Me Want Cookie!!!!

It was my sis-in-law's idea this year to do Christmas cookies. We both made 5 kinds and swapped. Then we still have some left to give as gifts or have on hand for visitors. Most of her recipes are from an old Southern Living Christmas cookbook. She made (left to right) macaroons with chocolate covered raisins, chocolate covered espresso bean cookies, chocolate macaroon swirls, rum raisin sugar cookies, and rolled florentines. My favorite are the ones with the raisinettes.

Here are mine...Clockwise from the left, are jam-striped cookies from Everyday Food, Scouts Honor Peanut Butter Cookies from King Arthur Cookie cookbook, oatmeal toffee cookies from Cooking Light, and a cinnamon swirl cookie made with the same dough as the raspberry cookies. In the center is an old recipe from Sunmaid raisins, an oatmeal cookie made with raisins that have been soaked in orange liqueur & orange juice, with orange zest in the batter.


I started with recipes from December magazines. Some of those were disappointing, for as much effort as they took. It was aggravating working with the dough for the raspberry cookies...it was too warm in my kitchen and it was hard to work with, the layers were too thin if you followed the instructions, and then the cookies flopped over when they baked. After two batches of magazine recipes, I gave up and went back to some standby cookbook recipes. One of them is a take-off on the Girl Scout PB sandwich cookies...yum.

Sad news in the area is that the Peanut Butter Emporium burned down in a fire last night. The local news is making a big mention of the fact that it had been mentioned in Rachael's magazine (September 2008). I hadn't even noticed it, it's a small blurb on a page where they rate products, that month it was peanut butter, and they won for best honey PB. I found the blurb last night and I hadn't paid attention to it originally, since it didn't mention where the PB was from.