Our mother would bake at least 8 different kinds of cookies prior to Christmas. I can't remember her holding any back, and yet when Christmas came there was still a lovely homemade assortment of all kinds of wonderful cookies. Here are a few family favorites. Enjoy!

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

1 Cup sugar

3/4 Cup butter

1/4 cup milk

2 eggs, well beaten

3 Tablespoons baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

a pinch of salt

3 cups flour

Cream sugar and butter and add beaten eggs with milk, and vanilla.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together. Mix dry ingredients into sugar, butter mixture, gradually. Dough will be soft.

Roll small portion of the dough at a time. Cut out the cookies with a small diameter glass. Sprinkle sugar over top. Bake at 400 degrees about 5 minutes until lightly brown.

I found rolling this dough did not work well on our new vinyl topped kitchen counters. If you have a large table, or wooden board you can roll your cookies much thinner with out sticking. A stocking over your rolling pins helps also. (Just cut a nice white clean sock and pull it over the rolling pin.) Refrigerate the dough that is waiting to be rolled. These also decorate nicely with a powder sugar frosting. If rolling and cutting is too time consuming, a cookie gun works well with this recipe also.

Chocolate Drop Cookies

Ingredients

1 Cup brown sugar

1/2 Cup butter

1 egg

1/2 Cup Sour Milk

1/4 tsp. soda

1/4 tsp. baking powder

2 squares baking chocolate, melted

1 1/2 Cup flour

1 Cup chopped nuts

Cream butter and sugar, add beaten egg and sour milk. Sift flour, soda, and baking powder together and add to creamed ingredients. Add melted cooled chocolate and nuts. Drop teaspoonfuls on to a greased cookie sheet. 325 degree oven

Icing

1 egg beaten

1 Tablespoon cream

1 3/4 Cups Powder Sugar

1 square chocolate, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

Our neighbor lady would come for a cup of coffee, dressed in her sunbonnet, even in winter, and exclaim over this cookie. "Oh my goodness, I must have this recipe." My mom copied the recipe for her. Some days later she brought over a plate of small very brown cookies. She said, "I can't figure out what happened to them, they surely don't taste like yours." A hint of suspiciousness that she wasn't given the real recipe. My mom tasted her cookies and they were hard and dry. Mom asked her," Did you use butter? "Well, no," she replied. "Hmm," mom would say, "did you use real vanilla?" "Well, no," she replied. "Did you use an egg?" "I didn't have one so I substituted." she said. "I used your recipe and I don't know why mine didn't turn out." My mom just nodded understandingly.

Cooks in these times often substituted. Bacon grease for butter, some chicory for coffee, bread crumbs for nuts. Flour came in several grades. There was one designated as "cake flour". A white, lighter type than the grayer coarser ground everyday dredging flour. This along with guess measures often brought unusual creations.

Praline Cookies

Ingredients

1 2/3 Cups Flour

1 1/2 Teaspoons baking powder

1/2 Teaspoons salt

1/2 Cup butter

1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar

1 unbeaten egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 Cup pecan halves

Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Set aside Cream butter, add brown sugar gradually creaming well. Blend in egg, vanilla, and dry ingredients; mix well.

Drop by teaspoonsful onto a ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Cool.

Icing

Combine 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar and 1/2 Cup cream in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, boil 2 minutes. Remove from heat, and blend in 1 cup confection sugar. Beat until smooth. Break pecan halves into 2 or 3 pieces and top each cookie. Drizzle teaspoons of icing over cookie and nut pieces.

If your frosting gets too stiff, add a few drops of cream

More Christmas Treats
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