Snowballs, or Mexican Wedding Cakes, or Russian Tea cakes, or ......

This is another first for me. I have never made these before, but know that people love these on cookie trays. I think I made them too big; no one complained, but comparing in my mind to other trays I have seen, these looked pretty large. The boys at work could still get the whole thing in their mouths in one shot, so I'm not too concerned.

Snowballs from Good Housekeeping Home for the Holidays

1 cup toasted pecans

1-3/4 cup powdered sugar

1 cup butter, softened and cut into 16 pieces

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups flour

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. In food processor with knife blade attached, process the pecans and 1/4 cup powdered sugar until nuts are finely chopped. Add butter and vanilla and process until smooth, scraping down sides of processor bowl with rubber spatula. Add flour and process until dough comes together.

With floured hands, roll dough into 1-inch balls and place 1-1/2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until bottoms are lightly browned and tops are very golden light brown, 20 to 22 minutes. With wide spatula, transfer cookies to cooling racks. Place remaining 1-1/2 cup powdered sugar in pie plate. While cookies are still slightly warm, roll in powdered sugar. Place back on cooling rack to cool completely. When cooled completely, roll in powdered sugar again.

Hermit Crab will be home on Friday and I'm so excited to see her! She says she is looking forward to coming home, but I think most of that is due to high school friends also being home for the holidays and no more finals! It will be nice to have my whole family back under the same roof for a couple weeks and she is making a list of things she would like me to cook for her. Good thing I will have 12 days off in a row!

Snickerdoodles

I spent about 10 hours baking on Sunday. I listened to Christmas music, burned candles, and made a lot of dough. Thankfully is it cold enough here that I can store the Tupperware bowls out on my deck until I needed to bake each kind-the fridge was full of food so the bowls wouldn't fit.

This is only my second attempt at Snickerdoodles. I don't know why as Dude really likes them. I added some of the red decorating sugar to the sugar/cinnamon mixture to add a festive touch.

Snickerdoodles

3 cups flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of butter, softened
1-1/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar and the baking soda; set aside. In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar at medium speed until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat well after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in three additions so flour stays in bowl. In small bowl, combine the cinnamon and sugar.

Roll dough in 1 inch balls. Roll balls in sugar/cinnamon mixture and place on ungreased cookie sheets 1 inch apart. I put a dozen on each sheet so they had room to spread and didn't touch each other. Bake for 12 minutes, rotating shelves halfway through, until the cookies are golden. Remove from oven and cool on baking sheet 1 minute then remove to cooling racks.

I got about 4 dozen cookies.

Off to work now-everyone have a good day!

Who loves chocolate and peanut butter?

I missed yesterday as we headed back to work after having a blissful whole 7 days off. The plant was freezing as it was shut down for 4 days and it took awhile for all the machinery to be up and running. I was going to try and post from work, but I couldn't get on a computer and then realized, duh, my photos are loaded on my home computer. I wanted to share one of our favorite cookies with you. I only make these at Christmas-I don't know why. I think it may be due to the fact that we only made Peanut Butter Blossoms at Christmas time in my childhood home. This is the same cookie recipe that I make my PBB cookies with. My Grandma Isabelle made the PBB with those Brach Stars. Ick. Sorry Brachs, but those were not creamy and full of goodness like Hershey's Kisses. Okay, here we go:

Peanut Butter Cups

2-1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 c. shortening (I use butter flavored Crisco)

2/3 c. creamy peanut butter

1 c. granulated sugar

1 c. packed brown sugar

2 large eggs, room temp

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Reese's mini peanut butter cups, 2 bags unwrapped

extra sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, soda and salt in small bowl; stir to combine all ingredients. Set aside. In large bowl, cream shortening, peanut butter, both sugars, eggs and vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing a little after each additions so the kitchen doesn't take on wintery blizzard look. Grease mini muffin tins with a spray of non-stick cooking spray. Roll small balls, about a tablespoon of dough. Place about 1/2 cup of sugar in a small bowl. Drop a couple dough balls in sugar and roll around so there is a light coating of sugar covering each ball. Place one ball into each of the greased muffin cups, but do not press down. They will fill cups when they bake. Bake for 10 to 11 minutes. They should be golden brown. Remove cookies from oven when golden and immediately press one peanut butter cup into each cup. Let cool a few minutes then remove to a rack to cool completely. The greasing and the sugar should help them slide out easily, but I always have one that will pull apart as I am removing it. That is okay-I use that one to taste test to make sure they are edible. This will make about 5 dozen.

I made them Saturday night at 11 PM; they were gone by Monday at noon. I would never be able to keep boys full-my girls are sweet chow hounds! Sweet as in cookies, cakes and bars, not sweet as in temperament.......well, maybe sometimes. Who out there has two (or more) teenage girls? I love my children, but good grief, I look forward to the day when there is no shouting "I hate you, you loser" and slamming doors and sulking moods. I swear, I was not this bad-was I? And the nice 'artwork' on my plastic canisters is from the youngest. She didn't like my labels, so she went postal with a black marker. You should see her room-it looks like the Crayola 96 pack threw up on her walls. I should post about that someday.

**I was chastised by my children that they sound like awful little beasts and would prefer that I take back the screaming/door slamming/I hate you comments. So I apologize to Hermit Crab and Drama Queen for suggesting that they are only mere mortals and subject to teenage behavior. I am rolling my eyes.