The Most Sentimental Part of Christmas....For Me

There is no sweeter memory of Christmas for me than making cookies with my Momma when I was a little girl. We would get out the Betty Crocker Cookie Book (a book I still have not gotten a copy of despite it's re-release MOM!), sift through the pages and find our favorite recipes. Now my Momma's book was so loved that almost none of the pages were actually still bound, it was more like a folder that we would have to divide up and sort through, searching for our favorites. Every year I would beg to make candy cane cookies, and every year Mom would say, "Oh, those are so much work, do we HAVE to make them?" But they were my favorite and so she would always relent and we would painstakingly make the dough, divide it and dye it, roll the dough into little "worms" and twist them together. I LOVED cookie day! I haven't made those cookies since I was a kid, maybe they should be on the cookie menu for 2011?

Anyway, this year I shared with you some pictures of my cookie making adventures. I promised to post recipes and so here they'll start! I will post a new recipe in each post so one post isn't a million miles long! I hope you like them Jennifer!

Holly Joys

2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 c. butter
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg plus 1 yolk
1 1/4 tsp. vanilla
green food coloring
Red Hots

1. Whisk together flour and baking powder in a small bowl
2. Beat butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, then add vanilla.
3. Stir in the flour mixture. Tint dough with green food coloring. Put dough in Ziploc bag and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
4. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Shape dough into logs approximately 2 inches long. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. (You can place these fairly close together as they don't spread much)
5. With food scissors snip 3 times, approx 1/2 in. apart, at an angle. Do not cut completely through dough. Twist cut pieces in opposite directions. this should make your dough look like four holly leaves. Repeat with all "logs". Add a Red Hot to each joint so that there are 3 Red Hots on each cookies.
6. Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes. Transfer immediately to cooling rack.