Category: Christmas

 With cold, wet weather and the season’s first measurable snowfall expected today, here’s a fun indoor activity you can do alone or with your kids.  Forget about the fire, why not just heat up by the oven as you try your hand at some of my favorite holiday cookie recipes?  These are great for a cookie exchange, as gifts for neighbors or just for enjoying at home with your family.  And they’re the highlight today for Day 8 of our 12 Days of Recipes series here at 365Barrington.com.

For us, we have a little different criteria for the best cookie exchange recipes.  The cookies have to look festive.  They have to be easy enough to crank out six dozen in about 2 hours. The recipe has to be basic enough to triple with ease.  And, of course, we want to skip all fussy ingredients.

Candy-Dipped Chocolate Cutout Cookies
We think any basic cookie, such as oatmeal, sugar or chocolate cutout cookie dipped in melted white chocolate and then crushed candy cane pieces is a holiday best.  White chocolate and candy cane pieces are a perfect mouthful of holiday flavor, and with any good cookie base, they are a true crowd pleaser. Below is a recipe that does this with chocolate cutout cookies.  You can do something similar with crushed pistachios, m&m pieces or sprinkles in place of the candy canes……