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.

I am trying very hard to keep my promise to you, and post all my cookie recipes I gave you a preview of on my Christmas cookies post.

Here is a recipe, I also adopted from Suzy, for Sugar Cut Out Cookies.  I kept the recipe in its original form with the exception of decreasing the salt to ¼ tsp, and using only white sugar (I ran out of brown sugar).  Also, I have chosen to decorate my cookies with colored sugar and sprinkles, while she beautifully frosted hers.

These Sugar Cut Out Cookies are very festive looking, and deliciously enjoyable.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups flour
• 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp baking powder

Directions:

1. Cream the butter and sugar.
2. Add eggs and vanilla, and mix well.
3. Combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and salt).
4. Gradually add to the butter/sugar mixture and mix well, until the dough is firm.
5. Divide the dough in two balls, place in a covered bowl, and cool in the refrigerator for an hour (I kept it overnight, for lack of time for baking).
6. Take out one dough ball and work it with your hands to soften it a bit.
7. Place it on a floured work area and roll it out to 1/8 inch thickness.
8. Use your favorite cookie cutters, dip them in flour, and cut out cookies.
9. Cover you baking pans with parchment paper, set you cookies on slightly apart from each other, to allow for expansion during baking.
10. Decorate with colored sugar and sprinkles.
11. Preheat oven at 375°F.
12. Bake cookies for 8 minutes, or until the edges appear golden brown.
13. Remove onto cookie rack to cool.

Tip: The taste of these cookies was super, but I would have liked them a little less firm and
crunchy.

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.

If you are looking for an easy, light (no butter or any other fat used) , and dainty cookies, this is a recipe for you.  This is a very simple recipe, quick baking, and produces wafer thin delicious cookies.  In taste, these cookies resemble lady fingers or zwieback cookies.   I used vanilla extract in this recipe, but  almond extract would also create a very interesting flavor.

These crisp and feather-light wafers make a great addition to a dessert platter for a tea party.

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• Pinch of salt
• 1 ½ cup all purpose flour, sifted
• Colored sugar or sprinkles, for decoration

Directions:

1. Beat the eggs until light.
2. Add the sugar gradually, and continue beating (it will turn to lemon color and custard like texture).
3. Stir in vanilla and salt.
4. Add the flour and mix well.
5. Drop from a tea spoon onto a greased baking sheet, placing them well apart to prevent from sticking together.  Do not make your batter mounds bigger than 1 inch in diameter.
6. Sprinkle with  colored sugar or colorful sprinkles.
7. Preheat the over to 350 F, and bake on the middle rack for 5-7 minutes, or until the edges are delicately browned.
8. Remove from the baking sheet, one at a time, with a spatula, and spread out on a cookie cooling rack to cool off.  Do not stack them up while warm, as they will twist, and lose their shape.

Tip: This recipe produces 6 dozens of cookies (about 1 ¾  inch in diameter)

For variation and richness, I sometimes dip the bottoms of these wafers in melted dark semi-sweet chocolate, then place them, bottoms up, on a waxed paper, for the chocolate to fully set.  You can also lightly drizzle the tops with melted chocolate, instead of the colored sugar or sprinkles.