Showing posts with label Gifts from the Kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gifts from the Kitchen. Show all posts

December 17, 2009

Teacher gifts...

We worked on cookies and candies for the kids teachers yesterday. We made a cranberry pistachio biscotti, a Mexican wedding cookie and sugar cookies along with some little candies using a Wilton candy making kit. My daughter helped with the process. Here are a few pictures and a recipe for you.

Here is the biscotti. Both this cookie and the Mexican Wedding cookie recipe are from Mary Engelbreit's Cookies Cookbook: The Queen's Best Recipes. It is a great little book! :)


This was our first try at candy making and they turned out great! :)

Mexican Wedding Cookies

1 cup pecans or walnuts (about 4 ounces) chopped fine
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, plus additional sifted confectioners' sugar for coating at the end
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Spread the nuts on a baking sheet and toast for 10 minutes, or until lightly golden. Let the nuts cool, then finely chop. (I use a food processor for this)
3. In a medium bowl, toss the flour with the nuts and set aside.
4. In a large bowl, beat the butter and confectioners' sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. On low speed, gradually add the flour mixture.
5. Roll tablespoonfuls of the dough into 1-inch balls and place 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 16 minutes, or until lightly colored. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 2 minutes, then roll while warm in confectioners' sugar. Place the cookies on wire racks to cool completely, then generously roll the cookies again in confectioners' sugar.

Makes 2 1/2 dozen cookies


December 21, 2006

Making cookies for a friend...


We had a children's party at church last Saturday and made cookies for a member of our church who is currently serving in the Middle East. His wife came to help with the kiddos, do some baking and package them to send. We had a really great evening and the kids had so much fun decorating the tree and cookies.

December 14, 2006

Look what we have been up to...

Yesterday was Dan's end of semester Christmas concert so we spent the evening with him last night. Today was a day of cookie making. We made cookies for the Boy Scout Court of Honor/Christmas Party. Since we have been studying about traditions in other countries in our Christmas Around the World Unit we made several different kinds of cookies from different countries. Here is a sampling of our day...















Chocolate Walnut Biscotti - got the basic recipe
from Danielle at Never Trust a Culinary Student















Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti
from a little book I picked up a few years ago called
Mary Engelbreit's Cookie Cookbook.
(my favorite of the whole bunch we made today)

















German Spritz - very good recipe! Got it online here...















Russian Tea Cakes - also a great recipe I found here...















Scottish Shortbread or Irish Sweet Biscuit
(same recipe different names)
I use a recipe I have from Darina Allen's little book
called Festive Food of Ireland

December 07, 2006

Seasonal Fun...


I have been blogging lots on Advent over at my main blog if anyone is interested in taking a look at that. For those of you who do not know much about us, we are homeschoolers. We are also doing a Christmas Around the World Unit and I will be sharing some recipes from that in the coming week. We are in Europe right now...

Looking for some recipes to do with your kids? Here are some fun links for you...

Mrs. C's Kitchen

Mrs. Claus's Cookbook

Making Cookies? Try Christmas-Cookies.com

or you can try these...

Baking Christmas Cookies

All-Recipes Christmas Cookies

Razzle-Dazzle Recipes Christmas Cookie Page

The Garden Helper offers Grandma Clara's Cookie Page

Family Fun's Christmas Recipe Page - Cookies Around the World (for our unit)

We will be building our Gingerbread House in the coming week. Here are some great links for you to get you started if you are doing one, too.

The Best Instructions I Have EVER Seen

Bob Villa Builds a Gingerbread House

Gingerbread Houses and lots of links

A Bit of History and some more instructions

Food Network tips and patterns

Home Sweet Gingerbread Home - Family Fun pages

I don't care what your politics are the White House is MAGNIFICENT this time of year.

If you are not into baking and building a real one then build a VIRTUAL GINGERBREAD HOUSE

ENJOY!!!!!!