Christmas Cookies

[gottahaveahoove]

Who makes them?  What kinds?


  I have to make some for a little luncheon/get together tomorrow at the college.


  My late grandfather had a bakery, and taught several of us how to make wonderful things. Also,  growing up in a very Italian town, we learned a lot of Italian things, as well.


  Today, the Kitchenaid mixer is whirring.  Over the holidays,  I'll be making:


Italian pepper cookies, tadals (anisette) sugar (cutouts), pizzelles, almond, vanilla, and Toll House.


 Of course, Irish sodabread ans Zuchinni bread are almost a weekly thing here.


  Share????

 

[vacerator]

My Kitchen Aid

got a work out today also. I made fruitcake cookies with dried apricots, cherries, figs and nuts, and fig hamantaschen with cream cheese cookie dough.

 

[gottahaveahoove]

Mike! That all sounds wonderful.

My aunt in N Carolina made a great fruitcake in her day.
In Ireland, they frost fruitcake, calling it, "Christmas Cake". It is the traditional wedding cake there as well. That is something I've kept away from, although, I don't really know why, as I love fruitcake. (I know some, too). Another story.. another time.
I don't cook regularly, BUT, when I do, I use everything. Suffice it to say: it is very well-equipped.
And, let's face it, you want to have nice equipment.

 

[real1shep]

When my grandmother was still alive in the 60's, every yr she would bring a rum-soaked fruitcake. Also these rum ball cookies. They were so strong with rum that as a boy, I'd get a little tipsy eating them all. Every yr they got a little stronger, poor gal. Probably forgot how much rum to use.....lol. She was Scotch-Irish.


 


Since I'm raising my baby grandson, we do basic sugar cookies with fun cut-outs and frost them. He insists on helping with the dishes and cooking....life is good here when you're 2 1/2.


 


Kevin

 

[vacerator]

MMM Rum

makes everything better!

 

[suckolux]

Evenings too!! I love to bake this time of year, but the stiff and painfull fingers/ wrists is a challenge this year. More rum! Or meds

 

[vacerator]

Arthritis David?

Be glad you aren't around here then. It's 13 f. this morning, and this climate is bad for arthritics. I'm not much younger than you, and am very thankfull I still have full mobility.
My mom had it in her knees, like my grandmother did also. They suffered terrible.

 

[suckolux]

No age comments, just had a big one!

 

[vinvac]

Fruitcake...YUCK!

I have never like fruitcake...

Now Date filled pinwheel cookies, sugar cookies, divinity...now we are talking..

 

[vacerator]

fruitcake was

the first wedding cake in old England. Most hate it, but made with out that yucky citron, and with figs, apricots, cherries, and actual cake batter and nuts it is good.
Also Pizzales and anise flavored S cookies, and poticca nutroll from czeckaslovakia, and fudge.

 

[portable]

<span style="font-family: helvetica;">My grandmother made butter cookies. All of us kids still make them. At almost the end of my cookie-making this week, my cookie press broke. Oh well.</span>

 

[real1shep]

I hear that....

 


<span style="font-weight: normal;">a lot about fruitcake. I guess it's one of those things that you're passionate about, or you hate it.......doesn't seem to be a middle ground. I will say that the stuff they make at the usual grocery store generic bakery is not really representative of true fruitcake.</span>


 


<span style="font-weight: normal;">My grandmother's rum fruitcake is the best I ever had....so that's my litmus test of fruitcake...lol.</span>


 


<span style="font-weight: normal;">Kevin</span>


 

 

[vacerator]

The old

Jane Parker fruitcakes A&P used to sell were pretty good.
If no one ate them and you still had it around by spring, the birds would.

 

[kenkart]

AHHH A and P Jane Parker

We had one every year until the A and Ps all closed in NC..I LOVE fruitcake.

 

[pr-21]

We didn't have fruitcake, my mom made a homemade Applesauce Nut Cake. It had raisins, walnuts, applesauce, nutmeg, cinnamin, flour and sugar and eggs. It makes a huge cake, mom used an angle food cake pan to make hers. I use a molded bundt cake pan and put the remainder in a oblong square shaped glass baking dish. This makes the small one to keep and the cake to take to Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Takes approx 1 hr and 15 min to bake.


PR-21
Bud

I just talked myself into making one for Christmas.

 

[kenkart]

I have made

The applesauce cake also, its VERY good, Also a Southern thing is a dried apple stack cake, it has 7 or 8 layers of a thin molasses cookie type cake filled with cooked dried apples...very good but takes a lot of work to make.

 

[countryguy]

I love fruitcake also but only the dark kind not the light. Both my mom and grandmother made delicious fruitcake. I've never attempted to make it.

Gary

 

[real1shep]

I abhor the light kind....don't consider them 'true' fruitcakes. A fruitcake is supposed to be so rich, you have trouble getting through one slice. The light ones you can eat like bread....lol.


 


Kevin

 

[dysonman1]

I love to bake Fruitcake. The secret is in the batter. It should just hold the fruit and nuts together.

My great aunt taught me how to make a Hungarian Christmas cookie called "kipfulls". I don't know how to spell it in Hungarian, but that's what the name sounds like. It's a sweet 'pie dough' make with leaf lard (from the Butcher), rolled out and filled with either a ground nut/condensed milk mixture, or a cooked apricot mixture, then formed into crescents and baked. A little powdered sugar on top. We used to put them in metal tins and give them to friends and family. The hardest part was finding a butcher who would save that lard. Doesn't work with Crisco or even regular lard.

 

[kirby519]

@suckolux

Congratulations on your "Big one" Glad to see another December Birthday here. I just hit the big 50 on December 8th. I too am starting to feel the aches and pains of years of janitorial work.

 

[kirby519]

As for the Christmas cookies. I always like to have some Toffee bars. Like the jelly button cookies, Pecan Fingers and some good sugar cookies. Those are staples in our family. We try others each year and see if we like them.

 

[caligula]

To kirby519 and suckolux.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

 

[caligula]

And I'm another one who loves fruitcake.

 

[caligula]

kirby519.

Wait till you hit 66, then the aches and pains really kick in. Add to that the hearing and eyesight starts to fade.

 

[vacerator]

happy Birthday,

and Happy Holidays all.
A cousin, only 61 passed away recently of cancer. Never smoked, drank, or was ever over weight.
Alex, You've got ten years on me, and I already use reading glasses.
I hope we see 80, or more, but we just never know.
Doctor Heimlich died Friday, he was 96.

 

[kirby519]

@caligula

I know about the aging thing. I have helped many a senior citizen. I'm taking it as gracefully as I can. I have been advised by those with the experience and wisdom that is all you can do and worrying about it doesn't stop it. And thank you for the happy birthday wishes.