Christmas Cookies

[keljonma]

My sister's church just had their first holiday craft/bake sale. The women bought more of the jarred (make fresh at home) cookie mixes than the already baked. The men bought the already made cookies more often. Just a thought - have both. It would depend, of course, on if you would be willing to part with quart wide mouth canning jars to sell cookie mixes.

 

[FarmerChick]

you can cheaply buy those cello bags and close tight with a ribbon....just layer the ingredients....sooooo much cheaper than glass and non breakable

 

[dacjohns]

I got this recipe from allrecipes.com. This is the modified recipe after looking at comments from others.
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/pfeffernu etail.aspx

Original Recipe Yield 3 dozen cookies

I got 10 dozen. My acorns must be smaller.

Ingredients

1/2 cup molasses
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons anise extract
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cardamom
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper and white pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup confectioners' sugar for dusting

Directions

1. Stir together the molasses, honey, shortening, and margarine in a saucepan over medium heat; cook and stir until creamy. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. Stir in the eggs. Then stir in the white sugar and brown sugar.

2. Combine the flour, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, pepper, and salt in a large bowl. Add to the molasses mixture and stir until thoroughly combined. Refrigerate at least 2 hours. A cold garage works pretty good.

3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Roll the dough into acorn-sized balls. Arrange on baking sheets, spacing at least 1 inch apart.

4. Bake in preheated oven 10 to 15 minutes. Move to a rack to cool. I cooled mine on a cut up paper bag on the counter. Dust cooled cookies with confectioners' sugar.

11 minutes was just about right for my oven and size of cookies I made. The "acorns" were about 3/4 inch in diameter. My cookies averaged just over an inch in diameter after they were cooked.

I dusted the cookies by putting powdered sugar in a paper lunch bad and then adding about 6 cookies, shaking them around to coat the cookies with sugar, removing the cookies and repeating. I didn't measure the powdered sugar.