing about these ornaments is that you can leave them up right through Valentine's Day!

Delights of December Day 1 ~ Pepparkakor Cookies

I've been thinking for weeks that I would like to post something special for my readers each day of December, but thinking about it is as far as I got.  And now I'm already a day late!  What I decided to do, after much thought, is to re-post the ideas and recipes I shared in December 2006.  It has been 5 years, and many of my readers are more recent than that, so these things will be new to many of you.  Hope you enjoy!

Well, as promised, here is the first of a month's worth of Christmas ideas. Pepparkakor are Swedish spice cookies. They will add such a Christmasy aroma to your house! Don't be scared off by the fact that you have to roll and cut them. This is a very easy dough to work with. Here's the recipe:

PEPPARKAKOR

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 Tblsp. dark molasses
1 egg 3 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 Tblsp. cinnamon
1 Tblsp. ginger
1 Tblsp. cloves
Juice and grated rind of 1 orange Cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy; add molasses and egg. Mix until blended. Sift flour, soda and spices into creamed mixture. Add orange juice and rind; mix until well blended. Roll dough on lightly floured surface to 1/8” thickness. Cut into heart or reindeer shapes.  Transfer to cookie sheets.

Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes, until brown. Cool on rack and store in a covered tin. Makes at least 3 to 4 dozen cookies.

I found this recipe in an old Country Woman magazine. The lady who submitted it said that these were the first cookies she baked each year to make her house really smell like Christmas. It works! Of course, you need not limit yourself to hearts and reindeer; that’s just what I usually do. Sometimes I cut some pine trees and moose as well. These are yummy whatever shape you choose to make them!