Tomorrow is the Annual AWC Holiday Cookie Exchange, and I’m participating for the 8th year. My recipe criteria this time was simple: easy, fast and no having to go to the store to buy special ingredients. The kids and I spent the morning perusing cookie recipes, rejecting the ones that, despite how good they looked, required things we didn’t have in the house: no oatmeal, no peanut butter, no chocolate-candy centers. Finally, I found a basic cookie recipe and then I tweaked it completely to come up with our very own new holiday cookie!
Pretty soon the house was filling with that delicious cookie-baking smell and glittery red-sugared cookies were beginning to cover the table for cooling. Karin came in to help.
Liz: I need help coming up with a name for the cookies.
Karin: *takes one look and answers promptly* Gumdrops.
Liz: No, no, it has to be a CHRISTMAS NAME.
Karin: *after half a second of thinking* Rudolf Noses!
Liz & Karin: *giggle madly*
Right about then, the red sugar ran out. I pulled out the green sugar container and continued rolling cookies and coating them. At this point, Martin wandered in, drawn by the smell, no doubt.
Liz: What should we do now? We can’t call the green ones “Rudolf Noses”.
Martin: We can if Rudolf gets air sick.
All: *more mad giggling*
We finally compromised. If we only make red ones then they’re Rudolf Noses. If we make red and green ones, then they’re Holiday Balls. I especially like how the red speckles in the cookie dough show through in the green ones. Very festive!
Rudolf Noses aka Holiday Balls
by Liz Slaughter-Ek
1.5 cups (250g) butter or margarine
3.5 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
red food coloring (optional)
red and/or green granulated sugar
Beat room temperature butter with 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar on medium speed. Add the egg, baking powder, vanilla extract and almond extract. Beat until thoroughly combined. Add 2.5 cups flour and sprinkle drops of red food coloring in, beat in with mixer. If the dough is a little dry, wet your hands and knead until dough is combined.
Roll balls slightly smaller than 1-inch, and coat thoroughly with colored sugar. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes in a 375F oven. Makes approximately 60 cookies.
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We’ve got a crazy insane couple of weeks ahead and Anders left this morning for a 2-week business trip to Spain. I’m sure I’ll get to the other side of his absence with an upbeat attitude and 2 living children now that I’ve got cookies to bolster myself with.