Christmas Cookies

     It just would not be Christmas without cookies.  Everyone has his favorite kind.  Since the United States is made up of people whose ancestors migrated from many different countries, there can be cookies from everywhere.  Each family has their own traditions.  Mrs. Butler in the 7^th Grade is of Italian heritage.  She makes wonderful pizzelles.  Our teacher, Ms. Dempsey, loves to bake lots of cookies.  She makes Mexican Wedding cookies, date bars, chocolate cherry cookies, lemon bars and many more.  Other teachers’ favorites are cream cheese cookies, pecan tassies and sugar cookies.  Remember that you must put some cookies out for Santa Claus to eat on Christmas Eve. 

Christmas cookies

1 cup butter
1 cup shortening
2 cups white sugar (400 g)
5 eggs
7 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
6 teaspoons baking powder
1⁄2 ts salt
1⁄2 ounce anise extract (10 g)

Preheat oven to 175C. Cream the butter, shortening and the sugar together. Stir in the eggs and countinue to beat. Add the anise flavoring. Stir in 7 cups of the flour the baking powder and the salt. Mix until the dough is soft. Add the additional cup of flour is needed. Chill the dough. On a lightly floured surface woll out the dough and cut with cookie cutters. Place cookies on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 175C for 12 to 15 min. Frost and decorate when cookies are cooked.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

By Ashley

Okay!  Do you know what my favorite Christmas cookie is?  I doubt it!  My favorite is Chocolate Chocolate Chip cookies.  My reasons are obvious.  Number one, it is entirely chocolate.  Number two is I love eating the dough and the cookie.  Also, last, but not least, it is chocolate!  Chocolate is the sweetest thing in all the world.  I think you can now understand why I love these cookies.  

Christmas Cookies

By Katie

My favorite Christmas cookie is my mom’s kiffels.  They’re little dough rolls with a pocket in them that contains a filling—normally apricot, walnut, or lekvar (a prune filling).  I like the apricot best.  First, you make the dough, which you roll into tiny balls.  Then you roll the balls flat and spread some filling on each one.  Then, fold them into thirds and bake them.  They’re really fun to make and they taste good.  I love Christmas cookies.

Recipe for Charlotte’s Kiffels

Makes approximately 6-7 dozen

Preheat oven: 325 degrees F

Ingredients:

½ lb. butter (softened)

8 oz. cream cheese (softened)

2 ½ cups flour (sifted)

pinch of salt

2 egg yolks

confectioner’s sugar (for rolling out)

Try not to mix this dough in warm temperatures.

Mix all of the ingredients together except sugar.

Roll the dough into small balls—smaller than a ping-pong ball, but larger than a marble—about the size of a quarter.  Each ball will be one kiffel.  I find it best to place each ball on wax paper inside a rectangular pan or plastic container. 

Refrigerate for at least three hours; overnight is fine.

You will roll out the kiffels in the confectioner’s sugar, so remove about 6 dough balls at a time (so that they will not get soft and stick to the rolling pin.)  Press the ball flat with your hand, then roll it out once lengthwise, then once widthwise and fill it with your choice of fillings and fold.  Do not overfill as filling might break open the dough or run out the ends.  Fold should be top to bottom, in three folds.  Place on ungreased cookie sheet, or I find it best to use parchment paper.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes—just until they are a light golden color on the ends.

Fillings:

            Lekvar—a prune filling

            Apricot—not jam, jelly, or preserves

            Walnuts—crushed and mixed with sugar and light cream to taste (should be a paste consistency)

Do not store the kiffels in airtight containers because then they get soft.  Best in tins and not in Tupperware-type containers.  To serve, sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar.

Christmas Cookies

By Caroline

I love cookies!  That’s why I love Christmas so much.  Cookies are a part of my life—especially Christmas cookies.  My favorite types of cookies are oatmeal-raisin cookies and sugar cookies with a lot of sprinkles and icing.  I love the way the icing melts in your mouth.  It tastes so good!  I also like how the raisins are all soft in the oatmeal.  Sugar cookies taste really good if you make them right.  I love all other kinds of cookies, too.  For example, I like peanut butter and chocolate chip.  I’m also willing to try new ones.  Christmas Eve is my “cookie time—before I go to bed, I like to eat them.  It’s my favorite time of year. 

Christmas Cookies

By Elizabeth

I love Christmas for lots of reasons-presents, getting a tree, decorating, giving gifts, seeing family, and eating cookies.  The last reason, eating cookies, is what I will be writing about.  Every year my mom and I make Christmas cookies.  We have to make a double batch because we take them to neighbors and relatives.  We always make sugar cookies (recipe below) because they are easy and everyone likes them.  After making them, we let the cookies cool a day or two.  Then, we ice and decorate them with sprinkles.  I really love Christmas cookies.

     Recipe for Pinky’s Famous Cut-Out Cookies     

4 cups flour

1 cup sugar

½ lb margarine

½ teaspoon salt

2 eggs

4 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix the flour, sugar, margarine, and salt into fine crumbs.  Mix the eggs, milk, baking soda, and vanilla together.  Combine the dry crumbs and liquid mix together and roll into 4 balls.  Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour.  Roll out on a floured surface and cut into shapes. 

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 minutes

Decorate with frosting and sprinkles as desired. 

Cookie Sticks

By Ian

This is my favorite kind of cookies.  They have a light swirl coat on the outside and chocolate cookie on the inside.  Your mouth becomes watery when you’re near them.  They come in cylindrical cases and they go well with hot chocolate and marshmallows, or just milk.  That’s why I like cookie sticks.

Sugar Cookies

By Peter

I love sugar cookies!  My mom makes them with red and green sugar.  They are soft and delicious.  It’s like a bite of heaven.  Yummy!  They are really good dipped in milk.  I also love milk.  I’ll eat any cookie—except oatmeal raisin.  The snickerdoodle, sugar, cookie sticks, jelly, Chips Ahoy, Oreos, iced, oatmeal chocolate chip, peanut butter, chocolate chip…  If you don’t like them, too bad.  That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

Christmas Cookies

By Kelly

My favorite kind of Christmas cookie is a plate of soft, chewy, really hot chocolate chip cookies.  They taste really good when they’re hot.  The chocolate chips melt in your mouth.  They also smell REALLY GOOD.  They’re so yummy.  You could eat a plateful!  Making them is also very fun.  My mom and I make them from scratch every year together.  We also steal cookie dough and chocolate chips.  (Don’t tell!)  Making cookies is a tradition that my family does every year.  It is nice and exciting.  I’m glad I could share it with you. 

My Christmas Cookie

By Anthony

Introducing: the one, the only, snickerdoodle!!!!  It’s the greatest cookie created by man!  A blend of dough, chocolate, and brown-sugary goodness.  One bite and you’ll beg for more.  And the best thing is that they’re easy to make!  Try one today!

Christmas Cookies

By Hannah

I love Christmas because of the cookies, snow, seeing family, and presents.  My cousins make really good cookies.  My family makes snickerdoodles.  They melt in your mouth.  I love that feeling.  That is my favorite Christmas cookie.

Recipe for Snickerdoodles

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups sugar

1 ½ cup butter or margarine (softened)

½ cup shortening

2 eggs

2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour                          

2 tsp. cream of tartar

1 tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. salt

3 tbsp. sugar

1 tbsp. ground cinnamon

To prepare: Heat oven to 400 degrees F; mix ingredients together and stir.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until set.

Snickerdoodles

By Kraig

Christmas, a great time of year.  Usually people think of Santa and presents, but I think of three things:  presents, baby Jesus, and cookies, warm delicious cookies.  Cookies that make you relax from all your yelling at your sister, brother, Mom, Dad, and the chimney ‘cause it’s too small for Santa to slide down.

My Favorite Christmas Cookie

By Joe

My favorite type of Christmas cookie is gingerbread.  I like to decorate the gingerbread men.  It’s fun to use all the frosting and candy.  It really gets me into the Christmas spirit.  That’s my favorite cookie.

Sugar Cookies (with sprinkles)

By Matt

I love sugar cookies because they taste and look good.  They look like fluffy pieces of dough, but they are baked.  They taste like a piece of heaven in your mouth.  They have little red sprinkles on top that are very shiny.  When I taste them it fills my mouth with joy.  Sugar cookies are so good that they will surely make you like them. 

Decorated Sugar Cookies

By Tricia

My favorite kind Christmas cookies are decorated sugar cookies.  First my mom makes the cookies.  Then all my brothers and sisters and I decorate them with icing, sprinkles, Hershey kisses, and M&M’s.  We wait until Christmas day to eat them.  It’s a lot of fun!  I look forward to this year because everyone has lots of fun. 

Peanut Butter Cookies

By Robert

I like peanut butter cookies because they taste good and have a nice texture if you make them right.  They taste nothing like peanut butter so if you don’t like peanut butter, like me, you will like them, unless you are allergic to peanut butter.  You can make them in different shapes, sizes, and colors, but it will taste the same any way you make them.  They taste better than peanut butter because they have other ingredients, such as my personal favorite, sugar.  They taste even better in milk, so why don’t you try some peanut butter cookies and milk?

Cookies

By Sasha

I like chocolate chip cookies because you can add a whole bunch of things, like peanut butter, M&M’s, and food coloring to make them pretty.  The cookie dough is really good.  And when you stir it, it smells like a candy factory, and when you eat it, it’s nice, soft, cold, and chocolatey.  The best part is when they’re fresh, because then they’re nice and hot.  And they go great with milk!

Frosted Cookies

By Taylor

I like frosted cookies the most.  I think that they’re the best of all.  I like the frosting.  It’s the best part because it’s warm and gooey.  Frosted cookies are the best.

A Cookie

By Brian

I like Christmas a lot.  The trees, the stockings, the presents, the smell of the turkey, and the snow all make it special.  And, don’t forget the sled rides, and the visit by Santa Claus.  However, the thing I like the most is the sweet treats that my mom makes, also known as “the cookie”.  But, they are no just cookies, they are Christmas cookies.  My mom makes all kinds, but my favorite is peanut butter blossoms.

     They are peanut butter cookies with a Hershey kiss on top in the center.  They’re delicious, so chewy, so pure, so wonderful.  Of course, I like others, but I like the peanut butter blossoms more than all the other cookies put together.  I love them.  That is why I am looking forward to Christmas.          

Christmas Cookies

By Ale

I love Christmas cookies.  My favorite is raisin oatmeal because they have a nice chewy taste.  You can have the cookie with or without raisins.  I usually like the raisins in them.  If you have the cookie without the raisins, it will still taste good.  I think they are so delicious, you will want another cookie. 

Christmas Cookies

By David

My favorite Christmas cookies are the peanut butter cookies that have sprinkles on them.  They’re the shape of candy canes and Christmas trees.  They taste good and I cannot wait until I get to make them again this year!