Aunt Big's Gingersnaps p. 897

Ingredients: butter, sugar, molasses, baking soda, flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, salt. (No kitty cats are called for this recipe and none were injured in the making of these delicious cookies.)

I'm not entirely sure if I'd ever had gingersnaps before. I've had one or two gingerbread men, but that's different.

Start off by creaming the butter, sugar, and molasses. Then add your baking soda and water. In a separate bowl add flour and spices together and slowly add to the dough.



When its combined put your dough on wax paper to refrigerate for a few hours or few days. Helpful tip: Try to spread the dough into an even log. The dough is very sticky and messy and I just tried to get it on there without making too much of a mess.

Once you have refrigerated the dough for at least a couple of hours, take out and slice. If I had an even dough log I wouldn't have ended up with whoppy cookie shapes.



Bake for about 10 minutes and cool. A vanilla frosting or orange glaze would be good, but I was lazy. So lazy I even forgot to take pictures of the after product.

Mexican Wedding Cookies p. 896

Ingredients: butter, confectioners sugar, flour, salt, pecans (or any other nut you prefer), vanilla extract.

I was excited about getting to use my new Kitchen Aid mixer. Start off by beating the butter until fluffy before adding the powder sugar. In a bowl combine the flour, salt and nuts. Then you'll add those to your mixer. Once everything is mixed together it needs to refrigerate for a while. Mine sat in the fridge for a few days.

When you are ready to bake, shape the dough into about 1" balls.



Bake them for about 10 minutes until they start to brown. Let them cool for a minute or so and then cover in powdered sugar. Let them sit on a rack for another minute while you powder all the balls and then give them all a second coat of sugar.



I'm not a fan of Mexican Wedding Cookies or powdered sugar. Actually its probably the powdered sugar I don't like about Mexican Wedding Cookies. But I tried one and it was good. I promptly gave the rest away as gifts. Our neighbor raved about them.

Butter Cookies p. 892

Ingredients: butter, sugar, vanilla, extract, egg, flour, baking powder, salt, milk.

One of my Christmas presents was a beautiful Kitchen Aid mixer (Thanks, Bryan!). So I did quite a bit of baking.

These cookies are an easy (I say easy, but cookies using a mixer are always easy, just dump everything in the correct order) and are great for everyday cookies or for dressing up.

Here are my cookies, dropped, and ready for baking:



Here they are naked:


They are great on their own, but excellent with a glaze or icing.

I opted for a mocha glaze (we love coffee around here) found on page 919 which I'll be posting tomorrow.

I gave each cookie two coatings and let dry. Easy and delicious!