Photo & Recipe Courtesy of Joy of Baking
**I’m behind on my cookie posts so today’s post has three days worth of cookie recipes. Enjoy! 🙂
One of my favorite things about this time of the year is baking cookies. I love baking cookies to give away to friends and family. There was one year when money was so tight that the only gift we gave to friends and family was cookie trays. (I made 18 different types of cookies that year!) To me, sometimes homemade gifts like this are treasured more than gifts you buy and wrap. Typically, what I do is bake lots of cookies over one or two days. I then freeze them until we get closer to Christmas. I then thaw all the cookies and make cookie trays to give away once the week of Christmas is upon us.
Every day between 11/30/11 and Christmas Eve, I will post 25 Days of Christmas Cookies. I would love your help! If you have a favorite cookie/bar to make this time of year, I would love for you to email me a picture of the finished product as well as a step by step recipe for it. I will then post your recipe and thousands of Addicted to Saving readers will get the chance to try out your recipe! Email me at addictedtosaving at hotmail dot com (all one word).
Day 10 of 25 Days of Christmas Cookies: Snowball Cookies
Kristen J. emailed me the picture and recipe for these yummy Snowball Cookies. The recipe looks exactly like one of my favorite cookie recipes which I learned from my mom that I make every year – Russian Teacakes. Whether you call these cookies Snowball Cookies or Russian Teacakes, they are so good. They melt in your mouth and I promise you won’t be able to have just one!
Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose or cake flour
1 1/2 cups walnuts, finely chopped
2-3 Tbsp sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 pound butter (at room temperature)
Pinch of salt
Powdered sugar, to coat (about 1 cup)
Directions
1) Preheat the oven to 300°F and prepare a large cookie sheet.
2) Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, walnuts, salt, sugar) in a large bowl. Add the vanilla extract. Add the butter in little pieces, and combine everything together with your (clean!) hands until the mixture looks like a coarse meal with nut bits in it. Form the dough into small balls no larger than a walnut and place on the cookie sheet, spaced at least an inch apart from each other.
3) Bake for 35 minutes. When they are still warm, but cool enough to touch, roll the cookies in some powdered sugar. Set aside on a rack to cool completely. When cool, dust again in powdered sugar. Makes about 20
Day 11 of 25 Days of Christmas Cookies: Peanut Butter & Jelly Bars
Picture & Recipe Courtesy of MarthaStewart.com
I first made this recipe three years ago. I know that bars are not technically cookies but I find that if you cut them into small pieces, they can substitute for cookies AND are often easier to make since you don’t have to roll out each and every cookie! When I tried this recipe, I figured that if it is a Martha Stewart recipe, it had to be good and I wasn’t disappointed. If you like peanut butter, this will be a great recipe for you. The peanut butter taste is very strong but is nicely accented by the jelly. And, make sure you put salted peanuts on top because the salt adds a nice twist to the sweetness of the bar and jelly. Would love to hear your thoughts if you make this recipe!
Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups smooth peanut butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups strawberry jam, or other flavor
2/3 cup salted peanuts, roughly chopped
Directions
1) Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-13-inch pan with butter, and line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease the parchment, and coat inside of pan with flour; set aside. Place butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes. On medium speed, add eggs and peanut butter; beat until combined, about 2 minutes.
2) Whisk together salt, baking powder, and flour. Add to bowl of mixer on low speed; combine. Add vanilla. Transfer two-thirds of mixture to prepared pan; spread evenly with offset spatula. Using offset spatula, spread jam on top of peanut-butter mixture. Dollop remaining third of peanut-butter mixture on top of jam. Sprinkle with peanuts.
3) Bake until golden, about 45 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool; cut into about thirty-six 1 1/2-by-2-inch pieces.
Day 12 of 25 Days of Christmas Cookies: Rich Dark Chocolate Tiger Cookies
Picture and recipe courtesy of AllRecipes.com
Yazmin sent me the recipe for Rich Dark Chocolate Tiger Cookies. This cookie should satisfy the chocolate lovers out there! The picture above is of the cookies but it doesn’t show the Hershey Kiss that should be firmly planted on each cookie after it is taken out of the oven. So you will have to use your imaginations! Have any of you made this cookie before?
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup HERSHEY®’S Dutch Processed Cocoa or HERSHEY®’S Cocoa
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Powdered Sugar
48 HERSHEY®’S KISSES® Rich Dark Chocolates, unwrapped
Directions
1) Combine granulated sugar and oil in large bowl; add cocoa, beating until well blended. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt; gradually add to cocoa mixture, beating well.
2) Cover; refrigerate until dough is firm enough to handle, at least 6 hours.
3) Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease cookie sheet. Shape dough into 1-inch balls (dough will still be sticky); roll in powdered sugar to coat. Place about 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheet.
4) Bake 11 to 13 minutes or until almost no indentation remains when touched lightly and tops are cracked. Immediately press KISS into center of each cookie. Cool slightly. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely.
Christmas Cookies Recap:
Day 1 of 25 Days of Christmas Cookies Recipe: Peanut Butter Blossoms
Day 2 of 25 Days of Christmas Cookie Recipe: Rainbow Cookies
Day 3 of 25 Days of Christmas Cookie Recipe: Monster Cookies
Day 4 of 25 Days of Christmas Cookie Recipe: Hot Cocoa Cookies
Day 5 of 25 Days of Christmas Cookie Recipe: Jam Thumbprints
Day 6 of 25 Days of Christmas Cookie Recipe: Cinnamon Roll Cookies
Day 7 of 25 Days of Christmas Cookie Recipe: Lemon Sugar Cookies
Day 8 of 25 Days of Christmas Cookie Recipe: Easy as Fudge
Day 9 of 25 Days of Chrismtas Cookie Recipe: Chocolate Mint Brownies
Thanks for coming to Addicted to Saving! Here’s a little bit about me so you can know who’s behind all these posts!
My name is Liza and I began my money-saving journey in the Spring of 2009 as a way to stretch a limited household income. I had lost my job and my hubby was self-employed. I launched Addicted to Saving in November of 2009 and it has grown by leaps and bounds. Since then, my hubby and I have struggled with the ups and downs of two failed adoptions and are now LOVING being parents to our little man Asher who we brought home from Ethiopia in August of 2013. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to help you save money. My goal is that you will have FUN and become empowered to save more and more money each week..
Mmmm, snowballs are my favorite! My mom used to make them for me every Christmas 🙂
Thank you for all the cookie recipes. I make cookies every year to give as
presents for friends and family. I also make them to take to Christmas parties and
to church. I tried the lemon cookies and the jam thumbprint cookies. They came
out delicious and my kids ate most of them!
Yeah! I’m glad the lemon cookies and the thumbprint cookies were a hit! The thumbprint cookies are one of my favorite cookies to make and eat! 🙂
Hi, for the Snowball cookies, the 2-3 tbsp of sugar, is this regular sugar? and how much do you use 2 or 3 tbsp??? and also could I substitute walnuts for pecans??
Thanks,
Sandra