Still Baking Christmas Cookies...


Weekend is here, and still baking cookies, what can I say? No, haven't started the Christmas letter yet...will get it done this weekend, somehow.

But Christmas is not Christmas unless I get to eat Mom's Italian Cookies. I don't know where she got the recipe originally, but she's been making them for years and my brother and I ususally fight over them (not literally...well...maybe). I can remember when Mom, along with some of her girlfriends - one of which owned the only grocery store in town - would bake cookies for two or three days for Christmas. They baked them at the bakery in Reynolds Market, where later my brother and I would both work at during high school. What a bonus of a small town when you can just use the commercial kitchen at the local grocery store!
My cookies turned out good, but for whatever reason, not as good as when Mom makes them. I'm so blessed to have my mom, for thousands of reasons besides these delicious cookies. I am very thankful for that gift.

Mom's Italian Cookies

8 cups of flour
6 eggs
8 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup milk
2 cups sugar
2 cups shortening
3 T Vanilla

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees
- I used parchment paper on cookie sheets

- Sift flour and baking powder.
- In seperate bowl, cream sugar and shortening
- Add eggs, mixing one at a time, until well blended
- Add flour and other ingredients
- Roll into balls (small, maybe 3/4")
- Bake at 400 degrees for 8 minutes.

Mom told me to mix powdered sugar, little milk and little almond extract; no measurements. I tried to figure out for you, but lost count, but somewhere along the lines of 5 cups powdered sugar, 1 tsp almond and 2/3 cup milk. Just keep tasting.

Sprinkle with red and green cake decorating sugar (before the icing hardens).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chunky Tomato Soup and Cheesy Croissants

O.K., I know this isn't rocket science, but here's an easy lunch for you for the snowy weather. I bought the grocery's cheap brand of tomato soup, along with the same brand of petite diced tomatoes. I mixed together, along with Italian seasoning and salt and pepper and prepared this soup as directed. This soup was so much better than when I just make Campbell's tomato soup, who knew? With it, had reduced fat croissants, one with sprinkled reduced fat cheese; other with turkey pepperoni and reduced fat cheese. Sorry I didn't take a photo, couldn't wait to eat it. Good stuff, so easy, so cheap; and quick!
Read more

Christmas Letter 2017

Image
Dec. 24, 2017 Dear Friends, Here I am again, writing this letter at the last minute and will have to send online at this point. My mind has been on too many other projects and for awhile, I thought maybe it would not hurt to miss a year doing this letter. But I’ve been writing a Christmas letter since 1991 and I guess for me alone, it’s an annual summary journal of sorts - why stop now, right?  Heck, I might make a book out of these sometime. To summarize the year, well, if you’re on Facebook,  you know my big focus this year as been “the bakery.”  I bought a building...more than five years ago now...in downtown Carterville for lots of reasons, one of them being that I just thought our town needed a bakery and cafe.  I also wanted the challenge of designing and renovating a bakery. Rise Above It Bakery & Cafe is what I call “the tiny building that could.”  We have jumped so many hurdles, for those helping me with this venue.  We’ve also endured so many challenges along
Read more

Christmas Letter 2018

Dear Friends, So this year, I made Christmas cards.  That’s right, I’ve wanted to do it since last Christmas when I failed to send out cards.  I didn’t finish.  And I just could not figure out what my inspiration would be this year for my letter. So here I am again, sending my letter at the last minute through Facebook.  There’s always next year - just you wait.  I’m going to start the process in July. Nevertheless, thanks to Facebook, I don’t really need to take the time to catch you up on my year too much.  Everything is fairly normal, (we’ll take normal, right?) and the bakery that I worked on for so long finally opened in June.  My sister, Crystal Lukens, owns the business and to no surprise, people are raving about her food.  I own, renovated and designed the building and basically branded it and said, “Go for it, sister.”  I still help with marketing, and if I have time when I’m in there and they’re busy, you might find me washing dishes, busing tables, etc.  Everything we
Read more