Need a recipe for xmas cookie exchange party

[Joey.E.CockersMommy]

I am going to a cookie exchange party on Dec 10. I have to make about 12 dozen or so squares, or xmas type baking. I am not much of a baker and will only to so if I have too, or for a very special occasion.
Does anyone no any recipes that are fairly fool proof and are yummy too. Also it she be able to be frozen as well.

[jesse's mommy]

Are you looking for a dessert to make and serve right away or for cookie recipes? If you tell me the type of dessert you are looking for I can help you with any recipe. I'm the "resident" baker of the family and have every type of baking recipe you could want. From grasshopper bars (with creme de menthe in them), to cherry cordial squares, to any type of cookie, pie, cake, to bowl desserts (dirt -- or snow dessert, to layered types of dessert). Just let me know and I can help you out. My sister can't bake for the life of her and I've given her some recipes that people think she can actually bake!!!

[Puppyluv]

I think lemmon squares are the ultimate no-fail cookie/bar. There is no way you can make them wrong, and they are delicious! (I don't always include the almods, in fact I rarely do, but that's just because I never remember to buy them, they're amazing either way)
Lemon Squares

Makes about 3 dozen
To assure a tender, flaky crust on these tart and sweet squares, the buttery dough is made by hand and then prebaked so that it stays crisp following the addition of the lemon filling. The filling contains chopped almonds, which rise to the surface during baking much like pecans in a pecan pie. If you’re fond of limes, consider making this recipe with fresh lime juice and zest instead.


2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted, plus more for dusting

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into tablespoon-size pieces

6 large eggs

3 cups granulated sugar

Grated zest of 3 lemons

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice(about 7 lemons)

1 cup blanched almonds, chopped and toasted

1. Heat oven to 325°. In a medium bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups flour and confectioners’ sugar. Using a pastry cutter, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. Gently pat into a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish, and bake until crust is golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer dish to a rack to cool.

2. Reduce oven to 300°. Whisk together eggs and granulated sugar in a medium bowl. Add lemon zest and juice, and combine. Sift in remaining 1/2 cup flour, add nuts, and stir to combine. Pour filling onto baked crust, and bake until filling sets, about 40 minutes. Refrigerate until well chilled before slicing, 1 hour and preferably overnight. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, slice into pieces with a sharp knife, and serve.

[Puppyluv]

Originally Posted by jesse's mommy

From grasshopper bars (with creme de menthe in them)

Are those like Grasshopper pie? (ie. marshmallow, whipping cream, creme de menthe and green food colouring (if you so dare)?) That dessert is enough to make me wish I lived in the 50s when gelatin was all the rage

[Prin]

ooo nanaimo bars... There are easy to make fake ones by Robin Hood, or you can make the real ones (which is hard but sooo tasty).

Grasshopper bars don't have marshmellows in them. It's chocolate with graham cracker crumbs in the bottom, then icing sugar and creme de menthe, and melted chocolate on top. Pretty easy to make. The only hard parat is if you have to double boil the bottom- some bottom recipes have eggs, so you have to stir in the ingredients really quickly while double boiling. If you don't stir fast enough, you get chunks of egg which is pretty gross. But you have to double boil or everybody gets salmonella...

Or, you could by the Dr Oetker black forest cake (that is really easy to make and almost everything is in the box) or the Dr Oetker Tiramisu... There are a lot of good things in boxes now.

[jesse's mommy]

Prin has it on the money with the grasshopper bars. I usually add a little extra creme de menthe to "loosen" the family up a little because they are so uptight!!!

[Puppyluv]

Originally Posted by Prin

Grasshopper bars don't have marshmellows in them. It's chocolate with graham cracker crumbs in the bottom, then icing sugar and creme de menthe, and melted chocolate on top.

Wait, so are grasshopper bars the same as mint nanaimo bars??

[Puppyluv]

This is GH pie:

[Prin]

Originally Posted by Puppyluv

Wait, so are grasshopper bars the same as mint nanaimo bars??

Yes ma'am. (Haha I called you ma'am).

[Joey.E.CockersMommy]

Originally posted by Jesses Mommy

Are you looking for a dessert to make and serve right away or for cookie recipes?

It wouldnt be served at the party the guests would be taking them home.
The idea is 12 people go to the party they make 12 dozen of something and then you go home with 12 dozen assorted squares. I usually regift most of mine.

Originally posted by Prin

Or, you could by the Dr Oetker black forest cake (that is really easy to make and almost everything is in the box) or the Dr Oetker Tiramisu... There are a lot of good things in boxes now.

oh no it cant be from a box, what if someone wants the recipe...and its cheating too.

what about the ones with the marshmallows and rice krispie cereal...ha ha just throwing some humour in.

Puppyluv

I think lemmon squares are the ultimate no-fail cookie/bar. There is no way you can make them wrong, and they are delicious! (I don't always include the almods, in fact I rarely do, but that's just because I never remember to buy them, they're amazing either way)
Lemon Squares

I made a similar recipe last year instead of lemon I think I put strwberry jam in the middle, then I used the same recipe with lemon and took it to my family in Van it was a big hit.

thanks for the ideas, are the grasshopper bars hard to make, double boil is that boil it twice?

[jesse's mommy]

Let me do this (since it's getting late here and I'm about ready for bed), I'll be up early tomorrow to do more packing, I have the box in the kitchen packed and marked with my recipe box in it. I'll pull it out tomorrow (don't worry it's easy to get to) and I'll post a few recipes that you can have your choice of and give you a scale of 1 to 5 on how easy they are to make (1 being the easiest and 5 being the hardest) and if it's time consuming or not.

[Joey.E.CockersMommy]

Originally posted by Jesses Mommy

Let me do this (since it's getting late here and I'm about ready for bed), I'll be up early tomorrow to do more packing, I have the box in the kitchen packed and marked with my recipe box in it. I'll pull it out tomorrow (don't worry it's easy to get to) and I'll post a few recipes that you can have your choice of and give you a scale of 1 to 5 on how easy they are to make (1 being the easiest and 5 being the hardest) and if it's time consuming or not.

that would be wonderful thanks a bunch in advance. I can't wait to see what you come up with for me. I will come back and check after I come home from work tommorow.

[jesse's mommy]

Alright, I found the grasshopper bar recipe and am still going through the other cards, but wanted to get this one up. On a scale of 1-5 I would rate this a 2. It can be time consuming, but if you plan it right it can be done pretty easy and in one shot. Usually when I do bulk baking I will go through and see how many mixes I can make at once and go from there. Here's an idea, buy 12 of the 8x8 aluminum square pans and set six of them out, mix the first part of the recipe (multiplied by six) and spread it in the bottom of the pans, pop them in the oven. Start on the next six and by the time the first six are finished in the oven you would be ready for the next six. And do the same with the second step and then the third step as well. Just so you know, I was a little unsure about the unsweetened chocolate plain like that, but you taste the chocolate alone. It's really a wonderful recipe and rather easy.

Like I said earlier, I usually add just a smidgeon more creme de menthe to the recipe because I try to relax my uptight family. Alcohol seems to make them a little nicer around the holidays!

Here is the recipe:

GRASSHOPPER BARS
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 Tablespoons green creme de menthe *
2 Tablespoons white creme de cacao *

1 1/2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease square pan, 8x8x2 inches. Beat granulated sugar, 1/2 cup butter, the vanilla and eggs in medium bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, or stir with spoon. Stir in flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Spread in pan.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean; cool 15 minutes. Mix remaining ingredients except chocolate; spread over brownies. Refrigerate 15 minutes.
Heat chocolate over low heat until melted; spread evenly over powdered sugar mixture. Refrigerate at least 3 hours. For bars, cut into 5 rows by 5 rows; cut each bar diagonally in half to for triangles.

[jesse's mommy]

I also have a good dirt dessert that I've adjusted for the seasons if you want it. If you don't know what dirt is, it's basically crushed oreo's with alternate layers of a pudding/cream cheese mixture. This is what I've done to change for the seasons:

Wintertime/Christmas: After the dirt is done, I sift powdered sugar over top of it to make snow and make little snowmen out of marshmellows and stuff like that. I usually use a big square serving dish or something similar to it.

Springtime: The basic dirt dessert in a flower pot with plastic flowers.

Summer: I use the vanilla oreos with a chocolate pudding and make a beach scene (the normal recipe is chocolate oreos with vanilla pudding).

Fall/Halloween time: The basic dirt dessert recipe in a large square serving dish or something similar to it with Frankenstein's head and hands climbing out of it (a Halloween decoration I bought a few years ago specifically for this)

So if you want this recipe posted -- it's the easiest dirt recipe I have found out there and have gotten more compliments on this than anything else. I stole it from an old roommate of mine! Her mom passed on a bunch of recipes to her and I raided her recipe box one day!!!

[CyberKitten]

I like easy no bake cookies to bring to large events - or a strawberry sqaures made very easily.


Chewy Chocolate No-Bakes

1 cup (6 ounces) Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
5 tablespoons margarine or butter
16 large marshmallows
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups QuakerŽ Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1 cup (any combination of) raisins, diced dried mixed fruit, shredded coconut, miniature marshmallows or chopped nuts
In large saucepan melt chocolate morsels, margarine and large marshmallows over low heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat; cool slightly. Stir in vanilla. Stir in oats and remaining ingredients.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper. Cover and refrigerate 2 to 3 hours. Let stand at room temperature about 15 minutes before serving. Store tightly covered in refrigerator.
Makes about 3 dozen.

Nutritional Facts: 2 cookie: Calories 160, Calories From Fat 65, Total Fat 7g, Saturated Fat 2.5g, Cholesterol 0mg, Sodium 45mg, Total Carbohydrates 25g, Dietary Fiber 2g, Protein 2g, Total Sugars 16g.

Recipe from The Quaker Oats Company.

Note: I prefer Quaker Oats but any oats will d - they just taste better with Quaker (imho!)

The strawberry squares are easily made by baking a graham wafer base (crumbled wafers and butter or ,argarine), heating in combo strawberry jello crystals and frozen strawberries (or even home made jam in a pinch). Keep some of the wafer/butter base to sprinkle over the top of the squares. Drop the jello mixture over the based. Top with whipped cream and the reserved wafer mix. Cool overnight. It's sinfully delish!!

[jesse's mommy]

Joey -- I've been searching for my recipe box again all day! After I posted the grasshopper recipe I ran out to get my oil changed and came back to my box re-packed and Jim forgot to label the box so I'm lost now. I apologize for not getting other recipes up before this, but I do still have a few cookbooks that aren't packed yet if you would like me to look through them. Just let me know.

[raingirl]

I'm part way towards my pastry chef certification so I'm sure I can help out.

What equipment do you have first of all? (stand mixer, hand mixer, no mixer, food processer, blender?) What kind of recipe you want depends on what you have.

I have the worlds EASIEST recipe for shortbread, but if you are making 12 dozen cookies, unless you have a stand mixer, it would be really hard.

Are you looking for something simple like a drop cookie? Or something a little more complex like a rolled/shaped cookie (like useing cookie cutters).

Does it have to be nut free?

I have some really tasty hawaiian and philipino cookie recipes that are tropical, if you have a tropical food store near you. There are these tasty little steamed sweat rice cupcakes that taste good, but you really would need tiny muffin cups for that.

I have an easy recipe for lemon squares that has a real lemon filling, and you can do the same recipe using lime and orange.

I have a recipe for super easy brownies, only 6 ingredients (7 if you use nuts).

OH! I have the BEST SQUARE RECIPE! It would be perfect! It's PERFECT for non bakers:

Easy Squares:

1 box graham cracker crumbs
1/4 butter, melted

combine and press into the bottom of a lasagna pan (or smaller for thicker crust...it;s up to you. THe more butter you use, the harder the crust will be. The less butter, the more cumbly...so since you are cutting it and giving it to people, you might want to add a little more butter). Put in a pre-heated 350 over for 10 minutes, then take it out.

1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 bag chocolate chips
1 bag slivered almonds
1 bag shaved coconut

pour the thick sweetened condensed milk over the entire crust (don't need to wait for it to cool), the put down a layer of chocolate chips, a layer of almonds, and then a layer of coconut. You don't have to use the whole bag, just do it to taste.

Put back in the oven for about 15-20 minutes until the milk get's all bubbly and the chocolate melts and the coconut and nuts start getting toasted.

Take out and COOL COMPLETELY. THen it's ok to cut. Sometimes it's easier to cut if put in the fridge.

We used to make this recipe every year. I love it because there are no real measurements. Just make the crust as thick or thin as you want, add more chocolate if you like, or more nuts, or more coconut. You can vary it by using different types of chocolate chips or nuts, but the semi-sweet chocolate with almonds and coconut works the best.

I suggest you make a test batch to see what I mean. It's decadent and SUPER easy. If you want something else, let me know.

[Joey.E.CockersMommy]

Joey -- I've been searching for my recipe box again all day! After I posted the grasshopper recipe I ran out to get my oil changed and came back to my box re-packed and Jim forgot to label the box so I'm lost now. I apologize for not getting other recipes up before this, but I do still have a few cookbooks that aren't packed yet if you would like me to look through them. Just let me know.

Jessys mommy thank you so much,youve done more than enough so please don't worry about the other recipes. I think I might go with the grasshopper bar recipe. You say its a 2 so that would be easy to medium. As long as I can make them ahead of time and freeze them it'll all be good.
I will probably start them when I get back from Mexico on the third of Dec that'll give me a week to get them all baked. Thanks so much again.

I like easy no bake cookies to bring to large events - or a strawberry sqaures made very easily.

Actually Cyberkitten those no bake cookies look pretty good too and easy. I could do both and give everyone 6 of each hmm.

thanks JECM

[Joey.E.CockersMommy]

Originally posted by raingirl

I'm part way towards my pastry chef certification so I'm sure I can help out.

What equipment do you have first of all? (stand mixer, hand mixer, no mixer, food processer, blender?) What kind of recipe you want depends on what you have.

food processor ha ha thats funny. I have got a hand held beater that my mom gave me, I made cookies last year and smoke was coming out of it. Those easy square recipes look really good and easy too. Also I can never find my measuing cups so I end up grabbing a coffee cup and guestimating the amounts. Now my one measuring cup is used to measure Joeys food.

I'll have to ask him if I can borrow it back.

[Prin]

Oh, the smoke. Isn't that a pain in the arse? I have a hand mixer and it's the second one that has quasi caught fire. If you can't mix cake batter, what they hey are you good for?

Almost as bad as my vacuum that caught fire (literally) while I was vacuuming a carpet. Seriously.

[Puppyluv]

LOL all I have is a wooden spoon, a spatula, a whisk and a pair of hands. No smoke from those tools But a bit of muscle soreness

[jesse's mommy]

Boy am I a dummy! I didn't realize you only needed 12 dozen, not 12 batches. Just so you know, if you make the grasshopper bars and cut it how it says, it makes about 4 dozen each time, so you would only have to make 3 batches. It's pretty easy. The hardest thing about it is waiting for it to cool in the refrigerator.

[SnowDancer]

When all else fails, there are always the Magic Bars - recipe on sweetened condensed milk cans. Best way to ensure success is to add extra condensed milk, pecans, and chocolate chips. Always a success.

[MollysMommy]

I vote for the no-bake cookies. Those are really yummy...I've made them quite a few times.

[Joey.E.CockersMommy]

Well the xmas exchange party is on Saturday. I only have to make 9 dosen squares. I have decided to do Raingirls easy square recipe as it seems the easiest, and I am now running out of time.Thanks to everyone that gave me some great recipe ideas. But I still want to make the other recipes too, The grasshopper bars look excellent too, I think I might make some for our friends and family.

Raingirl how long will these squares last for, can I freeze them ahead of time.