The Perfect Christmas Cookie.

Only ten days to go until Christmas! I am just getting started on my baking - it has been a difficult few weeks for our family, as the flu really wiped us out for a good while. I think we are all past the worst of it now, though, and I am starting to get back in the mood for holiday things. (At least as well as I can being serverely sleep deprived. Amy has surely taken the prize for my Baby Who Sleeps Less Than I Would Have Thought Humanly Possible. What an accomplishment.)

The first thing I baked was these cookies. It is a recipe my mom made every year when I was growing up. I figured it was time for me to carry on the torch, so I gave them a try this year - and found that they turned out just perfectly! I guess it's hard to go wrong when they contain that much butter...

These cookies absolutely melt in your mouth and have such a delicious flavour. They look pretty, too, and are perfect for gift giving in a festive tin.

This recipe is fairly small - it only made 18 cookies for me, so you might want to double it!

The Perfect Christmas Cookie

1 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
candied cherries
1 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract

Cream butter and sugar. (Since I used my homemade brown sugar with the larger organic crystals, it didn't dissolve, but it worked just fine.) Add yolks and vanilla and mix well. Mix in flour with a wooden spoon - it will look a bit crumbly.

Squish and roll bits of dough in your hands to make small balls. Place them on an ungreased cookie sheet, press them down a little bit and indent the centre of each cookie with your thumb.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool.

Place one candied cherry on the top of each cookie. Make icing: mix together icing sugar, almond extract, and enough water to make of drizzling consistency. Drizzle over cookies. Try to not eat them all today.

What is everyone else baking lately? Please share!

Comments

[Natalie]

I think my youngest would love your cookies...I am going to have to try them out after Christmas, when we usually get the winter blues. We have not been feeling well either, so what baking has gotten accomplished, I have not posted. I have managed to make our holiday bread which is also filled with the candied cherries along with some dried fruits. Our cookie decorating should happen this weekend, hopefully.
Thank you for sharing

[Elizabeth]

I LOVE baking and giving Christmas cookies. I just wrote a little book on the topic to give to family :) Here is a link to my blog with recipes for some of the cookies I made last year. More to be added soon since tomorrow I will be teaching some teen girls to bake holiday cookies.

http://cookinginlatvia.blogspot.com/2010/12/candy-cane-cookies.html

[Lisa]

They look wonderful. I found your blog a while back. I too live in a townhouse while my heart lives elsewhere.....

We should compare notes, I gave birth to two of the worst sleepers ever!! Honestly, I don't know how they keep going. I am barely hanging on for the past nine years!!! LOL

Lisa

[Lindsay]

Thank goodness you all got the flu done and over with before the holidays! Now you don't have to worry about it over Christmas, just relax and enjoy! :)

Those cookies look amazing. I miss baking this kind of thing - with 3 dairy-intolerant kids, I just don't bake sweets like I used to. Sure, there are substitutes for butter and such, but dang, I get tired of substituting all the time!

(Pass this little note along to Amy: Sleep, baby, sleeeeep! Just close those little eyes and sleep!)

[Julia]

oh YUM those look GOOD!!

BTW...my daughter now almost nineteen thrived on no sleep as a baby ..and we both have survived LOL!

[Account Deleted]

Those look very good. I have two types of cookies that need to be rolled out and baked (the dough is finally made!). Hope all of you are feeling back to normal and enjoying the time. Merry Christmas!