Holiday Cookies

Here’s a couple very easy cookies I experimented with for Christmas last year- no flour necessary! For both of these recipes, you can either use a roll of refrigerated cookie dough or a simple mix (but be sure to add the necessary water/oil/eggs as per the package directions).

Double Peanut Butter Thumbprints

– prepared peanut butter cookie dough
– a handful of Reese’s peanut butter cups
– a mini bundt or cupcake pan
– baking spray or a little vegetable oil

1. Preheat the oven to 375F/190C.
2. Spray the baking pan with cooking spray or lightly wipe with a paper towel soaked in vegetable oil.
3. Fill each cup of the pan with about 1/2 inch of dough, pressing the dough firmly into the cups.
4. Bake for 8-10 minutes until edges start to brown. Turn pan upside-down to release cookies.
5. Immediately place a peanut butter cup into the center of each cookie. Let cool completely.
6. Ready to eat!

Really let the cookies cool completely before trying to pick them up. The peanut butter cup will fall straight through the cookie until it has completely cooled and solidified.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

– prepared chocolate chip cookie dough
– 1/4 teaspoon mint extract/flavoring
– 8 drops green food coloring
– 1 cup mint chips
– 1/2 cup chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350F/175C.
2. In a large bowl, work mint extract and food coloring into dough until coloring is relatively even.
3. Fold in chips and pecans.
4. Drop rounded spoonfuls of dough onto a a cookie sheet, 2 inches apart.
5. Bake for about 10 minutes to desired crispiness. Remove and let cool.
6. Ready to eat!

Recipe adapted from Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies by Betty Crocker

• The original recipe calls for sugar cookie dough with semisweet chocolate chips added separately. The main difference is that the sugar cookie dough takes the food coloring better. As you can probably spot in my pictures, you might want to add more food coloring to the chocolate chip dough. However, too much could make the dough a bit too thin.
• Of course, you could substitute other mix-ins for the chocolate/mint/pecans. One fun alternative is to use sugar cookie dough and mix-in broken-up Andes mints.