1 lb. Butter
1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sifted Icing Sugar
2 tablespoon light Brown Sugar
4 cups sifted all-purpose Flour

Blend butter and sugar thoroughly. Stir in flour and mix thoroughly with hands. Chill.

Heat oven to 300 degrees. Roll out dough 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into fancy shapes.
Decorate with red and green cherries, colour sugar or decorating candies, if desired.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes. Top of cookies should not be brown.

Makes about 4 dozen medium sized cookies.

Beat butter, sugar, honey, egg, vanilla in bowl with electric mixer until creamy. Mix in flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.

Roll dough on lightly floured surface to 1/4″ thickness.

Cut dough into desired shapes with 2 1/2 – 3″ cookie cutters

Trace smaller version of cookie shape on dough leaving 1/2 – 3/4″ border of dough.

Cut out and remove dough from center of cookies; set aside.

Place cut out shapes on cookie sheets lined with foil.

Repeat with reserved dough, rolling scraps as necessary.

Crush each color of candy separately between 2 layers of wax paper with mallet.

Spoon crushed candy inside centers of cutout cookie shapes.

Bake 6-8 minutes or until candy is melted and cookies are lightly browned.

Cool cookies completely before removing from foil.

Notes:
The friend who makes these happens to have very small cookie cutters – of the same shape as the larger ones – to make the cut on the inside. I however do not. Going to try to do as the recipe suggests and make my own template, but I might… just might try something different. Read “easy.” Something like using a small circle in the middle on Christmas trees. I’ll update this post once I make them. They are on the baking list to do soon.

Filling: Beat cream cheese, 1/3 c sugar and vanilla until soft and smooth. Add coconut and nuts. Chill.

Dough: Beat butter until softened. Add half of the flour. Add 1c sugar, cocoa, egg, milk, and baking soda. Beat until combined. Work in the rest of the flour. Chill dough until firm enough to roll.

Place dough between btw 2 sheets of waxed paper. With rolling pin, roll dough in a rectangle 14 * 6”. Remove top sheet of waxed paper.

Remove filling from the refrigerator and shape into a roll 14” long. Place filling on top of dough. Start on one end and roll dough around filling – like rolling up a rug. Moisten and pinch edges together. Cut roll in half. Wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate for two days.

Cut into ¼ “slices using a very sharp knife or waxed dental floss. Bake 375 for 8 to 10 min. Cool on sheet for about 1 minute and then finish cooling on racks.

Notes:
I did double this recipe – because I had that much cream cheese – and it worked out just fine.

One change that I made was that I did not roll the filling into a log and wrap the cookie around it. Instead, I distributed the filling evenly over the whole rolled rectangle of cookie dough and wrapped it that way.

And yes, I did chill the rolls for two days. It might seem like too much work, but in fact it broke up the work for me – make the dough one day and forget it for awhile. Then when I had half an hour and remembered they existed in my fridge – “What unmade cookies in my fridge?!” – I sliced ‘em up and baked them. Mecandes really liked them too.

by Catherine Doherty

We are still so filled with the holy days of December that our minds cannot think of any other cooking but that of the past season.

So, if you are a recipe saver, here are a few for your next December-January file.

Epiphany Fruit Bread

Ingredients for setting yeast batter:
1 ½ cups milk
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
2 packages active dry yeast
3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup melted butter

Ingredients for remainder:
1 cup seedless raisins
½ cup currants
1 – 8oz. jar diced candied mixed fruit
4 cups all purpose flour

Scald milk and stir in sugar and slat. When cook, add yeast which has been set and mix. Add all other ingredients in first part of recipe and beat until smooth. Then add the remaining ingredients one at a time and knead the dough lightly on floured surface. Let rise. In about two hours punch dough down, and divide into three parts. Shape each part into a crown – representing the crowns of the Wise Men, and in each part put one penny. (The member of the family who gets the penny must say a prayer for the others for the balance of the week.) After the bread is shaped, let it rise again, and bake in moderate oven (350 degree F) for 30-40minutes. They may be iced with confectioners sugar icing, if desired.

Vanocka – Braided Christmas Bread
From Czechoslavakia

1 ½ cups milk
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground mace
2 packages active dry yeast
3 cups flour
2 eggs slightly beaten

Remaining ingredients:
5 cups all purpose flour
1 cup butter
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
1 cup seedless raisins
½ cup chopped blanched almonds
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons water

Set the yeast in warm water and a little sugar. Add the other ingredients listed in the first section. Sift the 5 cups flour in a bowl and cut in butter. Then stir down the yeast mixture and add lemon rind, raisins and almonds. Add yeast mixture to flour-butter mixture and beat well. Knead dough and let rise for about 2 hours. Then, divide the dough in half and divide one half into 3 equal portions.

Roll these into ropes 20 inches long. Let rest 15 minutes. Then braid very loosely. Seal ends; place on greased baking sheet. Next, divide remaining dough into 5 equal portions. Roll each into a slim rope 15 inches long. Loosely braid 3 ropes and place on top of larger braid; fasten with toothpicks.

Twist remaining 2 ropes and place on top of smaller braid; fasten with toothpicks. Cover and let rise for about 20 minutes. Beat egg yolks with tiny bit of water and brush on top. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes.

Delicious! Just try it!

Speculatius – St. Nicholas Spice Cookies
From Holland

1 c butter
1c lard
2c brown sugar
½ c sour cream
½ t baking soda
4t cinnamon
½ t nutmeg
½ t cloves
4 ½ c flour
½ c chopped nuts (optional)

Cream butter, lard and sugar – by hand with rubber spatula or with electric mixer. In separate bowl, combine spices, baking soda and flour.

Add sour cream to creamed mixture, alternately with dry mixture. Stir in the nuts. Knead dough into rolls. Wrap in wax paper and chill overnight. Roll dough very thin and cut into shape of good St. Nicholas himself. Bake 375 for 10 minutes, or until not quite golden.

On small slips of paper we write a message from the Bible for every member of the family and insert it in the right arm of St. Nicholas. We cook this slip of paper with the cookie. We decorate the cookie to look like St. Nicholas himself and write each person’s name on the cookie with frosting.

Mix in order and bake at 350 F for 10-15 minutes.

Notes:
I always take special care to mix the two sugars together very well then smooth in the softened butter.

But is it only me that thinks cookies you’ve baked yourself always taste best a couple days after the baking? Yeah, I’m crazy. I know.

Chipits – for our American readers – is a brand of chocolate chips and seems to have an extensive recipe archive of their own on the website with lots more goodies to try. Enjoy and here’s the recipe…

1 1/3 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons milk
1 package White Chocolate Chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cream together butter, packed brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs and vanilla, until creamy.

Combine all-purpose flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add to creamed mixture alternatively with milk. Stir in white chocolate chips and chopped nuts.

Drop from spoon onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup margarine
2 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup coconut
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup nuts (optional)

Mix first three ingredients in a saucepan; boil for 2 minutes.

Mix the remaining ingredients together in a bowl. Add the sugar mixture and mix well. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets and refrigerate until firm.

1c butter
1c lard
2c brown sugar
½ c sour cream
½ t baking soda
4t cinnamon
½ t nutmeg
½ t cloves
4 ½ c flour
½ c chopped nuts (optional)

Cream butter, lard and sugar – by hand with rubber spatula or with electric mixer. In separate bowl, combine spices, baking soda and flour.

Add sour cream to creamed mixture, alternately with dry mixture. Stir in the nuts. Knead dough into rolls. Wrap in wax paper and chill overnight. Roll dough very thin and cut into shapes. Bake 375 for 10 minutes, or until not quite golden.

Catherine Doherty adds…

“On small slips of paper we write a message from the Bible for every member of the family and insert it in the right arm of St. Nicholas. We cook this slip of paper with the cookie. We decorate the cookie to look like St. Nicholas himself and write each person’s name on the cookie with frosting.”

My alterations from making them myself these last few years…

1. They do not necessarily have to chill overnight, only long enough for the fats to harden the dough enough to be rolled out, just like pie crust dough. Minimum of an hour.

2. They may be rolled out to any thickness you like. Thin if you like crispier cookies. Thick if you prefer chewy. Today I made them at least 1/2″ thick and they were great! Just have a well floured surface and rolling pin either way.

3. The dough is a bit hard to work with when you first get it out of the refrigerator. Once it gets warm, it is less likely to break apart and easier to roll out. Feel free to roll out the leftover pieces again and again to cut more cookies. The taste/texture never diminishes.

4. They freeze well.

We make one large cookie in the shape of a bishop which we all share, then little stars and gingerbread men. Ice to your hearts content, decorate the large bishop one with red and white icing, use up the last of the sprinkles in your baking cupboard. They are so good that another batch usually gets made before Christmas.