Holiday Blitz Day 2: Hot Cocoa & Gift Card Holder Tutorial & the winner!

I’d much rather just make my own Spritz cookies and some cutout cookies… otherwise they are usually stale before we eat all of them!!

Great tutorial!

We make a Swiss Sugar Cookie(my husbands side) and Ginger snap cookie (my side) and then I throw in maybe persimmon cookies or white choc w/dried cranberry. We then pack them for neighbors plates. Thanks Sherry

I know it sounds like a strange combination but chocolate cornflake cookies are the best!

What a great tutorial. Having a sister who is a teacher – I know these are the gifts teachers LOVE.

As for Christmas, we have a tradition where Dad makes shortbread cookies and my sister and I decorate them. We’ve even been doing it since we don’t all live together! That’s our tradition, we’ll share them at family christmas dinners but mostly it’s the fun of doing it all together!

We make SOOO many cookies each year, but my favorite are linzer tortes.

My daughter always likes for us to make shortbread cookies and we use Christmas shape cutters. We then decorate with sprinkles.

I always make a cookie sampler tray for work and to take to my parents-in-law on Christmas Eve. I make: sugar cookies, pecan sandies, fudge, chocolate covered pretzels, peppermint bark, lemon bars and pecan pralines.

I make up the tray to put out but also bring a container to restock as the supply dwindles. The sugar cookies are always the first to go!

I love to make Christmas cookies and my all time favorite is the sugar cookie–decorated with confect. sugar icing tinted to match the design of the cookie. I have only been to one cookie exchange and it was a ball. Would love to do it again. I used to give out platters of cookies (when I was younger and had lots of stamina for baking). this is a darling gift card holder.
Cheryl Sims

My Mom makes Danish Vanilla cookies, they are similar to the ones you can get at Ikea but way better since they are homemade!

PS. Love the gift card holder!

Hi!
I love cookies period! I always have a cookie exchange with friends. We have a lot of fun. We also donate cookies to a local senior citizen home. They really appreciate them. My favorites are the magic cookie bars, chocolate chip and spritz.
Great tutorial today! Thank you!

mmmm Christmas cookies… I love my Mom’s shortbread.. I have never tasted any as light as hers. I make a savory cookie with Imperial Cheese, worchestershire sauce and rice krispies… I know it sounds weird, but it’s a light, crisp cookie that goes well with soups and chowders – the recipe came down to me from my grandmother, and I love it! I bake all kinds of Christmas goodies: cheese cookies, butter tarts, caramel corn, nuts & bolts, almond roca – then I give them away in baskets and jars as Christmas gifts.

Another wonderful gift idea! TFS!!

I don’t do a lot of baking but my favorite is my mom’s PB coookies! Love ‘em!

Don’t have any traditions per se unless you count eating them!! LOL

Bake cookies?!? Who doesn’t??? I can still remember putting on the Reader’s Digest collection of Christmas records on our giant console-sized record player and then baking the same German-inspired cookies with my mom that I now bake with my girls. We do butter spritz through the cookie press, Russian tea cakes, candy cane cookies, pffernuese (spelling?) made with candied fruit, stollen bread also with candied fruit, and my great-grandma’s sugar cookies and orange drop cookies that are to die for! It does take the better portion of a day or two to do it, but reaping the rewards is great! And we do share! (-=

For Christmas, we have a Plum Pudding that has been handed down from my grandmother. Needless to say, 4 generations have enjoyed this Christmas tradition

Andrea,

as usual you projects are amazing!!!!

I love to bake cookies for Christmas…My son loves the Neiman Marcus’s cookies with lots of chocolate and my daughter loves shortbread cookies.
I am from Italy and my favorite cookies are the ones my Mom bakes every year, but I cannot find all the ingredients here in the States…I’m hoping to be able to go home for Christmasin the near future and enjoy my Mom’s company and the cookies again!!!!

Monica Giberti

Thanks for this terrific tutorial! I love to make macaroons. They are sooo easy and everyone thinks they are complicated

Don’t you love this paper! Your project is adorable!
I am old fashioned I guess. I love sugar cookies and gingerbread. I make plenty during the holidays and when the kids or grandkids come by they enjoy.

I always used to make spritz cookies when I was growing up, but we tend to make more peanut brittle and fudge than cookies. We do make Linzertorte every year since my mom has passed away and doesn’t make it for us anymore (carry on the tradition). It is a yummy bar cookie from our German heritage that has chocolate in the heavy cake part with raspberry jam filling.
I love your projects and these are no exception. I was fortunate to take your snow flurries class from a fellow demo and am so impressed by the projects and your whole class organization. Thank you for your talent and sharing it.

Every year we make cut out (sugar) cookies and decorate them with homemade icing and decorations! So much fun. I am excited to introduce this tradition to my 3-year-old this year.

I love to bake for the holidays. I do a lot of baking and freezing after Thanksgiving and pull things out as I need them for Christmas that I use for hostess gifts or platters. My favorite has to be Buckeye Balls, but my family loves plain old chocolate chip cookies.

I don’t bake cookies, but I do have a gingerbread house mold that I use with chocolate instead of gingerbread. I make these houses for friends, church staff, etc. They are a big hit!! I also bake the cheesecake for family’s Christmas dinner. My sister-in-law refuses to come if I don’t. No secret recipe – I use of the different recipes that they have on kraftfoodandfamily.com. Sign up for their free magazine if you don’t get it already!!

We do a family baking day that is attended by all family members old and young. Bring your new recipe and one old recipe everything is completed in one day and enjoyed through out the holiday season. The baking is done on the saturday after Thanksgiving

Thanks for the great projects

Years ago I got together with my friend and we would spend all day and into the night making all types of cookies from Choco Chip to Monster cookies. We would then package them up for friends and neighbors. I haven’t done it in a few years. But this year my 19yr old daughter wants to start the tradition up again. So I am excited to be doing it with her.
Thank you so much
Shellie Ashley

I make lots of cookies for Christmas. I usually set aside the Saturday before Christmas as my cookie baking day with lots of chocolate chips, oatmeal~raisin, fruitcake, and cut~out sugar cookies. These are always that little something extra added to the gifts to relatives that are really hard to buy for.
Thanks so much for all of your helpful ideas using SU! products!

Cute idea!! I would love to make Christmas cookies but I’m afraid to use my kitchen right now (icky roommates) – so I’ve resorted to collecting cookie recipes for the time-being. Food Network does a 12 days of cookies starting Dec. 1st, and I signed up for a daily cookie recipe from Martha Stewart – Lots of great ideas so far! Thanks for the holiday blitz – looking forward to some great ideas for my own gift giving this year

Apparently, Biscotti has become my trademark Christmas cookie. I made some for a cookie exchange quite a few years ago and over the years have added a number of recipes and flavours to my collection. I have a couple of friends whose husbands start asking right after Hallowe’en if we are doing our exchange again and if I will be joining in so they can get “their” biscottis. LOL
I love it!!!! Especially now since MY husband is asking for HIS biscotti.(he is NOT a cookie lover)

I make pretzel turles, which are my husbands favorite and super easy. You take mini pretzel (the kind with the twist, not the rodes), put a rolo on top and warm in the oven. Take out and place a pecan half on top. My daughter loves to unwrap the rolos!

Great job Andrea! I just spent the day baking 9 batches of different cookies. The most popular one I make is a chocolate Rolo cookie- everyone is surprised at the caramel in the middle and want to know “what it is!”.

My favorite cookies are frosted sugar cookies. This year my daughter will have a few friends over to make Christmas cookies…otherwise, no specific tradition.

A friend and myself used to cook together during this time, making fudge, divinity, wedding cakes, O’henry, etc. She has moved away and I miss not cooking with her. When you cook alone…the kitchen can get a little sad! I miss my friend!
kt

We always make no bake cookies, you know cocoa, sugar, milk, vanilla heat to boil then add peanut butter and then oatmeal. But instead of oatmeal we add pecans. Can you say yummy!! We do give a plate of homemade treats to close friends and family.

Good Old Fashioned Fudge is something we ALWAYS make – all the kids are gone from home, and they all come home for the holidays, so my “job” is to have the ingredients and they make the fudge. Then when my daughter married a Canadian, we enveloped some of his traditions, which includes the shortbreads. And we’ve taken to those like the proverbial duck to water!!

Love your Hot Cocoa holder! Thanks for sharing

Jan

my nieces love to bake, so i have learned to bake sugar cookies (i’m not much of a baker) and we’ve been baking them for a few years now. they love to decorate them and wrap them up and give share their goodies.

love the tutorial!!

My favorite holiday cookie is a recipe my grandmother makes called Dessert Nut Butterhorns. They are wonderful with cinnamon, walnuts, and flaky homemade pastry dough. Every year I think I should ask my grandma to teach me how to make them, and maybe this year will be the year I actually learn! The best part is that my grandma makes lots of extras and freezes them, so we can have them at other family dinners throughout the year.

HI Andrea,

I love your blog, and this looks like a great project to make.

As for the cookies. We make our cookies every Christmas. My mom and I and my two girls. This has been a tradition ever since I was a little girl. Our favorites, butter cookies (cut outs), peanut butter kiss cookies, and a fairly new addition is hazelnut tarts. We probably make about 8 or 9 different kinds to share with family.

Thanks again for a great blog.
Sharon in Michigan

My favorite cookies to make are the traditional Hershey Kiss cookie, MMM! I love to bake dozens of these cookies and share with neighbors and friends. Oh gosh, my mouth is watering for some now!!! LOL!

Andrea, I love today’s project and might just CASE it for my own teacher gifts. As for Christmas cookies, my tradition is to eat the ones my mom bakes!

We always make the Butter Spritz kind and some specialty breads – Boston Brown Bread and Stollen. Yum Yum! We just give stuff away to family and friends.

Last year I participated in my first cookie exchange. Taht was so much fun that I will be doing that gain this year. I love trying different ddookies and getting the recipes as well.

My sister and I always bake gifts for friends too because it puts us in the Holiday mood!

Ilove to make chocolate macaroons and also a whipped short bread cookie which is so easy and quick and then they just melt in your mouth if you can get to eat one before there gone Love the tin it is really cute

Thank you for the beautiful Hot Chocolate & Gift Card Holder!

For cookies, I am the Queen of “break and bake”! I love to decorate sugar cookies.

Thank you for another chance to win!

My friends and I try to do a cookie bake/exchange each year. We all bring cookies to exchange and then make sugar cookie cutouts that day. My favorites are Chocolate covered Ritz crackers. Put peanut butter between two Ritz crackers. Dip into melted chocolate. Another adorable project!!

In our house it’s shortbread, using a recipe given to my mother years and years ago. We make a few batches and give them to the neighbours
Love the tutorials.

Making my Grandma’s Molasses Crinkles are one of my favorite holiday cookies and an annual tradition. They are small, chewy, and taste wonderful with a great cup of coffee! Thank you for your wonderful website!

I personally don’t have holiday cookie traditions, but my aunt does and has for years.
She gets together with about 5 of her girlfriends and decorates cookies for the entire day…however, the process begins two days prior when they begin the baking and making the frostings. Someday i will take on this tradition, but for now, i (along with the rest of our family & friends) get to sit back and enjoy eating them on x-mas ever and x-mas day!!
Happy baking~

My favorite cookies to make are Shortbread Cookies. Love the tin, I know you don’t want to give away instructions (I totally agree) but are we able to purchase from you the instructions.

Love your tutorials

My kids favorite cookies are sugar cookies with frosting. I like them with cinnamin and sugar on them

Oh my… where to start. Growing up my mom was well known for the Christmas cookie platters we would give to family and friends. We would make around 16 different types and have tubs full to create fun combinations. My childhood friend still remembers being in awe of this!

Some of my favorites are Krumkake, Mint Meltaways, Almond Crescents and Chocolate Dipped Creams. Yum! While I don’t go to the same lengths as my mother did I still treasure many of the recipes she used and bake them for and find much joy in sharing them with those I love.

My tradition is making Peanut Butter Balls, however I’m getting tired of making them because every year it seems like I’m making more and more and by the time I get done, I dont even want to eat any myself.
The recipe is simple for those of you that want to make them….
2 pounds of peanut butter and 3 pounds of Confectioners sugar and 1 pound of butter, Melt the butter and mix all ingredients together, forming a dough, shape into balls, put toothpicks in them and freeze them long enough to make them a little hard but not too hard, just enough to keep them on the toothpick. Then dip them in your chocolate mixture, which is 1 1/4 sticks of Parafin wax and 2 12 oz bags of chocolate morsels melted in double boiler. I then put them back in freezer to cool again and then take the toothpicks out and bag them up.

Every Christmas for the past few years my daughter and I make cookie trees. these are made from star-shaped cookies, frosted and stacked to make a christmas tree. We give these to our friends as gifts. the family loves chocolate peanut butter balls.
By the way-this is a great gift idea. I am giving my grown children gift cards so may have to make some of these for them.

What a fantastic tutorial !!! AMAZING !!!

I don’t do any Christmas baking….every year I keep saying that I want to but after almost 24 years of marriage and 5 kids….I’ve yet to do some serious Christmas baking….thankfully….my mum still bakes a ton of fantastic goodies for all of us

Some of my favorites come from my mom! They are a collection from family and friends. The collection includes Greek cookie twists, buttery press cookies, sugar and my very favorite being the canollis. Andrea there are so many wonderful ideas I love looking at all of them

My mom use to make cookies with us as kids so I do the same now as an adult. I make sugar, chocolate chip, peanut butter, etc. I love doing them and sharing them as gifts.

Love the tutorial. I have an awesome recipe for sugar cookies. We do the cut outs and frost them of course. It’s usually a whole day procedure because it’s so much work by they’re worth it.

Gorgeous hot cocoa and gift card holder! Awesome tutorial and idea as always! Do you get any sleep at all or do you just sit up nights thinking stuff up? lol

I always make Almond Orange Biscotti at Xmas. My FIL loves it, too, so I always make lots to take to him so he can have it with his tea.

Thanks for sharing another great idea. Can’t wait to see what other Xmas ideas you have to share!
Julie

I have three young children, so up until now we have made the place and bake sugar cookies you can find in the refrigerator section of the supermarket. We make homemade buttercream frosting in all different colors, then frost. The kids add sprinkles and other decorations they choose. We always leave cookies for Santa!

Yes, I bake cookies for Christmas! This is my second year as a full-time teacher and the teachers and staff participate in a cookie exchange. We make several dozen of one cookie and exchange with the others so we will have an assortment of cookies. Last year I made no-bake cookies. These are my favorite plus they are sooooo easy to make! I also love to make sugar, peanut butter, and snickerdoodle cookies around Christmas time. Again, I love your project! Thanks so much for all of your ideas and inspiration and I am so glad you and your family are settling in so that you can stamp again!

I always bake homemade cookies for Christmas and lots of them. My two favorite recipes are for cut-out cookies that we decorate and Chocolate Chip Oatmeal. The cut-out cookies I ice with the kids and now neices and nephews. The Chocolate Chip Oatmeal was my aunts recipe and our favorite cookie. I make some others too if I have time. It varies from year to year whether we have a cookie exchange, but we do usually share with some neighbors and at church.

I have to I mean HAVE to make my reindeer and santa cookies every year for family and friends. People go crazy for these cookies. The reindeer is a pb cookie with choc. chip eyes and mini pretzel knots as antlers. The santa cookies are nutter butters dipped in white choc. with choc. chip eyes, red sprinkled hat with white choc. chip for fuzz and red candy for nose. Too cute. I also do a Stamp Camp/cookie exchange every year.

Love the teacher gift and tin! Glad to see you posting regularly again! As I grew up my mom and aunt did their Christmas baking together every year signifying the start of the holiday season. My cousin and I then carried on this tradition until she moved away, but possibly we may get together this year for a baking weekend again! That would make my holiday season!

Nice project! I liked to bake shortbread cookies back before I had two kids and was too tired to do anything Don’t know how you do all you do, but I’m glad you do it!

Thanks,

Alison

I love the smell of fresh bake Christmas cookies in the oven at Christmas Time. I have so many favourites it’s hard to list them all. Most of my favourite recipes came from a magazine called Taste of Home. You can search for recipe on http://www.tasteofhome.com.

I love giving them as gifts to friends, family and co-workers.

Thanks for the great tutorial today, I can’t wait to make some of these!!

Anne

I do not bake a ton at Christmas time b/c I would be the one eating it all b/c my family is so picky! I do try to come up with a couple of different recipes to do with my girls for a baking day. I recently bought a spritzer so I may put that to use this Christmas!

I usually don’t make cookies, but always some decadent chocolate cake. We love our cakes. Thanks for the great cocoa holder idea. Mary

Thanks for sharing this great gift idea! I used to make cookies with my daughter and participate in cookie swaps, but have since changed the tradition and now make gingerbread houses with my daughter, daughter in law and my daughters girlfriend. We have a ball! This year they want to make a gingerbread igloo?????

What an awesome project!! Can’t wait to see what else you have planned for this month. Could we somehow extend November another 30 days. : ) Love the tin!!!

Great tutorial today. Thanks! We usually do a family baking day (although now that one daughter is married and lives in Hawaii and the other is graduating from college, this may be the last year of a family baking day). Some of the cookies we make are Kiefli (a Hungarian nut filled cookie), cut out sugar cookies with a cream cheese frosting, and Mexican Wedding cakes (also know as Russian Tea Cookies). Seems like I have an international theme going on. hahaha

Robbie

I don’t do much baking any more (used to make at least 15-20 varieties of cookies, plus quick breads, candies, etc to send to family, especially one of my sisters)but when I did, my favorite to make (and eat) was Springerle, a pretty little molded anise cookie. My sister loves them, too.

Yes, we bake cookies every year. Always sugar cookies and buckeyes. Those are our favorites. Then I try a new cookie recipe. I haven’t done cookie exchanges in awhile, but like to package up the cookies all pretty and give them to friends.

I love this project!!! for Christmas I make snowballs and winter white bars, two of my mom’s traditions, as well as a gumdrop cake. very easy and always a crowd pleaser.

My favorite cookies to make for Christmas are my Grandmother’s recipe for Molasses cookies (kinda like ginger snaps, but soft). They are soooo good! I try to make enough and put a few on a tray or in a tin or something along with other things (i.e. homemade fudge and some store bought things)for close friends/neighbors, but I don’t always find the time to do so, but I try.

Hi!
I wish I had some fabulous cookie story or recipe to share, but I’m afraid I hate to bake. I’ve got a very small, poorly laid-out kitchen which has made it a chore to do any kind of baking. So, my motto is that ‘I don’t bake, I buy’. Sorry! Great prize, though!
Heather L.

we always have a cookie excahnge at work and bring 4 dozen of our favorite cookies plus copies of the recipes. after the exchange, we get to bring home about 2-3 dozen as we sample as we excahnge.

I don’t normally do much baking since it is usually gone the same day. But at Christmas, I try to do more with my 9 year old daughter. We try out new recipes and of course OUR favorite every year is shortbread. I always try to freeze 1/2 though so they will last. We also buy cookie dough by the bucket to support our DD school. Fast & easy every night.
Love the tutorial! and would love the tin.
Thanks!!

Beautiful! I’m definately going to try this one. I don’t even think that I have a favorite Christmas Cookie. I don’t do as much baking as I used to but I have traditional recipes that I have to prepare every year – each of my nieces & nephews in law have a fav & of course I have to please them all.

I always bake cookies – chocolate chip and macadamin. My guys are boring. They won’t try anything else. Love the project. Thanks for sharing.

I usually make a few different recipes for my Christmas cooking – choc coconut balls, white christmas slice, choc chip cookies, all those types of things. This year I am going to try sugar cookies for the first time. I’m sure my 2 year old son will enjoy helping me to ice them!

Christmas cookies are a time-honored tradition at our house! From the early years where cookies were a little (!) scorched to today (20+ yrs later) cookies are filled with memories of Christmas preparations. Our kids still, today, demand the good old cookies that have become entrenched in our family traditions. When our kids were younger we loved to make Rolo cookies. I think that there were more Rolo’s eaten that made into cookies on our cookie baking days … but those are the treasured memories that our kids hold onto.

Rolo Cookies – 2 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cups coco, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 cup white sugar, 1 cup magarine, 3 tsp vanilla, 2 eggs, Rolo’s (or can sub. smarties) Mix, roll into balls, press Rolo’s into dough, wrap dough up and around the sides of the rolo. Bake at 375 for 7 to 10 min.

I do make cookies at Christmas time but my favorite is making candy. I love to make toffee, yumm! We usually make up a nice plate of candy/cookies and we go caroling to our friends and neighbors.

I’m the baker in my family and LOVE to make Christmas cookies and bars! I make about 10 different kinds- iced cut-outs, teacakes, candy cane, peanut butter blossoms, spritz, rosettes, toffee squares, California dream bars, 2 kinds of fudge, and I’ll usually try a new recipe or 2 that I find. I make most of them early and freeze them, but we’re all guilty of sneaking them out of the freezer! I also make some type of fancy dessert for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

We have always made a sugar cookie recipe that was my Great Grandma’s (very soft and yummy cookie). When I was little it was tradition for me and my three brothers to help mom make our Christmas Cookies (Christmas is the only time we make them). The tradition has changed through the years…but we always manage to get our Christmas cookies made. I have pictures scrapbooked of my grandson helping with the cookies at the age of 15 months and 27 months that are among my favorite pages. This year mom and I are doing a cookie exchange with my Aunts, so this may be the start of a new tradition!

Thanks for sharing all your wonderful ideas…Love them!!

I love to bake for the holidays but I never seem to have the time I would like to make all these delicious treats. I usually make time for my 2 favorites…chocolate chip and double chocolate chip cookies (from the Barefoot Contessa) and more often then not I bring them to my sister-in-laws Holiday party every year or I end up making them at their house. Either way, baking to me is relaxing and the rewards are yummy! BTW…great tutorial. I am going to try to do that for all of our teachers.

I love baking cookies at Christmas time. I usually make 3 different kinds, chocolate chip, butter cookies and my favorite – almond flavored cookies. They are all so good!
Another cute project!

I don’t know if this counts as a cookie but I make these to bring to all of the relatives houses. Put small pretzels on a cookie sheet, place one unwraped hersey kiss on top of each then bake for a couple of minutes just until the chocolate starts to melt. Remove from oven and squish an M & M into the top of the kiss. Let them cool. It is a perfect bit size treat.

What a treat to start my day with your blog. I LOVE reading it and it inspires me so. A million thank yous for taking the time out of your busy busy day to share your ceativity with us. I truly appreciate it.
At Christmas time my MIL bakes several family favorites. My husband is one of five and each one has his/her favorite so she makes all of them. My favorite is the following:

Magic Cookie Bars
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 (14 oz) can Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk NOT evaporated milk)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 can (3 1/2 oz) flaked coconut
1 cup chopped nuts
1 cup butterscotch chips (optional)

Preheat over to 350 (325 for glass dish). In 13 X 9 baking pan, melt butter in oven. Sprinkle crumbs over butter; pour Eagle Brand Milk evenly over crumbs. Top with remaining ingredients; press down firmly. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool. Chill if desired. Cut into bars. Store loosely covered at room temp.

Prep Time: 10 min
Bake Time: 25-30 min
Yield: 24-36 bars

Oh, I don’t do any baking but I love chocolate chip cookies!

Love this tutorial!!
I bake tons of cookies for the holidays – mainly for our family but we do share too! My kids always request the peanut butter blossoms (pnut butter cookie with hershey kiss in the center), 7-layer cookies and chocolate chip – not too holiday-ish but it is what they love!! I always try to find some new recipe each year also.

I’ve taken over the tradition of Christmas baking since my grandmother has passed away.

I pretty much make everything she made, plus a few of my favorites, coconut macaroons and nutella balls. I have to make 3 or 4 batches of the nutella balls they go so fast!

I think my most favorite thing about Christmas is that on most Sundays, I’ll have a glass of gluehwein, some cookies and just look at my tree.

The most perfect way to spend a cold winter afternoon.

Hi Andrea and Sophia!
Christmas is all about children, and since both my girls were old enough to stand on a chair and help me, we’ve always made shortbread cookies for Santa (and us!). I have quite a collection of sprinkles, and the girls love to not only cut out the shortbread in various Christmas-related shapes, but they also love to decorate them with the sprinkles (sometimes you can’t even see the cookie underneath! LOL). Then, when they are all done and cooled, the girls each pick out their favourite cookie to give to Santa, and we get to enjoy the rest of them. This, and making the gingerbread house together, are my favourite Christmas traditions! The recipe for the shortbread cookies is no family secret-conveniently enough, you can find it on the box of cornstarch! LOL No worries about losing the recipe!
D

First off, I have to say this is a great tutorial and I loved it! BUT here’s the question of the day…do you have one Versamark pad that you save just for the photos in your tutorials? Mine only look like that at the moment I removed the cellophane and open the lid for the first time! From that beautiful clean look, they are quickly transformed into a nasty grey/blue icky color despite my best efforts to clean the stamps before applying them to the VM pad!

As for cookies? I am not what you would call an enthusiastic baker but I have taught my children the fine art of scooping cookie dough from the 5 lb. Sam’s Club brand of chocolate chip cookie dough and baking them. Does that count? My boys will never starve as long as there is cookie dough in the house! They can also make brownies from a boxed mix! lol!

So here’s my favorite recipe which is called Mudpuddles.

chocolate chip cookie dough (make it yourself or buy it by the tub like I do!)
mini peanut butter cups
mini muffin pan

Use Baker’s Joy (combo of flour and oil in a spray form) to grease the mini muffin cups. this is critical even if they are non-stick.

Place a scant teaspoon of cookie dough in each cup and bake according to package (or recipe) directions.

If PB cups are wrapped, make sure they are all unwrapped and ready to go before removing cookies from oven.

Immediately after removing cookies from oven, press a peanut butter cup firmly into the center of each muffin tin. The still warm dough will come up around the sides of the cup.

Leave cookies in muffin tin until completely cooled (otherwise they will not hold shape) and enjoy. If you want to zap them briefly (2 seconds or so) in the microwave before eating, they are delish!

Jan Hoyt
http://www.inkerzaway.blogspot.com

Scoop

I make many, many cookies each year. I give them as gifts, participate and/or host cookie swaps, and eat too many myself! I really love cookies, and they are a big part of the holidays for me. I have fond memories of standing on a chair next to my mom so I could cut out the sugar cookies when I was young. Iced sugar cookies, spritz cookies, shortbread, russian tea cakes, and molasses cookies are just a few of my favorites. I make candy, too!

Yes, I have been living about 400 km away from home for three years now and when I come home for Christmas we always have one day dedicated to baking cookies . I love that, even though towards the end you don’t want to see or smell anything cookie dough-related anymore!!! Heehee. But it’s great to hang out together and talk and so on, just us, it’s a girl-thing, you know What we’re always making are cookies known as black-and-white cookies, those are delicious!

I’m not much of a baker so there is not much of a yearly thing that is done. However, when I do get the earge I make the turtles. You take small pretzles and lay them on a cookie pan. Put one rollo carmal choclate candie on top. Put in oven until candie is soft. Take out and push down with a pecan half. Hope someone trys this and likes it. HAPPY HOLIDAYS.

My husband and I started the tradition of making cinnamon buns from scratch (like the kind you get at Cinnabon)every Christmas Eve day. We then delivery them to our neighbors and family that we see on Christmas Eve. All they need to do is pop them in the oven in the morning to enjoy while opening gifts. Everyone really enjoys them. I hope they enjoy them as much as I enjoy reading your blog and all of your great ideas.

As always, your ideas are so polished!
I love making and eating what we call Mexican Wedding Cakes. Don’t know if that’s the official name but that’s what we always called them. They are butter, walnuts, vanilla and powder sugar. MMmm They melt in your hands as well as your mouth.

Yes! I go crazy every year baking and cooking….my favorite is candy. I love chocolate (who doesn’t) and make several different varieties of truffles to share. We give them to coworkers, neighbors, family and friends. We also save a few to enjoy ourselves!!

Thanks for the tutorial. Great idea. I do make Christmas cookies. Overwhelmingly I make buckeyes the most: peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate. They look like the nuts of the buckeye tree, hence their name. I usually make other kinds too but buckeyes are the favorite. I usually take cookies to various people including my in-laws. She doesn’t bake.

When my children were young I would start the day after Thanksgiving and make a different cookie every day until the week of Christmas. I would then make up trays of cookies, fudge and what we in Ohio call Buckeyes. (Chocolate peanut balls dipped in chocolate but you leave a little of the peanut butter showing so it looks like a buckeye) Each of my children and husband had a different favorite. My husband liked 7-layer, my oldest son pecan bars, middle son buckeyes and younges Butter cookies iced and sprinkled with sugar. Now that the boys are grown and I lost my husband to cancer I just don’t do as much. I still love to bake but don’t start until the week of Christmas and then take small platters to the Christmas parties I am invited to for the hostess.

I am having my 3rd Annual Christmas Cookie exchange with my SU! customers & my family. I do this so that I don’t have to bake a ton of different cookies and I get to eat lots:) My favorite is hmmm…oh, I don’t have just one favorite!

Just like my Grandma, we make chow mein cookies every year. I think they might also be called haystacks. Basically we cover chowmein noodles and peanuts with a mix of melted chocolate. The tradition of it comes in the form of eating them frozen. Growing up my Grandma would make dozens of these and freeze them. Well, my Dad and his siblings would sneek them out of the freezer and no one could wait to let them thaw, therefore eating them frozen. Growing up all of us grandkids thought these were supposed to be frozen and that’s how we make and eat them with our families now. Most people probably think we’re crazy, but we love them just like Grandma made them!

I hosted a fun cookie exchange with friends last year and I asked them to be packaged in creative containers…it was so fun to see what everyone did with their cookies. I love spritz cookies and 3 layer bars and…you get the picture! The cocoa/gift card holder is fabulous, I think I’ll make some this year!
Carla

Hi gals! We always bake gingerbread, shortbread, suger cookies and two of my grandma’s squares for christmas. My sister, Mom and I would get together and spend an entire day baking before we all moved to different cities. Now I just bake on my own.
Yes, I also participate in a cookie exchange, last year there were 18 of us!!! I received a lovely assortment of goodies to last a lifetime!

Wonderful projects as always!! I have 5 daughters and we do a family baking day before Christmas. Everyone picks the cookies or candy they want to make then we get together and bake them. Usual fav’s are monster cookies, fudge, coconut mound balls, decorated sugar cookies and peanut butter kisses. Then we each get to pick which families we want to deliver to. This year we are stamping bakery bags to put them in. It is always a very fun day.

I like to bake Christmas cookies ! I’m not making the same year after year. It depends on the recipes I find and the time I have. I’m offering them to family.

My Mother-in-Law bakes Christmas cookies with our children (her grandchildren) every year. It doesn’t matter how old they are, she makes her own cookie dough, frosting, buys all the decorating materials and lets the kids have fun decorating cookies. The kids look forward to it every year and I love having this tradition for my kids with their grandmother!!

I love to bake cookies, my favorite ones are pizzelles and spritz. Our local newspaper has a annual cookie contest and then they publish the winning recipes. I usually try one of them each year.

Love the projects that you have shared! Thank you for all the hard work you do and the continuous inspiration.

I always make sugar cookies with a thin glaze frosting. My sons and I used to do this together, but now they are grown and gone. However, they fully expect their tins of Mom’s Sugar Cookies every year! I also started making Gooey Butter Cookies a few years ago and these go like hotcakes.

Happy baking to all!
Patricia

Hi Andrea et al.,
I usually do the cookie exchange at work. Chocolate chip is the all time favourite and it is always received well when you package it nicely with some hot chocolate and marshmallows and of course a hand-stamped tag!

Thanks for the opportunity for blog candy!

Elizabeth

My grandma makes a bunch of different cookies, as she is unwilling to let that go, too. (Read stubborn older lady who can’t admit she’s not as spry as she once was.) She bakes less than in the past, but still has to be the hero with the cookies on Christmas morning. My boys (7 and 5) LOVE to decorate cut-outs with me. It’s a huge production-complete with lots of colors of frosting, coconut (for Santa’s beard), raisins (for SC’s eyes), sprinkles, etc.

This is the first year the cookie maker on my husband’s side won’t be with us. I hope to make a portion of her goodies (although I’m sure they won’t be NEARLY as yummy as hers were).

Another adorable idea!
i always bake for the holidays and give the cookies away as gifts (cleverly wrapped and tagged with SU, of course). I make several different kinds including church windows,cranberry oatmeal, choc chip, peanut butter with the hershey kisses.
hugs,
Elizabeth

Hi Andrea – well, this is an easy question for me to answer! My 2 girlfriends and I get together for ‘Cookie Day’ usually the first Sat. of Dec. – and we’ve been doing that for 22 years! Marriages, kids, new jobs, losing parents have all been part of our ‘day’. We celebrate what’s been special and what’s been a challenge and how we’re dealing with that each year. Oh, and by the way, we each make at least 2 different types of cookies each – triple recipes, so that we each end up with a couple 100 cookies and squares. It’s a very precious time for us.

We do a family cookie and bake goods exchange every year, that way we get a good selection. Everyt year I try out a new recipe.

My daughter and I usually are invited to a Christmas cookie swap each year. Of course we only bring 1 kind of cookie, but making the recipe choice is ALWAYS difficult!

We always make a few different recipes at home to share with neighbors too.

My favorite holiday cookies are roll-out sugar cookies that we can cut into cute shapes and decorate with frosting and sprinkles. We have to eat gluten-free, and sugar cookies without wheat flour are really good, better than many other types. We use the mix from Laurel’s Sweet Treats. http://www.glutenfreemixes.com

Andrea, you do such wonderful projects, they always give be inspiration. My favorite cookie is Brown Sugar Shortbread – They are melt in your mouth good. Love them

I don’t bake a ton but a few favorites are Homemade Oreo’s with green mint frosting in the center and Spice Chocolate Chip cookies. Sometimes sugar cookies but with no kids around its not as much fun.
I love the tin and want to get the template any way I can LOL.

I bake but everyone around me bakes. Somehow we all end up sharing the exact same things each year. So, a few years ago I started doing something different. I found a really great recipe to make my own marshmallows. They are so good. Even people that say they don’t like marshmallows love them because they’re so fresh. I’ve made vanilla flavor, mint flavor, almond flavor…. what ever flavor goes BEST with chocolate!! Mmm!

and with this little cocoa holder a little bag of my marshmallows will be perfect!! Thanks so much for sharing!

I love to bake sugar cookies for the holidays! I adore Moravian cookies but haven’t found a recipe yet. During the holidays, as a tradition, I love to swap treats with friends and co-workers. We all go home with some great things we’ve never had before or some old favorites and they’re perfect for setting out on the table during holiday events, so everyone wins!

Love your projects Andrea!

What a great tutorial, thank you for sharing with us.

I don’t make cookies all that well but my niece does a wonderful job. She always gives out tins of baked goodies as Christmas gifts which often includes homemade peanut brittle. I always enjoy her gift when I get to sit down with a cup of coffee or tea after the hustle & bustle of the holidays is behind me.

We have a huge cookie tradition. My husband and I bake about ten dozen cookies of ten different varieties. We give them out at work and to people like our hairstylists, personal trainers, etc. We also give them to our families if we go to their homes for holiday parties. This year we will make chocolate crinkles, snickerdoodles, magic bars and lemon thumbprints for a few.

Not really a big baker, but I do remember when I was young some of our neighbors would send over cookies during the holidays. I think my favorites were the homemade caramels and the peanut butter cookies with the chocolate “kiss” stuck in the middle.
Thanks for the chance to win.
Alicia

My favorite cookie to make is sugar cookie I bake them every year will my mom. This will be the first year that we will not be making them together.

I have always made sugar cookies. The recipe came out a zillion years ago in a Chatelaine magazine. I had a huge assortment of cookie cutters and would make this recipe first with my own children then later with day care kids. Now my daughters have most of my cookie cutters in their homes for my grandchildren.

Christmas in my family is knowing that each year my aunt, who loves to bake, makes each niece and nephew a tray of assorted squares and cookies she started baking in late November. A treat is when we (the nieces) get to help her make these delightful shortbreads, belgium cookies, rum balls,and to actually sample them after each batch is made… each one yummier than the first.There isn’t one of us from age 30 to 60 who doesn’t look forward to this tray of sugared delights!!!

WOW Andrea that is a lot ot comments. I love this planner and the hot chocolate and gatd holder is beautiful. I love SKi Slope DP.

I bake every year; love it. Bakine is a big part of the season for me. I like to give cookie trays/pkgs. away to friends, neighbours, kids class etc.
I have recipes that I only bake at Christmas – Gingerbread cookies, sugar cokies, choclate peanut butter balls, shortbread cookies, & cherry almond squares. All of these cookies freeze well and if there are extras after Christmas then I am very happy.

I love to bake anytime as I am a sweets lover! For Christmas I bake peanut butter kiss cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies and sugar cookies. We also love toffee candy peanut butter fudge & peanut butter balls. I usually give these goodies to teachers, friends and neighbors. Love your Christmas goodies….I want to start making the cocoa holder right now! Thanks for sharing!

My kids and I make sugar cookies and frost them all up good, and decorate them with sprinkles – we have to have cookies for home, santa, grandma and pa, 911 dispatch (work), the sheriff’s dept (work), and the msp post (work) – however these are not my favorite. My favorite of all time are my uncle’s molasses cookies – he makes the best ones and they always stay soft.
Thanks for letting me play

I actually used to make and sell a whole assortment of cookies at the holidays.

My favorites are Ginger, Rasperry Linzer Hearts and Shortbread of course.

Today’s project was lovely.

Jordana

We enjoy (hubby & I) *Whipped Shortbreads*
too ezzy!!—–1 cup “butter”, 1/2 cup icing sugar,1 1/2 cup flour; combine all ingredients, & whip TEN minutes (non-stop).
I use a small melon ball scoop, & scoop dough
onto cookie sheet (1 scoop/cookie). Decorate w/a cherry piece; bake @ 300 degrees for 10 min.. I know every oven;s different…so, watch the cookies, to keep from burning.YUMMY

It’s not really baking but my favorite cookies are “Eskimo Cookies”. I don’t know where the recipe came from but we made them when I was growing up. Here is the recipe:

Eskimo Cookies
1 1/2 stick of margarine
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 cups oatmeal, I use the quick cooking because it is smaller
6 Tablespoons Cocoa
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
2 Teaspoons Water
Powdered Sugar
I always double the recipe when I make them.

Put margarine in bowl and let stand til soft. Beat well. Add sugars and mix well. Stir in the water, vanilla and cocoa. Mix in oatmeal. Roll into bite sized balls and roll into Powdered Sugar. Keep in the refrigerator.

They never last long at my house.

Love the tutorial. I bought a few packages of cocoa and wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them. Now I do. Thank you.

oops answered the wrong question, for Cookies, I always make lots of home made candy, cookies, and mini cheese cakes. I give away tins full of goodies to family and friends. The kids always give small gift boxes of home made treats to their teachers, bus drivers and class mates. its a lot of work but it is a labor of love, and now I can make home made cards as well. WOOT!!
Sandee

I always bake my own cookies although this year I am going to try two different cookie exchanges. It sounds like fun! I usually bake for family and friends and I bake some for our house as well. I like to make decorated sugar cookies, chocolate chip and white chocolate chip with nuts. Those seem to be the favorites around here!

Our Christmas Cookie tradition has always been with the children and now the Grandchildren. We’ll bake sugar cookies, gingerbread boys/girls and gingerbread houses and of course they all have to be decorated.. Next year I’ll even have a Great Grandson to help with the cookie baking. It so nice to see all of them getting along while making the cookies and then we’ll decorate the tree.

I also make special cookies for my friends and do cookie exchanges too. I just love this time of year..
TFS all your wonderful projects with us and Happy Holidays..
Barb S
(FL)

I always bake the same traditional cookies each year. Then I always add 2 new ones – plus 1 that was an extra from the previous year if it was a big hit – My families favorites beside chocolate chip is anything made with almond paste. MMMMM -getting hungry thinking about them! LOL

they are so good and i like to see more