Christmas cookies!

I was never a big rolled cookie fan until I found this book, Cookie Craft: From Baking to Luster Dust, Designs and Techniques for Creative Cookie Occasions by Janice Fryer and Valerie Peterson. Their nutty cookies, made with pecans, are my favorite...they are amazingly delicious. They have a toasted nutty flavor and the recipe and dough are so easy. This year I also made the plain sugar cookies and the gingerbread cookies from their book.

pretty cookies, ready for gifting

The cookies are very easy to make. The dough is so forgiving and manageable and the quality is the same even after rolling and re-rolling the scraps. After the dough is rolled and cut, it's chilled, then baked. The dough is also great because the baked cookies do not lose their shape or get distorted so what you see going in is what you get coming out.

After they are baked, decorate with icing, sparkly sprinkles...or just enjoy plain!

ground pecans...so yummy

the nutty cookie dough, ready to roll out

the chilled cookies are lifted off and baked

the gingerbread dough; just like the nutty cookies, it was so
easy to work with...and delicious too!

la dee da...making gingerbread people...

and, finally, on to the sugar cookies with lemon zest...
three cookies in one night...I'm tired!

nutty snowmen...into the oven

...and out of the oven!

pretty snowflake cookies, cooling

now that's a lot of cookies!

ready for decorating and for eating

gingerbread people and trees

the baked lemon sugar cookies

I decorated these cookies for my officemates and neighbors...

happy reindeer

Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer, and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!!

shimmering snowflakes

snowmen lined up for inspection

Bye for now...