Cookies!

Wow, have I been baking! Thanks to Pioneer Woman, I discovered this stupendous recipe for sugar cookies at Bake at 350 

Just thrilled that the dough doesn’t need to be chilled before rolling out. Yummy! Here they are in several formats!       

Fancy cookies! I couldn’t resist the circular cutters with space for the jam to show through. Here’s how I made the dough from Bake at 350 (what a fun blog name) by substituting whole wheat flour for part of the recipe:

Cream 1 cup sugar and 2 sticks of butter. Add 1 egg. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and ¾ teaspoon almond extract and 1 teaspoon water. Add 2 teaspoons baking powder and 2 cups white flour plus 1 cup whole wheat flour. Roll out, cut the cookies, and bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until they are lightly browned.

Use any red jam (I also love peach jam with these cookies) on the bottom layer, then top with punched cookie. At first I was annoyed with myself for forgetting to dust confectioner's sugar on the tops before placing them on the jam, but was pleasantly surprised that the sugar just absorbed into the jam so it was fine to put the top onto the jam, then dust with sugar.

Assembly line! Chocolate chip cookies were per package directions, peanut butter cookies were fairly boring to photograph…here is the recipe for chocolate no-bake cookies

And here we go, out the door! Do you have any favorite holiday cookie recipes?