More Christmas Cookie Recipes

Since so many people are asking for these recipes, I thought I would share them on my blog with a little note about each recipe.

Regina's Thumb Print Cookies:

Regina is a dear friend of mine who is a wonderful mom to her two lucky children.  She is a talented cook and an incredible interior home designer.  But much more than that, she has one of the biggest hearts I've ever known and I feel so lucky to have her as a friend.  Her ancestors came over from Ireland to start there new lives in America.  I am not sure of where she got this recipe, but these cookies are absolutely delicious!

Ingredients:

2 Sticks Sweet Butter
1 Cup Sugar
2 Egg Yolks
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
2 1/2 Cups Flour

Cream butter with electric mixer.  Beat in sugar, add yolks and beat.  Add vanilla, then add flour and mix well.

Form 1" balls, place on greased sheet, flatten center with a thumbprint on each one.  Fill thumbprint with your choice of jam (I used homemade blackberry jam given to me as a gift by another dear friend of mine.  Thank you, Diane!)  Place in 350 degree F oven for 15-20 minutes. After you take them out of the oven, sprinkle with powdered confectionery sugar over them.

Aunt Kitty's Butter Horns:

Aunt Kitty's husband, Uncle Del, was my father-in-law, Frank's, brother.  Aunt Kitty's family came to America from Bari, Italy.  In years past, before we lost too many loved-ones, and most of the cousins moved to New Jersey, my husband's family would all gather together in Queens, NY for the holidays. My mother-in-law and father-in-law had grown-up as next-door neighbors, so both sides of my husband's family still lived next door to each other while my children were young.  I always looked forward to Aunt Kitty's amazing butter horn cookie and missed them when our family started to grow apart.  So I called her on the phone a few years ago and asked for the recipe. Since my husband does not like nuts, I made an alternate filling with chocolate, but the nut filling is the original filling to the recipe.

Ingredients:

3 Cups Flour
1/2 lb. Butter
1 Egg Yolk
1/2 Cup Sour Cream

Cream butter in an electric mixer.  Add flour, then egg yolk. Lastly, add sour cream.  Divide into 3 or 4 balls.  Roll out into a thin pie crust shape.

Nut Filling:

1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Walnuts Chopped
1 Teaspoon Cinnamon

Moist Chocolate Filling:

1/2 Cup of Chocolate Chips Chopped
1 Cup Sugar
1 Stick of Butter
A Pinch of Cinnamon


Dry Chocolate Filling:

1/2 Cup of Chocolate Chips Chopped
1 Cup of Sugar
A Pinch of Cinnamon

Spread filling lightly over rolled out pie crust.  Cut pie crust into wedges like cutting a pizza pie, but the base of the wedges should be about the size of your thumb.  Roll up wedges, start from the wide side and roll toward the point. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet.  Brush top with beaten egg whites.  Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-25 minutes.

Grandma Caroline's Press Butter Cookies:

Next door to Aunt Kitty, lived Grandma Carolina DeCaprio Normandia.  Grandma Carolina was the mother of my mother-in-law, Caroline.  Grandma came to America from Caserta, Italy.  If you are interested in her story, please read my blog post entitled "Carolina's Journey to America" posted on 2/24/14.  I will forever be thankful that I was in her home one day when she was making these cookies.  I watched her make them and took down the recipe for future use.  She passed away when my daughter was only a year old, we miss her greatly.  I feel so fortunate to still have her butter cookie recipe to pass on to the next generation.

Ingredients:

1 lb. Butter
1 Cup of Sugar
5 Egg Yolks and 1 Whole Egg
5 Cups of Flour
1 Teaspoon of Baking Powder
1 Tablespoon of Vanilla
1/2 Teaspoon of salt

Cream butter in an electric mixer.  Add egg yolks and whole egg, beat until consistent.  Add vanilla.  Add salt and sugar, beat well.  Finally, add baking powder and flour.  (You can add food coloring if you'd like.)  Shape into separate balls to place into cookie press.  Press cookies with a cookie press into shapes on pan (do not grease pan).  Do not refrigerate dough, if you do, you need to wait until it is room temperature to work it through a cookie press.  Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.

I love everything chocolate, so I dip these cookies into chocolate and then decorating them with sprinkles.  However, I always leave some without chocolate because they are really good that way too. For the cookies that I don't dip in chocolate, I add sprinkles on top before I bake them.  For the cookies I do dip in chocolate, I bake them first and then dip in chocolate after.  Finally, I decorate the chocolate dipped cookies with sprinkles before placing them in the refrigerator for the chocolate to harden.

Dipping Chocolate:

I use Merckens' Dark Chocolate.  On a stove, bring a small (about an inch or two) amount of water in a pot to a boil.  Then remove pot from the heat source after it boils.  Place a smaller pot inside the pot with the water.  In the smaller pot, place the chocolate.  The chocolate should never touch the water itself.  The chocolate is melted slowly by the hot water in the pot that is under the pot that the chocolate is in.  Mix chocolate often until smooth.  Then use liquid chocolate to decorate cookies. Place decorated cookies in refrigerator until the chocolate hardens and is shiny.