Christmas Cookie Exchange

Cowboy Cookie Exchange with Linda Broday

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Wow, and here we are at New Year’s Eve! How did that happen? This month has zoomed. Cookies have always been favorites of mine. They’re just so yummy either by themselves or with something hot. Here’s one I hope you enjoy and very simple. No eggs, flour, or sugar. It’s really healthy and good for diabetics of which I am one unfortunately.

PUMPKIN OATMEAL COOKIES

2 1/2 cups Rolled Oats

2 cups Pumpkin Puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/4 cup Maple Syrup (can use Agave nectar)

Optional – Chocolate chips (or any kind of chips)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a large bowl mix together the oats, pumpkin and syrup. If using chocolate chips, add them also and fold in really well.

Roll into balls and press down on a cookie sheet. You can put them pretty close together since they don’t spread.

Bake for 10 minutes. Remove and cool.

There are any number of substitutions. You can add vanilla, nuts, cranberries, and pumpkin pie spice to make them even tastier.

I eat these for breakfast and also as a snack. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Happy New Year!

Cowboy Cookie Exchange with Karen Kay

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Howdy!

Well, here we are on the sixth day of the twelve days of Christmas!  Are you still baking Christmas cookies?  Must admit it’s this time, when I’m not so stressed getting everything ready for the big day, when I have the most fun in the kitchen.

The recipe I’m going to share with you today is an old recipe, passed down from our neighbor down the street when I was very little.  It is one our family has loved for as long as I can remember.  It is called Mom Johnson Cookies.  My only addition to it is to use organic ingredients.  Otherwise, it is the same and this recipe makes lots of cookies to fill up that cookie jar.

Mom Johnson Cookies

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup butter

2 eggs

1 cup sour milk (one can make this by adding 2 TBs vinegar to milk if you don’t have sour milk on hand)

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. vanilla

1 BIG tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

5 cups of flour

Optional:  Red hots

Drop from teaspoon onto greased cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.  We always put a red-hot atop each cookie before baking.

Upon reading over the former posts, I’m going to get out my recipe cards and write down some of these recipes!  They sound so good!

May the joy of these next few days in the twelve days of Christmas be yours and may the New Year be full of love, romance and lots of happy reading!

Cowboy Cookie Exchange with Shanna Hatfield

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I LOVE to bake during the holidays.

One of the first Christmas presents I remember receiving was an Easy Bake oven. While my mom rushed around trying to get ready for 40+ people to descend on our house for Christmas dinner, I sat up my little oven on the kitchen floor and baked a batch of cookies for my grandma.

I have so many wonderful memories of spending time in the kitchen baking with my mom, and I think that’s part of the reason I still enjoy it so much.

There’s also the fact that I enjoy a good cookie!

The recipe I’m sharing today will fill your house with the most decadent delightful scent as it bakes. I used to spend hours rolling out and frosting gingerbread which never turned out just like I hoped. Then I switched to making these Gingerbread Bars. It takes far less time and mess, and they always turn out great.

Gingerbread Bars

INGREDIENTS:

2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 ¼ cup butter, softened

1 ¼ cups packed light-brown sugar

2/3 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup unsulfured molasses

1 bag white chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Coat a 17×12-inch rimmed baking sheet with cooking spray. Line the bottom with parchment cut to fit and coat parchment with spray.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and spices.  In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla and molasses. Gradually add flour mixture, and beat until just combined. Stir in white chocolate chips. Spread batter in prepared pan. Bake until edges are golden, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely on wire rack. Cut into bars or use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. Store in an airtight container.

Pro Tip: Spray your measuring cup with non-stick spray and the molasses will slide right out.

Yield: 3 dozen bars

If you want, you can cut shapes out of the bars (then someone has the task of eating those leftover pieces)!

Wishing you a beautiful holiday season

brimming with joy

and a new year full of hope and love!

 

 

Cowboy Cookie Exchange with Sarah Lamb

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Hello everyone! I sure hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Whether you met up with friends and loved ones or stayed at home snug in your jammies, I hope you found some moments of joy.

For myself, I think I spent three days in the kitchen. Phew. That was exhausting. But I had a heap of yummy treats. I wanted to share one of my favorites, which are the softest, most flavorful sugar cookies I’ve ever eaten in my life. They are also pretty much foolproof. Just my kind of recipe!

Here’s what they look like, decorated with sugar sprinkles, courtesy of my youngest son.

 

 

Super Soft Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter)
  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 6 ounces cream cheese, softened
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions

  1. Using an electric hand mixer or a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until well blended. Add cream cheese and vanilla; mix.
  2. Reduce speed to low and slowly add in dry ingredients. Beat just until incorporated and the dough starts to come together. 
  3. Preheat the oven to 350º F 
  4. Either scoop cookie dough into small balls, flatten slightly and bake, or else roll out and cut with cookie cutters into shapes and place on baking sheets, about a half inch apart.
  5. Bake for 10 to 13 minutes or until the cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges. Remove from the oven and let sit on baking sheets for 5 minutes. 
  6. Decorate as desired. 

 

And that is it, my friends! So simple, so tasty! If you try it, I hope you’ll enjoy them.

Cowboy Cookie Exchange with Jo-Ann Roberts

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Merry Christmas Eve, Friends!

Any time I can bake cookies is the most wonderful time of the year!

But during the holiday season, there is something special about the scents of butter, sugar, vanilla, and spices wafting through the house, along with the Christmas tree lights, and holly, jolly holiday songs on the Music Channel.

Most of my cookie recipes are handed down from my grandmother, mother, and aunts. They are the same cookies I make for weddings and special occasions for our family and friends. I have vivid memories of watching their fingers shape, scoop, roll, and frost dozens of Italian cookies, then carefully pack them in rows between sheets of wax paper in large plastic tubs before placing them in the bottom of the chest freezer until Christmas Eve.

This year, however, I’m changing things up a bit. Since y’all will reading this on Christmas Eve, I’m going to share a cookie that is sure to keep Santa satisfied during his trip around the world.

For years, I’ve been making the oatmeal cookie recipe that was printed on the Quaker Oats box. But recently, they were leaving me a little “flat”…pardon the pun. So, when I saw this recipe, I decided to give it a try. All I can say is “WOW!”

Buttery and rich, this old-fashioned oatmeal cookie is fantastic. They’re crunchy and crisp around the edges and chewy in the middle. Coconut adds tons of flavor and texture. It’s what makes this different from other oatmeal cookies. I opted to add walnuts and raisins along with the coconut and loved these. If you love oatmeal cookies, give these a try.

Grandma Helen’s Oatmeal Cookies

Yield:  18- 24 cookies depending on size of cookie scoop 
Prep time: 15 Min
Cook time: 10 Min

Ingredients

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

2 large eggs, well beaten

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

3 cups old-fashioned oats

2 cups of coconut (or your choice of, nuts, raisins, dates, chocolate chips, etc.)*

Directions

  1. Cream together butter, white sugar, and brown sugar in a large bowl.
  2. Add beaten eggs and vanilla.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix salt, baking soda, flour, oatmeal, and coconut.
  4. Add dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix until combined.
  5. Fold in your choice of nuts, chocolate chips, raisins, or dates.
  6. Allow dough to rest in the refrigerator (or on the counter) for a few hours.**
  7. Use a cookie scoop, drop dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, and bake immediately.
  8. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

*I use a mix of raisins, coconut, and walnuts.

**I seldom bake cookies immediately after mixing the dough. The primary reason for a brief resting period is to redistribute the liquid in the dough. While the dough sits, turning from loose and soft to drier and more scoopable, the flour is hydrating, yielding cookies that will bake and brown more evenly. The sugar also absorbs moisture from the eggs and butter: With less “free moisture” hanging around, the dough has a higher concentration of sugar, and the higher this percentage, the more likely it is that you’ll get cookies with chewy centers and crispy edges.

Wishing you all the joy that this beautiful season can bring.

Merry Christmas – Happy New Year!