Several Kinds of Christmas Cookies
I had my final discussion section for one of my classes yesterday, and I was the last one who had to bring in snacks for everyone. I decided to bring in Christmas cookies because I wanted to make some for myself anyway, and I didn't want to have to go out and buy anything to bring for discussion. I ended up making five different types of cookies to bring. Some were also put aside to be sent to my former college roommate and to her parents. I made two kinds of butter cookies, two kinds with peppermint flavoring, and chocolate chip cookies.
There are pictures of the first four kinds (the colorful ones!) behind the cut. There aren't any of the chocolate chip ones because I haven't put those pictures on my computer. Those were my usual Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies, with a mix of mini and regular chocolate chips. There are 21 pictures (320x240 pixels) behind the cut. All of them link to larger (800x600 pixels) pictures, so just click on the images and they should open in a new window/tab. If you want any of the recipes, just let me know and I can type them up. I've added links to PDF files of the recipes that are on Google Docs. Click on the cookies' names above their pictures (in the colored bars) to access those. Let me know if you can't access them or if they look weird.
Peppermint Pinwheels
These are Peppermint Pinwheels. The peppermint flavor isn't very strong, but there was a strong peppermint smell when I was baking them. The hardest part in making them was trying to roll out pieces of both colors of dough that were roughly the same size and shape. After rolling everything up and then wrapping it in waxed paper, I put the two logs of dough in the fridge overnight so that the swirls wouldn't get distorted when I had to cut the rolls into slices.
Two-Tone Butter Cookies
These are Two-Tone Butter cookies. I think I ended up making these a lot smaller than I was supposed to, because I've made them before and they were a lot bigger the other time. Oh well. I like having lots of little cookies sometimes. The only problem was that the first batch of these were a little more well-done than I would've liked. The other batches turned out well, though! The colors also came out really well, too.
Peppermint Twist Cookies
These are Peppermint Twist Cookies, which get Hershey kisses put on them after they're baked. These have a slightly stronger peppermint taste than the pinwheels. The recipe for these only calls for red food coloring, but I added green to make them more exciting. I ended up slicing the logs of dough so that each resulting dough ball had all three colors. The colors for these cookies turned out well, too.
Spritz
Spritz cookies are a holiday staple in my family. When my sister and I were much younger and when we still actually sent things to our extended family during the holidays, we must have churned out thousands of these cookies over the years. Luckily I was the decorator and not the one responsible for actually pressing out the cookies :D So, naturally I had to make some of these when baking Christmas cookies, because it's not Christmas for me without Spritz. I decided to use the disk that pushes out Christmas tree-shaped cookies since I made green dough. Unfortunately, part of the disk decided to break midway because it's made out of plastic. At least I was able to use it for the entire batch of dough so that I wouldn't have to make green flowers or pumpkins or something.
All of the cookies after I finished baking them.
Cookie Close-ups
Here's close-ups on each of the four different types of cookies. You can tell which ones were the first batches for each type since they're more well-done than the others. At least they still tasted okay!
Boxed-Up Cookies
Here's all of the finished cookies boxed up. Fortunately I only needed one of these containers to bring the cookies in for class since they're kinda large and unwieldy to carry, especially when riding the bus and walking several blocks. But it was worth it, because they were definitely a success yesterday!
There are pictures of the first four kinds (the colorful ones!) behind the cut. There aren't any of the chocolate chip ones because I haven't put those pictures on my computer. Those were my usual Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies, with a mix of mini and regular chocolate chips. There are 21 pictures (320x240 pixels) behind the cut. All of them link to larger (800x600 pixels) pictures, so just click on the images and they should open in a new window/tab. If you want any of the recipes, just let me know and I can type them up. I've added links to PDF files of the recipes that are on Google Docs. Click on the cookies' names above their pictures (in the colored bars) to access those. Let me know if you can't access them or if they look weird.
Peppermint Pinwheels
These are Peppermint Pinwheels. The peppermint flavor isn't very strong, but there was a strong peppermint smell when I was baking them. The hardest part in making them was trying to roll out pieces of both colors of dough that were roughly the same size and shape. After rolling everything up and then wrapping it in waxed paper, I put the two logs of dough in the fridge overnight so that the swirls wouldn't get distorted when I had to cut the rolls into slices.
Two-Tone Butter Cookies
These are Two-Tone Butter cookies. I think I ended up making these a lot smaller than I was supposed to, because I've made them before and they were a lot bigger the other time. Oh well. I like having lots of little cookies sometimes. The only problem was that the first batch of these were a little more well-done than I would've liked. The other batches turned out well, though! The colors also came out really well, too.
Peppermint Twist Cookies
These are Peppermint Twist Cookies, which get Hershey kisses put on them after they're baked. These have a slightly stronger peppermint taste than the pinwheels. The recipe for these only calls for red food coloring, but I added green to make them more exciting. I ended up slicing the logs of dough so that each resulting dough ball had all three colors. The colors for these cookies turned out well, too.
Spritz
Spritz cookies are a holiday staple in my family. When my sister and I were much younger and when we still actually sent things to our extended family during the holidays, we must have churned out thousands of these cookies over the years. Luckily I was the decorator and not the one responsible for actually pressing out the cookies :D So, naturally I had to make some of these when baking Christmas cookies, because it's not Christmas for me without Spritz. I decided to use the disk that pushes out Christmas tree-shaped cookies since I made green dough. Unfortunately, part of the disk decided to break midway because it's made out of plastic. At least I was able to use it for the entire batch of dough so that I wouldn't have to make green flowers or pumpkins or something.
All of the cookies after I finished baking them.
Cookie Close-ups
Here's close-ups on each of the four different types of cookies. You can tell which ones were the first batches for each type since they're more well-done than the others. At least they still tasted okay!
Boxed-Up Cookies
Here's all of the finished cookies boxed up. Fortunately I only needed one of these containers to bring the cookies in for class since they're kinda large and unwieldy to carry, especially when riding the bus and walking several blocks. But it was worth it, because they were definitely a success yesterday!