It is a known fact that holidays mean spending fun time with family and friends, as well as enjoying lots of delicious food and drinks.

As our family tradition, and to alternate with our married children in-laws, we celebrate Christmas Eve on December 24th, by the  Gregorian calendar , and then again the Traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve, per Julian calendar, on January 6th.

I am still making all the traditional foods and baked goods for both dates, but have more time for shopping, as this year’s  gift exchange will take place in January.

Since I will be doing most of my baking later on this month, I will share links to my past year’s baked goods recipes, for your convenience and baking pleasure.

Cream Wafers

Miniature Nut Cups – Tea Tassies

Sugar Cut- Out Cookies

Sugar Wafers

Pecan Butterballs

Dycio Crescents

Frosted Lemon Cookies

Chocolate No-Bake Cookies

Chocolate Scotcheroos

Ginger Chocolate Truffles

This should give you a good start for early holiday baking.

Another very special cookie recipe for my Christmas cookies selection this year, are the Dycio Crescents.  These might look like a lot of work, forming crescents from cookie dough, but soon you will find out how simple these actually are.

I also would like to share with you a special story about this recipe.  I met a very sweet lady in my church, who made these crescents for a church function.  I loved them so much, and asked her if she would like to share her recipe with me.  Of course, as kind as she is, she graciously agreed, but told me that she did not have a written recipe, as she always makes these from memory (you will identify with this if you ever asked your grandma for any recipe).  So the next time I saw her, she brought in a meticulously hand written (in Ukrainian) recipe for Rohalyky (crescents), and in addition, offered many helpful tips to make sure I understood her written instructions.  I think this created a mutual satisfaction, so I decided to share this recipe with you, as I am sure you will not find it anywhere else.

These crescents are not very sweet, but light and flaky in texture, and the jam centers make them that much more delightful.

You need to  remember to only use special jam for baking, as the regular jams are not suitable, and will boil out during baking, making a mess out of your cookie sheets, plus leaving a hallow center in your crescents.
I use Baker Fine Dessert Filling in Apricot flavor, or Solo Cake and Pastry Filling. I also use these fillings for my very favorite Apricot Sheet Cake.

This recipe makes at least 5 dozen of crescents.

Ingredients:

• 16 oz of butter, softened
• 16 oz of cream cheese, softened
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 egg yolks (save the egg whites for later use)
• Pinch of salt
• 4 ¼ cups flour, all purpose white
• 3 tsp baking powder
• Powdered sugar for topping
• 10 oz Baker Apricot Filling (1 jar), or Almond flavor if you prefer

Directions:

1. In a mixing bowl combine butter, sugar, eggs yolks, salt, and extract.
2. Mix well.
3. Mix the flour with baking powder and gradually add into the mixture, and continue mixing, until well incorporated.
4. Divide the dough into 8 even balls, each the size of an orange.
5. Place in a bowl, cover, and keep refrigerated for a couple of hours, or overnight.
6. Take one dough ball at a time, and massage it by squishing it with your hands for 10 seconds, to soften it.
7. Flatten slightly, and place it on a floured work area.
8. Roll the ball into a large, 1/8 inch thick circle, like for pie crust.
9. Using a pizza cutter, cut it into 8 even triangles (like pizza).
10. Place 1/2 tsp of filling in the middle of the wide end of each triangle.
11. Roll the wide end over the filling, and keep on rolling all the way to the triangle point.
12. Slightly beat the egg whites, but not too much as not to get them frothy.
13. Fill a place with granulated sugar.
14. Dip the crescents (still in a straight form), in the egg wash, then roll them in the granulated sugar.
15. Place them on a well greased cookie sheet, with the tip end at the bottom against the cookie sheet.
16. Bent the ends of each roll, to form crescents.
17. Bake in a preheated oven, at 350°, for 20 minutes, or until the edges start getting golden.
18. Remove onto a cookie cooling racks, and cool completely.
19. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Tip:  I also use Almond filling, by Baker or Solo, for these crescents, which also tastes wonderful, and adds a nice variety to my cookie selection.

I know some of you started baking your Christmas cookies  a while back, and are all done by now, but I just started this weekend, and if it wasn’t for the huge snow fall, and all the shoveling we had to do, I would have been done baking and posting my recipes, and pictures, for you to enjoy.

Today I am just giving you a preview of most of the cookies I baked, but will post the recipes and pictures in future posts.  You can try some of my recipes next year, or next time you feel like baking.

Then again, there are some of you who have not even started baking, since your Christmas is not until January 6th and 7th.  Lots of my family and friends also celebrate at that time.  Wish you all a very Merry Christmas, no matter when you celebrate.

This year my married children are traveling to spend Christmas with their in-laws, so we will celebrate Christmas twice, once on the 24th with some of our family and friends, and then on the 6th with all our children.  I can’t wait, this will be so much fun!!!

Ok.  Back to cookies.  This year I made some Ginger Chocolate Truffles,  Frosted Lemon Cookies, Pecan Butter Balls, Cream Wafers, Dycio Crescents, and still need to finish my Sugar Cookies.

If you would like to see the recipes and the final product, please stay tuned, as I am hoping to complete posting them all by January 6th.