Cookie Day 2012

Nana and I have decided that we are going to carry on the Cookie Day tradition.  Everyone has gotten super busy, but this is something that we really would like to do.  We planned the day and invited all of the grandchildren to come over whenever they could.

Bianca was he greatest helper today.  I gave her a lot of tasks and she loved being in charge of measuring things and reading the recipes.  Emmy was the perfect snowball cookie powderer and will have that job for the rest of her life! Everyone had a chance to put ingredients into the bowls and some stayed around longer than others, but in the end, it was Bianca, Nana, and me making most of the cookies.

This year, we made:

1. Cranberry Breakfast Cookies (premade dough purchased through Gracie and Lukie's fundraiser)
2. Shortbread Sprinkle Cookies (also from G and L's fundraiser)
3. Snowball Cookies 
4. Mint Chocolate M&Ms cookies (the dough from Nestle's chocolate chip cookies with mint chocolate M&Ms instead of chocolate chips)
5. Chocolate Crack (toffee, peppermint, plain)

We also have sugar cookie dough in the refrigerator for Nana's Christmas Eve Eve Party. We plan to decorate cookies with the kiddos.  Should be fun!

Chocolate Crack

Courtesy of Monica Hernandez

Ingredients:

2 sticks salted butter

1/2 box Graham crackers

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 10 by 15 cookie sheet with foil and turn up the edges to form sides. Or use a jellyroll pan. Spray foil with Pam or nonstick spray.

Line tray with graham crackers. I used about 1/2 a box of Nabisco Honey Maid. Cover the entire tray even if u have to break crackers to fill sheet.

Melt 2 sticks of salted butter and 1 cup of brown sugar in a sauce pan. Boil on medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir constantly while boiling the sugar and butter. Then spread evenly over the graham crackers. I smoothed mine out with a spatula.

Then slide pan in oven for 10 minutes.

Remove pan from oven and sprinkle 2 cups of semisweet chocolate chips over the top. Give it a minute or two to melt. Then spread chocolate out evenly with a heat resistant spatula or frosting knife.
Slide pan in refrigerator to chill. I let mine chill over night.

When its cool, remove foil from the cookies and break into random size pieces.

Optional: Sprinkle chopped almonds or crushed candy canes over the chocolate before placing tray in fridge.

Snow Ball Cookies

Snow Ball Cookies feature in some of our earliest memories!  We used to make some red, some green and some white to have all of the Christmas colors.

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons water
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped almonds
1/4 tsp of salt
Powdered sugar (held to the end)

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a medium bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Stir in vanilla and water. Add the flour and almonds, mix until blended. Cover and chill for 3 hours.
2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
3. Shape dough into balls or crescents. Place on an unprepared cookie sheet and bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove from pan to cool on wire racks. When cookies are cool, roll in confectioners' sugar. Store at room temperature in an airtight container.