Cookies are not the most wholesome and nourishing of foods to fuel family outdoor fun but given the time of year we thought we would launch our blog with one of our favourite activities - getting together with friends to bake cookies. At the end of the afternoon, you'll go home with a stash of treats to gift at Holiday parties, to share with co-workers, or to sneak with milk late at night.
Each friend chooses a holiday treat recipe, we pick the kitchen with the biggest oven and the most counter space, we meet on a Sunday afternoon and we bake away.
A few tips for a sane and successful baking party:
These are our top-two holiday cookie recipes. Have fun.
Each friend chooses a holiday treat recipe, we pick the kitchen with the biggest oven and the most counter space, we meet on a Sunday afternoon and we bake away.
A few tips for a sane and successful baking party:
- Each guest brings cookie dough already prepared and chilled (if the dough calls for chilling). This will really cut down on mess and time to get all the cookies rolled out and in the oven.
- Each guest brings a cookie sheet or two plus containers to bring their bounty home.
- Have different timers for different cookies - once you've got three different kinds baking away, it's easy to burn your creations.
- Have some delicious appies to share so that you don't eat raw cookie dough all afternoon.
- Biggest tip? Keep it simple. The first year we baked together, we each did two recipes, we shaped, we baked, we cleaned for hours. Timing for the oven was complicated. The floor was covered in slippery dough. Now we each choose one recipe and spend more time catching up.
These are our top-two holiday cookie recipes. Have fun.
Chocolate Snowball Cookies
Incredibly rich, incredibly hard to resist - even if you store them in your freezer. Kid helpers love to roll these into balls and dip them into a pile of icing sugar.Recipe adapted from Whitewater Cooks, pure, simple and real.
All rolled up in icing sugar snow and ready to go in the oven....
Decadent bites of sugar-crackled chocolate.
Decadent bites of sugar-crackled chocolate.
Chocolate Snowball Cookies
Ingredients
- 16 ounces semi-sweet dark chocolate (the better the chocolate, the better the cookies!)
- 2 1/3 cups white flour
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 4 tsp baking powder (I use aluminum free)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup softened butter
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup milk
- A pile of icing sugar to roll the cookies in - at least 2 cups
Instructions
Chop up the chocolate and melt using a double broiler. If you don’t have a double broiler (I don’t), melt the chocolate by holding a small pot over a larger pot of boiling water. It works, even if a bit awkward. Let the chocolate cool.With a hand mixer, beat together the butter and brown sugar for a few minutes. It should be fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Add the COOLED chocolate to the butter and sugar and mix in with your blender. Make sure to let the chocolate cool before adding it to the remaining ingredients - if the chocolate is too hot, your cookies may end up flat rocks instead of poofy treats (this happened once to us).Add ½ of flour mix, mix in. Then add the milk, mix in. Add the remaining flour and mix in - my blender starts to wimp out at this point and I have to get a wooden spoon and use some serious arm power out to finish up the batter. Chill the dough in plastic wrap in the fridge for at least a few hours. Overnight is fine. Shape the dough into small balls (think almost bite size) and roll in piles of icing sugar - the more the better. Bake on parchment-lined pans for 10 - 12 minutes at 350F. Better to under than over cook.
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: About 80 cookies
Chocolate Snowball Cookies
Ingredients
- 16 ounces semi-sweet dark chocolate (the better the chocolate, the better the cookies!)
- 2 1/3 cups white flour
- 1 cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 4 tsp baking powder (I use aluminum free)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup softened butter
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup milk
- A pile of icing sugar to roll the cookies in - at least 2 cups
Instructions
Chop up the chocolate and melt using a double broiler. If you don’t have a double broiler (I don’t), melt the chocolate by holding a small pot over a larger pot of boiling water. It works, even if a bit awkward. Let the chocolate cool.With a hand mixer, beat together the butter and brown sugar for a few minutes. It should be fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Add the COOLED chocolate to the butter and sugar and mix in with your blender. Make sure to let the chocolate cool before adding it to the remaining ingredients - if the chocolate is too hot, your cookies may end up flat rocks instead of poofy treats (this happened once to us).Add ½ of flour mix, mix in. Then add the milk, mix in. Add the remaining flour and mix in - my blender starts to wimp out at this point and I have to get a wooden spoon and use some serious arm power out to finish up the batter. Chill the dough in plastic wrap in the fridge for at least a few hours. Overnight is fine. Shape the dough into small balls (think almost bite size) and roll in piles of icing sugar - the more the better. Bake on parchment-lined pans for 10 - 12 minutes at 350F. Better to under than over cook.
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: About 80 cookiesAustrian Almond Crescent Cookies
My friend Victoria shared this recipe with me a number of years ago and it quickly became a holiday classic in our household. I love them because they are not very sweet. Most of their flavour comes from a dusting of vanilla sugar after they come out of the oven.
Vanillekipferl (Austrian Almond Crescent Cookies)
Ingredients
- 250 g / 2 cups Unbleached white flour
- 1 pinch Salt
- 250 g / 2 cups Almond flour
- 250 g / 2 cups Unsalted butter - at room temperature
- 3 sachets or packages Vanille sugar
- 2 cups Icing sugar
- 1 Egg
Instructions
1. Combine flour, almond flour, 1 sachet of vanille sugar and salt. 2. Mix in butter with your hands. Place dough in the fridge for 30 minutes. 3.Take small amounts (1-2 teaspoon) of dough and shape into a crescent shape (like a croissant). 4. Bake at 400 F for 8-10 minutes.5. Prepare the sugar coating by mixing 100 g or 3/4 cups of powdered sugar with 2 sachets of vanilla sugar or 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar. 6.While still slightly warm, dip cookies in the sugar coating.
Details
Yield: 60
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