The crew challenge for this week is Peppermint. I don’t do peppermint well so this was a difficult one for me. I finally decided to simply talk about my favourite Christmas cookies. (and how I avoid too much mint!) Who doesn’t like a good Christmas cookie? I think almost every household has them. I for instance LOVE a good lemon cinnamon cookie, but this time of year I tend to make Hershey cookies, sugar cookies, and papernauten.
Oh… why do I tend to avoid peppermint? Well, combine it with chocolate and you’ll find me very energetic and talking a mile a minute and then having a bad crash. It’s fun, but yet very NOT fun.
So just why do I like baking for Christmas? Like seriously.. with all the chocolate, candy canes, and goodies offered up… do we REALLY need all those extra calories? We don’t!
But you know … I grew up with making cookies with my mom. Now I get to make cookies with my lad. In many ways, it’s a family tradition, and it’s GOOD to have those. They bring normalcy to a season, and frankly this year, with all the precautions being taken, I feel really MEH about Christmas. But these Christmas traditions.. baking cookies, spending time with my lad, talking together, figuring out who will do what, it makes it better. Much less MEH! Good tasting cookies help too!
Favourite Christmas Cookies
Over the years we’ve had students from other lands come live with us. One year we had a very sweet Brazillian lad living with us. He made us Brigadeiros. These are Brazilian chocolate fudge balls. They are extremely easy to make and VERY tasty. They bring us such happy memories.
You can roll them in whatever topping you like. We tend to do chocolate and candy sprinkles, but I’ve seen them with icing sugar, cane sugar and just plain. Apparently others do them with cut up fruit or crushed nuts, candy cane etc. It’s up to you and your taste buds!
We started to make Peanut butter blossom cookies… I think two years ago? HUGE hit. OH MY WORD… I was so surprised at how well they went over. They are fun to make so it’s a great cookie to make with children and teens. We have played around with different types of hershey kisses on top, and mostly prefer the plain chocolate. This year we got gifted white chocolate spiral cookies… so we used those instead. The pepperminty tasting ones my son stole quietly to his room. 🙂 YEAH!! I don’t have to be tempted by something NOT good for me. 🙂
We’ve made gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies. It’s fun don’t you think to make fun shapes with cookies, to surprise a boy with a cat, or to indulge your fancy with bunnies, reindeer or snowmen.
Haystacks and chocolate chip cookies just for fun. You know what I love about haystacks? They are SO versatile. We made our using coconut and rice krispies. My boarder makes hers using chinese noodles, My mom using large flake oatmeal and a friend does her using oatmeal crisp cereal. So very versatile and no need to bake them. Just melted chocolate goodness mixed with toppings of choice. 🙂
Yet to come
Yet to be made yet are my papernauten, homemade turtles, mini rolo cookies and dipped pretzels. You’ll find recipes for most of these in the collection of posts below. You won’t find much in the way of peppermint in them though! 🙂
- the New and Old of Christmas Baking.
- Christmas Baking – the boys.
- The Togetherness of Christmas Baking.
- Christmas Cookies.
So what are you baking this year? Do you have favourite Christmas cookies that are part of your family traditions? Share the recipe in the comments if you’d like, perhaps they will become favourites in our household too!
Oh, I am going to have to try those fudge balls!! We do the haystacks or something similar we call them No-Bakes using oatmeal but I like coconut so maybe I should give a new recipe a go! Since this year is giving us so much time at home, might as well put it to some fun use!!
definitely give it a whirl! 🙂
I started baking yesterday. Made one batch of chocolate softies – they have white chocolate chips and use a Devil’s Food Cake batter mix. So yummy. Today I hope to make some sugar cookies as we have left over icing from our gingerbread house decorating.
I have not heard of chocolate softies before. I’ll have to look those up.
They all look wonderful. You’ve made my mouth water.
oh good! 🙂
I love making cookies! I wish I had more yummy recipes I can eat. I love the look of your brigadeiros.
you could probably work the papernauten into something you could eat, is there anything in the brigadeiros you can’t eat?
We have had so many delicious plates of cookies brought to us this year! I think everyone is feeling that same sentiment, let’s keep the traditions of baking and sharing going especially this year. I was amazed at how much we received. I on the other hand didn’t really do a lot of baking. Wishing I’d had the energy this year. I love all these cookie ideas!
Perhaps your energy for cookie making will come back! (after you’ve eaten all the cookies received). 🙂