Cookie Gifts for Christmas

Looking for inexpensive gifts for Christmas? Here's a few recipes for fabulous Christmas cookie gifts that are delicious and pretty too. All you need are a few hours of time, some simple holiday ingredients, cookie tins and a little patience, and you'll end up with perfect homemade gifts from the heart that are sure to please even the most stingy of scrooges.

Christmas Toffee Crunch Cookie Gifts
1 cup butter
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon Karo light corn syrup
3 tablespoons water tepid
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (almonds, hazelnuts,pecans), toasted lightly
6 oz. melted milk chocolate
1 cup finely chopped toasted nuts of your choice.
First, melt the butter in a large saucepan on medium heat. Then add sugar, corn syrup and water and cook stirring often until the candy thermometer reaches hard-crack stage (300 degrees). Take off heat immediately and stir in the coarsely chopped nuts and spread onto a buttered cookie sheet. Cool completely and turn out onto waxed paper and spread half of your melted chocolate, sprinkle with half the nuts and cover with waxed paper. then turn it over and do the same to the other side with the remaining chocolate and nuts. Chill and break into pieces, and store in cookie tins.

Candy Cane Sugar Twist Cookie Gifts Recipe
Basic Sugar Cookie Dough
2 1/2 C. sifted flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. Madagascar Vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. peppermint extract (or 1-2 drops peppermint essential oil)
2 tbls Red food coloring
Set oven to 375° F.
Sift together flour, salt, baking soda and cream of tartar.
Beat the butter and sugar together until very light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla and peppermint extract. Mix the flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar mixture into the butter mixture. (its best to stir them together so you don't get a kitchen full of flour puff). Divide the dough in half and add the red food coloring to half of the dough. Refrigerate dough for at least one hour.Take approx. one teaspoon of each color of dough and roll out into 4 inch long strips. (think play-doh snakes). Lay the strips side by side and twist together to make a red and white striped rope, pinching the ends if you wish (though its not necessary, however you like them to look). Place the dough on an ungreased cookie sheet about one inch apart. Turn the end into a curve to make the candy-cane's handle. Repeat this technique to make 12 canes.Bake at 375° F. for 10 minutes. Make sure to cool your cookies on the cookie sheet for about 10 minutes, and then transfer to your cooling rack to complete the process.After they are cooled you can add a variation to these by dipping the ends in melted chocolate (or white chocolate) and dip that into a bit of crushed canes. (this recipe you'll need about ½ cup of crushed peppermint candy canes to cover these cookies). You could also dip them in white chocolate and red sprinkle sugar. There's lots of different ways to spruce these up, and they come out absolutely beautiful!

Thumbprint Christmas Cookie Gifts
½ cup softened butter
¼ cup white sugar
1 large egg, separated
½ teaspoon pure Madagascar vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup nuts (hazelnuts, almonds, pecans or walnuts, toasted and finely chopped)
¼ cup raspberry jam
¼ cup mint jelly
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in the center of the oven.
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolk and vanilla, beat well. Whisk together sifted flour and salt, then add the flour mixture to butter/sugar batter and beat until just combined. Refrigerate for 30 min.
Whisk egg white in a separate bowl until frothy and foamy. Add chopped and toasted nuts to a plate.
Line baking sheets with parchment paper, then roll the chilled dough into 1 in. balls, and one at a time dip into egg white and nuts, then place on prepared baking sheet spacing them about 1 in. apart. Use your thumb to make an indentation or "thumbprint" in the center of each cookie. You can either fill them with ¼ to ½ tsp. jam now, or wait until they are baked. If you're storing them, don't fill them until after they are baked as it will extend their life. They can be stored for about a week. Fill them before serving. Bake filled cookies for about 13-15 minutes. If you're waiting to fill them, just bake for about 10-12 min, until they are set and nuts are a light golden color. And cool before transferring to cooling rack for about 5 min.
Makes about 20 cookies.

Spritz Christmas Cookie Gifts
2 cups butter or shortening
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. of almond extract
4 ½ cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups white sugar
1 tsp. sea salt
½ tsp. baking powder
NOTE: by changing up the extracts, you can flavor these however you wish, it's a nice way to make multiple kinds of cookies by a quick switch. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Mix the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Cut the butter (or shortening) until it resembles course crumbs. Grab your glass measuring cup and crack egg into cup, then add enough water to make ¼ cup total and add this to the crumb mixture. Add extracts and mix well. Separate dough into however many different kinds of cookies you want to make (eg. Add red food coloring and peppermint for red cookies, or almond extract and green food color for Christmas trees, etc. ). There are so many variations on this one, its really up to how creative you want to be.
Refrigerate dough until firm. Put dough through cookie press directly onto cookie sheets and decorate with red and green colored sugar or sprinkles. Bake at 375 for about 10-12 minutes or until set and very light brown.
Makes 60 cookies.

Package a few different kinds in a pretty tin and add a bow. That's it! Now you're ready to give the perfect Christmas cookie gifts!
YUM!
Merry Christmas!!!!!

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