Christmas Sweet Treats

**You will need a Gingerbread Man Cookie Cutter

Gingerbread Sugar Cookies

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*3/4 cup Butter, room temperature or Shortening

*1 and 1/2 cups Granulated Sugar

*1/4 cup Molasses

*1 cup Whipping Cream or Canned Milk or (1/2 cup Sour Cream and 1/2 Cup Milk)

*1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract

*1 teaspoon Salt

*4 and 1/2 cups All-purpose Flour

*1 teaspoon Cinnamon

*3/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger

*1/2 teaspoon Allspice

*1/4 teaspoon Ground Cloves

*4 teaspoons Baking Powder
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Pre-heat oven 350*F.
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Cream together in stand mixer: Butter, sugar, molasses, cream, vanilla and salt.
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Sift together in bowl: Flour, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves and baking powder.
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Slowly add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture in stand mixer on low speed and mix well and (scrapping down the sides of the bowl occasionally) forms a soft dough ball.

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Hint: Refrigeration of the dough will always make the cookies roll, cut and cook a little better; Also using a cooled 1/2 baking sheet with each batch of cookies helps too!
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Roll out cookie dough using half the dough at a time, so not to over working the dough and cut cookies with a Gingerbread man cookie cutter.
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Place cookies on a Silpat covered half baking sheet or cookie sheet of your choice sprayed with cooking spray or covered with parchment paper.
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Bake for 8-10 minutes or when edges barely start to turn a little darker brown but not burned. Also depends on the size of cookie.
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Hint: I’ve always usually mix my cookies by hand but my daughter is a pastry chef and mixes everything in stand mixer but either way works great!

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Basic Royal Icing

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*1 pound Powdered Sugar (around 4 cups)

*3 tablespoons Meringue Powder

*1 teaspoon Clear Vanilla Extract

*6 tablespoons Water, add gradually for consistency for piping, more or less as needed

Coloring
:

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Add  small amounts of coloring at a time until desired color of icing.

*Paste Food Coloring, Wilton , Red for mouth and nose, Black for coal buttons, eyes and mouth, Orange for nose if desired

*Reserve 1 cup of the white icing a 1/2 cup for the red and 1/2 cup black, reserve more depending on the design of the gingerbread you want

Supplies
:

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*New Pastry Bags, clip off very tip for piping (can use pastry tips if desired but not necessary)

*Moist Flour Sack Towel, for cover icing in bowl to keep icing from drying out

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Mix together the icing ingredients on medium speed in a stand mixer (with grease free bowl) and use a grease free whisk attachment beat about 7 minutes or until it makes peaks (it will be thick). Divide icing into different bowls if making different colors, add food paste/coloring stir until coloring is incorporated. Then thin icing as needed for piping icing on cookies. Let icing rest to allow bubbles to pop. (If you do get bubbles in your iced cookies pop with a tooth pick before they set.) Then fill the piping bags 1/2 full.

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Note 1 : When filling bags you might need 2 bags one with thick piping icing for lining and a second bag with thinner icing of the same color for flooding/piping the center.

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Pipe around each cookie close to edge with a slightly thick icing making sure it flows well out of piping bag but doesn’t run. (If you don’t like the piped edge line look, then fill the piped lined cookies after about every 5 cookies with a thinner icing to filling/flooding the center of the cookies, this helps with line not to show. (We didn’t mind the line look around the edge to show, so we piped a single piping around ALL the cookies and then filled/flooded ALL of the cookies with the slightly thinner frosting using another bag with thinner icing constancy.)

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Note 2 : For thickening the icing add powder sugar or for thinning, add small drops or teaspoons of water until constancy needed.

Pipe on Icing as desired on each Gingerbread Man.

See above for recipe Gingerbread Man Sugar Cookies

Baked Sugar Cinnamon Doughnuts

*1 to 2 container rolls (8 biscuits per container roll) of Refrigerated biscuit dough, like Pillsbury Grands! Home Style Original Biscuits 16.3 ounce

*1 Stick of Butter, melted, using a pastry brush, brush (or dip) both sides of each biscuit

*1/2 cup Sugar and 1 tablespoon Cinnamon, mix together in bowl big enough to fit and dip 1 of the biscuits (dipping 1 at a time).

Instructions:

Flatten slightly each biscuit and then use a biscuit cutter or round cookie cutter to cut out the center of the biscuit. Then brush or dip biscuit in melted butter and then in cinnamon sugar mixture, covering and dipping both sides with the butter and cinnamon sugar mixture.  Place on Parchment or Silpat covered 1/2 baking sheet. Bake according to directions of biscuit container roll or I used an air fryer, follow the directions with your air fryer.

See Milk Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

See our Molasses Gingersnap Cookies

See Homemade Oreo Cookies

See Candy Coated Christmas Puffs

See Oreo Truffles

See Royal Icing Sugar Cookies

Enjoy!

Lindy

Snowman Eggnog

Snowman Eggnog

Special Supplies Needed:

*Globe Shaped Glasses or we used this glasses we found at Wal-mart they were unbreakable for the kids.

*Eggnog

*Mini Marshmallows, to help the whip topping from sinking or melting into the eggnog. We used a handful on top of the eggnog in each glass before adding the whipped topping. Repeat for each snowman glass, optional

*Grey Paper Straws, optional

*Candy Corns for nose, yellow part cut off or other orange candy shape as a nose

*Chocolate Chips, eyes

*Chocolate Chips or Dark Chocolate Melting Wafers for buttons

*Round Tip Decorating Tool

*Coconut for snow, optional

Preparing Snowman Eggnog Glasses

*Glass, use as many as needed

*Melted Chocolate Wafers (follow melting directions on package) or melted chocolate chips are used to make the buttons down the front of the glasses, we made 3 buttons. (We used a round tip decorating tool. We dipped the round end into the melted chocolate and then placed inside the glass making the dot where desired. Repeat for each chocolate button.

*Favorite Eggnog Recipe or Store Bought we used Meadow Gold Light Eggnog or you could use regular Meadow Gold Eggnog (our glasses were on the large size so you might need may need 2 (2 Quart) containers for 6 glasses, but if you add milk or sprite it would go further…

*NOTE: We like to add Almond or Milk to ours it’s a little rich for us. Also note that we added little Sprite or any lime soda will do, it will make the eggnog separate, so if you don’t want this to happen don’t add the lemon lime soda.

*We used Reddi Wip Almond Milk, but Cool Whip would probably hold up better. You need to add this just before serving. Add chocolate chips for the eyes and we used a Candy Corn for the nose to the piled up whipped topping, see pictures.

*Coconut for sprinkling for snow effect

Enjoy!

Lindy