Dealing With Christmas Stess - Part 2

 

As promised, today I will share one of my secrets for dealing with Christmas stress this year.  I am cheating.

That is right, the second thing I stress out about most years is all of the baking I have to do in order to take cookies everywhere I go.  I am not gonna slave in the kitchen for hours upon hours trying to make the perfect cookie this year!  I am going to start with some dough provided by good old Pillsbury, and go from there.

In fact, over at the Pillsbury site they have some pretty darn good looking recipes that I plan to use, as well as some of my own editing of their dough.  Why reinvent the wheel?  Most cookies consist of sugar, butter, flour, I think that is what is in the Pillsbury stuff . . . right?

And instead of making 30 different kinds of cookies, I am going to narrow in on a couple and do them really well.

Finally Friday Fun

The weather forcast for here in Chicago this weekend is not so pretty. Lots of cold wet stuff, either snow or slush or slushy rain, so we are making plans at our house to do lots of baking.
One of my favorite Christmas cookie recipes has been handed down from generation to generation. It is an odd recipe, but a good one. My daughter and I will be making some of these up tomorrow. . .

CANDY LASSES (Christmas cookies)

Cream: 2/3 cup butter

¼ cup sugar
¼ cup brown sugarBlend: 1 egg
2 tbsp. MolassesAdd: ½ cup peppermint candy canes crushed

Sift: 2 cups flour
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. nutmeg
½ tsp. ginger

Beat well after blending in egg and molasses—then stir in peppermint candy and dry ingredients—drop by teaspoon onto greased cookie sheets—bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.

Cool cookies for at least 5 minutes before removing from sheets.

Frost cookies with peppermint frosting.

To make peppermint frosting, add red food coloring, a few drops of peppermint flavoring, and some crushed peppermint candy canes to plain vanilla frosting.