Thanksgiving really kicked my ass to be honest. It was a great holiday, don't get me wrong but good Lord - turkeys, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, green bean casserole and corn bread casserole are just not up my alley.
The pumpkin pie and red velvet cake on the other hand - woot! I was to busy looking at salad, rolls, and stuffing to take pics during the process. Just use your imaginations. Here. I'll help. This is what the red velvet cake looked like...for the most part.
Impressive. I know.
Okay so now we're in the HO HO HO season and today I made 70+ reindeer cookies for a cookie exchange I'm doing with some of my favorite ladies! I loves me some cookies and in mass quantities - yay!
Well, my Grammy's sugar cookie and icing recipe, which are amazing, just had a bit to much work involved...but I ask you. What says Christmas more than sugar cookies? Nothing. So I found the next best thing. Reindeer cookies with pretzels for antlers.
Shopping list:
- 3 cups flour
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 teaspoons cream of tartar (NOT tartar sauce)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (two sticks) butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Bag of pretzel twists
- 2-3 bags of M&Ms
A few things to note about the M&M situation. Reason would tell us to use red candies for the nose. Well here is what I got out of 1 package of M&Ms.
I then gave up even a little bit more and took the orange M&Ms and added them to the red. Close enough.
Recipe:
Mix flour, cocoa powder, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.
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| Nope. That's not cheese. That's butter. |
Get out the bowl you want all the mixing to happen in and beat butter and sugar. A note and a little friendly tip I saw on Pinterest. Oh Pinterest. If you're like me and never seem to read the directions before you start baking you realize half way into a step that you needed to do something - like thaw out butter. Soooooo I saw on Pinterest that to help thaw the icy cold butter a bit faster you can use a cheese shredder. Brilliant!
Moving on! Beat in eggs and vanilla. Gradually add in flour mix until well blended.
The dough is super dense, so be careful not to burn out the motor of your blender. Super thick.
Alright, so that whole pre-reading the directions thing will come in handy for this part too - wrap the dough in little packets (around 3-4) and stick 'em in the fridge for THREE HOURS!?!?!
I immediately said, "Eff that noise. I'm putting these bad boys in the freezer for an hour." And that's what I did.
The dough is not only dense it is crazy face sticky (< surly the 1 hour in the freezer/3 hours in the fridge wasn't the cause). Lay out a lot of flour on the counter, on the dough and on the roller.
Pre-heat the oven to 375.
I used a heart cookie cutter to make deer heads - I've seen some recipes use bell shaped cookie cutters too.
Press two pretzels on the top, add your nose and two eyes. YAY!
Bake for 7-8 mins.
They taste like chocolate sugar cookies. And pretzels and chocolate are yummy.
I'll be adding two more desserts to the blog this weekend - Fifth Annual Friends Christmas Party this Saturday.
I am exhausted. That was a lot of M&Ms and deer. Oh! And I only had 3 M&Ms left and a 75% full bag of pretzels.
Yum,
Laura
