Cookie recipes, Christmas cookies, Shipping cookies

Baking cookie recipes is a way to every child’s heart. As a child, I remember seeing filled cookie jars in many homes that we visited. That was my dream! Mom always said we didn’t need a cookie jar because cookies didn’t last long enough around our house with such a large family. But, my sister Shirley had a cookie jar. After I got to be a teenager, sometimes I would walk home from school. It was quite a way so I would go past my sister’s house on the way. She would always offer me cookies from her cookie jar. Great memories!

I learned at a young age to make my own cookies so I could have them whenever I wanted them. I had a peanut butter cookie, a sugar cookie (no icing or pretty sugar sprinkles) and an oatmeal cookie recipe. These were all that I baked back then except when I could talk Mom into a package of chips at the grocery store to bake an occasional chocolate chip cookie recipe. My teachers would have me bake my cookie recipes and bring them in for our class. How times have changed!

Much later I learned to use cookie cutters to make shapes from the sugar cookie recipe and top them with icing and colored sugar. I began dusting my peanut butter cookies with powdered sugar to add a special touch. I gradually progressed in my baking to making many different kinds. When my children were young and I lived near the family, I would make hundreds of dozens of cookies for Christmas and pass trays of them out to everyone. I am hoping to gather all my Christmas recipes together before the holiday arrives again.

Filled cookie recipes and meringue cookie recipes are now among some of my favorites. When I was young, I didn’t really care for coconut. Now I love it, especially in a coconut meringue cookie. I also make a delicious filled cookie for the holidays with a meringue on top.

COCONUT MERINGUE COOKIES

• 4 Egg whites


• 1 ¼ Cups sugar


• 1/8 Teaspoon salt


• 1 Teaspoon vanilla


• 2 ½ Cups shredded coconut


• Maraschino cherries, wash in clear water and dry-OPTIONAL

Preheat oven to 325F degrees.

Beat egg whites until frothy and gradually beat in the sugar. Continue beating with mixer until stiff peaks form. Fold in by hand the salt, vanilla and coconut. Drop by tablespoon onto ungreased brown paper on a baking sheet. Top each with a cherry if you like. Bake about 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove entire paper with cookies from pan. Lay a wet towel on the hot cookie tray and return cookies on top of the towel on the pan. The steam will loosen the cookies from the paper. Lift the cookies from the paper to a tray to cool.

As with my other baking, I always use top quality ingredients in my cookies. I almost always use all purpose flour in my cookies and always a good brand of butter. The best advice I can offer for cookie making is be sure to measure accurately and follow the instructions. For instance the recommended oven temperature is very important, the blending of ingredients, whether to grease the pan or not to and especially important is you might be instructed to refrigerate the dough before baking. These will all influence the outcome of your product.

The cookie baking sheet is another factor you should consider. I prefer a shiny metal baking sheet about ¼ inch deep. I do not like the double layered cookie sheets for individual cookies. They cause the cookies to spread too much. These pans are OK for other baking but not cookies.

SUGAR COOKIES

• 1 Cup soft butter


• 1 Cup sugar


• ½ Teaspoon baking soda


• 1 Egg


• 2 Cups sifted flour


• 1 Teaspoon vanilla


• Extra sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 375F degrees.

Cream butter, sugar, vanilla and egg. Add sifted flour and soda and mix well. Shape into balls, roll into sugar and place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from tray to cool.

One question that I am asked is about shipping baked goods. Many people are shipping favorite cookie recipes to their husbands or other loved ones in Iraq and other far- away places. Of course, they want them to arrive at the destination just like they were when they mailed them. I learned the hard way! The first thing is to pick recipes that travel well. You certainly do not want to send any fragile rolled cookies or the filled pastry type cookies. Stick more with some of the drop cookie recipes, fruit cookies and bar cookies.

It is very important how you package all of these to ship. Select a very heavy duty box to ship them in. Line the box with some kind of shipping filler. (I have popped corn and used as a filler before) Cookies should be wrapped individually or back to back in pairs. Layer the wrapped cookies over the filler and then another layer of filler. Alternate layers until the cookies are all packed. Fill the box with enough filler so the cookies do not move in shipping. Wrap the whole box tightly before shipping and always mark the box “FRAGILE/PERISHABLE”.

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