Arlene is baking up a storm in this episode, as she makes 5 kinds of Christmas cookies: Scotch shortbread, chocolate kisses, meringues, chocolate butterscotch chip cookies, and Christmas light cutouts with edible licorice wire! The Christmas light cookies are a particular favorite, and they also make a great gift. Although, some people may prefer a red strawberry flavored “wire,” as opposed to the classic black licorice one.
NOTE: Unfortunately, some of the recipes in this episode have been lost to time, so we were unable to include them here.
Betty’s Famous Scotch Shortbread
A classic, buttery shortbread.
Ingredients
- 1 cup butter (softened)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 1/4 cups flour
- extra sugar (for top)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a mixer bowl, using a mixer, cream butter and sugar very, very well, until light and creamy. Add flour 1 cup at a time, blending well after each addition. Knead with hands until blended and smooth.
- Pat dough into a 9-inch round or square cake pan. Press edges of dough with fork and prick top of dough. Sprinkle with sugar.
- Place in preheated oven and bake for 60 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool for 10 minutes and cut into bars. Makes 4 dozen pieces. Enjoy!
Christmas Light Cookies
A classic cutout cookie with a decorative twist. These make a great gift!
Ingredients
Cookies
- 3/4 cup butter (softened)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 2 cups flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/3 cup finely ground walnuts
Icing
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup milk (plus 1 tbsp extra)
- food coloring
- licorice string candy
Instructions
- In a large bowl, using a mixer, cream butter and sugars until fluffy. Add egg and almond extract, beating until creamy.
- In another large bowl, sift flour and baking soda together. Add walnuts and blend well; then, stir flour mixture into creamed mixture, mixing until a soft dough forms. Cover and chill 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheets.
- On a lightly floured surface, with a floured rolling pin, roll out dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Draw a simple light bulb pattern on plain paper (see image below for shape), then cut out with scissors. Place pattern on dough and use a sharp knife to cut out cookies. Transfer to prepared cookie sheet. Using a drinking straw, make a hole at the square end of cookie. Bake in preheated oven 8 to 10 minutes or until cookies are light brown. Cool completely on wire cooling racks.
- In a large bowl, stir sugar and milk until smooth. Divide icing evenly into 5 small bowls. Leaving 1 portion of icing white, tint remaining bowls green, red, yellow and blue. Spread icing over each cookie down to squared bottom. Allow icing to harden and set. String black licorice strings through holes to resemble string of lights. Store cookies in an airtight container and assemble as used. Makes 24 cookies (4 “strings of lights”). Enjoy!
Notes
Transcript
- ♪ Make yourself at home ♪ ♪ Enjoy the time we share ♪ ♪ With a dish of… ♪ ♪ Mixed all up with care ♪ ♪ The best company and conversation, recipes and recreation ♪ ♪ We are cooking something good here At Home ♪ ♪ We are cooking something good here At Home ♪
- Well, hello and welcome to At Home today. Hope that you’re not too stressed out and not pushing too hard to get ready for the holidays. I know that the preparation is totally bizarre at this time of the year because all the last minute things you’re trying to think of and even this far away from Christmas you’re still really trying to come up with some ideas. And let me just mention these couple of things. Today we’re gonna be doing some cookies. Last week we did the candies and today’s part one of our cookies. And I’ve got to show you some gift ideas. Now these are inexpensive things. Potholders are always a welcome gift. I mean, always. Look at some of these, aren’t these neat? I’ll keep it a pet shop. So these nice kind of, you know, we’re kind of partial to homes because that’s what we’re all about. We like these types of things. And how about some nice dish cloths, such pretty varieties. There’s a lot of this kind of stuff out there. Anybody that really enjoys being in the kitchen would enjoy this type of a gift. I have to show you this one. All right, just take a closeup. All right, so I don’t sing so good, but isn’t this a cute idea? Clever, it’s a nice oven mitt. I love it. Don’t write and ask us where to get them because this is a couple of years old, isn’t it? So, we don’t know, but it’s a neat gift. And of course our At Home cookbook which you’ve been hearing about, I’m sure. And you’re probably up to here with it. But that’s a gift idea too. We don’t wanna pass that by. Whatever you’re trying to do, don’t get overwhelmed with the enormity of the task. Let’s keep it simple this year. Don’t make 15 different varieties of cookies like you normally do. Cut back, only make five kinds. Only make three kinds. Don’t put yourself under so much stress that you’re not enjoying this wonderful time of the year. And please, if you’ve got children, gather them around you, start now and just start talking and ring little portion of the Christmas story out of the Bible. Or just tell the story of Christmas. Keep it in their hearts so that they don’t get caught up with all the other gimme, gimme, gimme gimmes. I’m sure you’re probably getting tired of the gimme routine by now too. I want this mom, you got to get me this. I want this, I want this. We all get caught up in that, but please let’s try to focus on what’s really really important. Let me show you my… Like this. This is enjoy. This is a part of what we do here At Home. All the time we end our recipes with enjoy. And I just thought this would be a neat way to say, I hope you’re enjoying the preparation of the holidays and I hope you’re enjoying our program. Well, today we do cookies. And if you’re with us last week, you know that we’re offering our booklet. And you only have to send one time during this whole month of December. And you will get all of the recipes for the whole month. You don’t have to send weekly like you normally do. We’re gonna get started with our cookies and just a minute, we’ll be right back. Here’s today’s At Home Christmas hint.
- [Narrator] Here’s today’s At Home Christmas hint. When making cookies, add one teaspoon of jam or jelly to the batter. The cookies will have a little better flavor and stay moist longer. If you’ve got a helpful hint that you’d like to share with us, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home hints, CTV Wall Pennsylvania 15148-1499
- Okay, the first cookie we’re making is a bar cookie and it’s called pecan pie bars. If you like pecan pie this is a variation and it’s really wonderful. What I’ve done. I’ve made a crust first and this is, two and a half cups of flour, a cup of cold butter cut in chunks, half a cup of powdered sugar and a fourth teaspoon of salt. And I’ve just let that in my mixer go around too. It’s a nice crumbled. See, it’s really crumbly. Have to incorporate until it’s crumbly. Spray some Pam in a jelly roll pan. It’s really important to you as a jelly roll pan because we’re gonna put a filling in it. And the filling has… The sides of the pan has to be high enough to hold the filling in. So basically. just gonna pour the crumbs. And it looks like it’s not gonna work, but it will. It really really will. Make sure you get all of it out of there. Okay. There we are. There’s a wonderful time of the year. Cause’ this is one of my favorites. I’ll tell you. It’s exciting because when you think of the hope that we can have because of the birth of the one who’s a special day this really is. You wonder what the world would have been like if Jesus had not come. I don’t even wanna think about that. But I’m very thankful that he did. The music of the season, the holiday, it’s specials you hear silent night or away in the manger. You cannot help, but get into that feeling of wow, this is a great time of the year. This is what it’s all about. This is celebration really of the birth of the King. And at our house we put those tapes on and the Christmas music is going all the time. Because it just creates an atmosphere. Just makes everything seem a little better. You have a hope that maybe you wouldn’t have had unless you hear some of the music. And it just creates a feeling in your heart that well, you know, God really ultimately is in control and he’s gonna take care of everything. Well, we’ve padded this into our pan that we’ve sprayed with Pam cooking spray. And now that’s gonna go in and bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. And make sure your oven is good and hot. We pick under here and set my timer so that we don’t end up with a problem. And now I’m gonna make the filling for this pecan pie bars. These I’m gonna cut into nice little squares. First of all, we’re gonna take four eggs and we’re gonna put those into our bowl. Now you don’t even have to let the crust cool. You’re supposed to put on while the crust is hot. So, it’s important that right now you prepare the filling because if you don’t, you’ll forget and then the dinger will be going off and you say oh, I forgot to do that. I forgot to do it. I’ve done that. That’s why I’m speaking from experience. But we’re gonna mix up our four eggs, just like that. And to that we’re gonna add one and a half cups of the Light Karo syrup. Now, you know, this is what the basis for all of these pecan pies is. Is that Karo syrup and eggs. And we’re gonna mix that around a little bit. To that we’re gonna add a cup of granulated sugar. You say Arlene, that’s so sweet. Yes it is. But that’s pecan pie. If you’ve ever had a patient, sometimes they’ll set your tooth on edge because it’s very sweet. It’s why you don’t eat very much. And that’s why the bars is just the right. You cut them small enough just to have a piece. You don’t have to have a whole big piece of pie which is good. And then we’re going to add a fourth of a cup of brown sugar sorry, half a cup of brown sugar and mix it around. No one to tell you that the crust can be made even if you don’t have one of these big mixers you can do that by hand. It’s just… We have the equipment to do it. So we’re trying to show you a lot of ideas. So we’re making it easier on ourselves but you certainly can make that without having a big mixer. And we have a couple of table spoons that’s about three tablespoons of melted butter and one and a half teaspoons of vanilla. And about two and a half cups of coarsely chopped pecans. That’s what makes pecan pie so good. It really, really is. Get rid of this because now I don’t wanna beat anymore. I just wanna mix around. When this is completely covered, you’re gonna wait till your timer goes off for the crust. And while the crust is still hot, we’ll pour this right over that crust and put it back in the oven. And it’s gonna bake for an additional 25 minutes. Okay. But we have it all set. You bring them out and you’re gonna let it cool on a wire rack and then cut it into bars and tell you, this is a real interesting tasty alternative to a pecan pie. All right, let’s move on now to a cookie that we’re gonna do. It’s called a turtle cookie. This is real interesting. And, think you’re gonna find, this is a little different. I remember when I first got married to Paul, we went to his mom’s house. It was his house too for Christmas. And really it was fun because you never knew what you were gonna get because his mom was quite a baker and she liked to do a lot of special things. And she was a real sweet lady because she felt that her whole ministry was to her family and in her home. And she would make all kinds of Christmas cookies and she made something that looks very much like the turtle, but it had a big marshmallow on it. And I used to think, how does she do that? That takes so much time. She’d bake a cookie put a marshmallow, ice it and decorate. That was a lot of work, but she did it. And the older I get, the more I understand that you want to do specific and pretty and delicate dainty sometimes when you have the luxury of time. If you don’t, you don’t do that. But she used to do that. And those were the cookies that you always look forward to. I’m gonna tell you if you make turtle cookies, that will be the cookie that everybody’s gonna be looking forward to. All right, we have one and a half cups of flour. We’re gonna add a fourth of a teaspoon of baking soda and a fourth of a teaspoon of salt. We’re gonna add about a half a cup of butter. Here we go. And what this is gonna do, is mix into a dough. Your butter should be a little bit more at room temperature. Of course. And to this, we’re gonna add, let’s see, I need a half a cup of brown sugar. Here it is. Add that in And one yolk of an egg and one whole egg. So you have a whole egg and one yolk. No york, you only use the yolk. Well, anyway, let’s see. Some vanilla, a fourth of a teaspoon of vanilla and an eighth of a teaspoon of maple flavoring. Look forward, it’s in your spice area. And we’re gonna mix this around until a dough forms. Now it’s gonna be a while cause’ you’re gonna have to work this. And it will be creamy. You wanna use the mixer with this? You can. And when the dough forms, what you’re gonna have is a soft dough. And you want to make sure that you chill the dough. That’s why I’m gonna make this ahead of time. And when we come back from this break, I’m gonna show you what the dough should look like. And we’re gonna show you how to put the turtle cookies together. We’ll be right back. All right. Now, you know the dough that we’ve been making. I want to show you. This is the consistency it needs to be. This is what it’s gonna be like. When you put it in a refrigerator, it’s gonna get firmer. When you come out, you bring it out to do your cookies, to actually shape the turtles. It needs to be a little soft. When you first mix it all up, it might be a bit softer than this refrigenated as you need it. Sometimes, depending like I’ve told you so many times on the atmosphere. If it’s a moist day you know, it puts more moisture into what you’re baking. So, but you want to roll them in about one inch balls about like that. Now at the end of the program we’re gonna show you what these look like totally done. And you’ll see what I mean. I got anxious and made them a little large. We have some of the biggest turtles you’d ever wanna see. I see at the museum, I mean these are big turtles. But you can make them smaller. The idea is to assemble them and you’re gonna do it on an ungrazed baking sheet. And you use half pieces of pecan. If you have to take a sharp knife to cut them just cut them down the center. And you’re going to space them. If you wanna use five pieces, you can, the front legs, the back legs and the head. I use just the three. And you use the end of one piece as the nose part or the head part. And you space them, kind of like that. All right. Then you take one of your little dough balls and I flattened the bottom side. And this is the egg white. You remember, you put a whole egg and then just a yolk. You dip it just in the bottom and then you press this over top of the turtle. Now, this dough is gonna swell up when you get it in the oven to bake. Let me do another one for you. Get your pieces. You try to get pieces that are kind of the same size. Okay, and the ones that break you use for the head. Put them out there in the front like that, get a dough ball, flatten out the bottom of it, dip it just the bottom in that because that will stick to the pecans. And you can flatten it. I said to Paul when I was baking some before, now what is a turtle back really look like. Do I have to shape it? He said, no, we’ll use our imagination. That’s pretty good. It looks all right. Okay. The cut parts you wanna put on the inside and the smooth part, you keep on the outside. Again, you find the piece for the head, all right. And you take the dough ball, flatten the bottom, dip it into the egg white and then just press it on the nuts. And try to keep it round because they kind of have to be. That’s the way God made this turtles to look. So you really have to use your imagination sometimes because it doesn’t always turn out the way you’d want it to. You bake these for… Let me make sure in a 350 degree oven. 10 to 13 minutes, that’s all. And you can put a lot because they don’t swell up so big that they’re gonna run into one another. But they sure do raise during the baking process. Here, the kids could really have a good time doing this, couldn’t they? I mean, invite some of the family, neighborhood kids, other families in the neighborhood and have them come on over. Let the kids make turtles Just shape them. Then when they’re done baking, they’re gonna look something like this. This is what I told you. They’ll swell a little. So, these I made a little too large. You’d want to make them about this size so you can still see the nuts once they’ve baked. Then you’re going to make a chocolate icing. And I would suggest that just as soon as they come out, this is about the right consistency. We will include the recipe. It uses the little semi-sweet squares unsweetened chocolate. Not semi-sweet, unsweetened chocolate squares. And this makes a wonderful glossy icing. When these are still warm, what I did was just drop some on the top in the warmth of the cookie made it gloss over and made a real smooth. Now the phone rings or the kids interrupt you or whatever, it’s okay, you can still icen them. And just cover them over as much as you can, just like that. And almost icing one that wasn’t baked yet. This makes about four dozen cookies and honest, these are great. If you like… if you’ve got a family that likes chocolate, they’ll like this. This is a semi-sweet or unsweetened. You make a semi-sweet by adding the sugar to it. Icing to it. And it’s really quite tasty. This is a plain, almost like a plain butter or sugar cookie dough. Very easy to make. And again, you might have to be in and out of the refrigerator with it to get it to be workable. But believe me, see how nice and glossy that is. That’s what you’re looking for. Just makes about four dozen. And these are just called turtle cookies. Couple of procedures to it, but it’s worth it. All right. Now we’re gonna do… Let me see how many minutes I have. I have got about six more minutes on my pecan pie bars. We’re gonna move now to a variation of a good old standard cookie for the holidays. And I know that most of you know what chocolate chip cookies are. And I’ll tell you, it would not be Christmas without a good chocolate chip cookie. Other times people have made Mrs Fields chocolate chip or whatever. This is a variation because it’s a basic chocolate chip but we’re gonna add something to it to make it moist, even more moist. And that’s pineapple. And this recipe was sent to me by Debbie Johnston who said, mom always had pineapple chocolate chip cookies available for us. And it wouldn’t be holidays without them. I know what you mean, Debbie because some things are just so traditional that if you didn’t have them, you would think there’s something wrong. It’s not Christmas. But anyway, we’re gonna take a cup of shortening. Let me get my spatula here. One cup of shortening and a cup of brown sugar. Okay? We’re gonna cream these together. And a cup of white sugar. And once those get done, we’re gonna drop our eggs in. You just mix it tilts real creamy. This makes a lot of big batch of cookies. In fact, this makes about six to seven dozen cookies and we’re gonna… Can make them any size you want. It was funny because we were previewing this recipe. We decided that the person making them should not get tired because the tirerer you got, the bigger they got. I said, these are starting to look like dumplings. They’re so large. Sandy said, I told you. I’m not the one that should be doing this because you know me. When I get tired and we’re in a hurry things getting bigger and bigger. But that’s all right. I understand exactly where she’s coming from. I do the same thing. Then we’re gonna add two eggs. Okay. And basically it’s just like the regular recipe for chocolate chips. In that we’re gonna add some flour and some walnuts, some baking soda and some vanilla. And it’s gonna make a batter right before we’re ready to spon. We’re gonna add some a whole 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple. And we’re gonna put the liquid in. Don’t drain it, just right from the can. However comes. We’re gonna use it. This is a good idea. This would be a great… If you’re gonna do one of those Christmas cookie like a trade off, you know, your four or five of your friends to say, let’s all make Christmas cookies and we’re gonna have a party and I’ll bring somebody, and you bring. So, we’ll share them. This’ll be a great recipe to do that because it makes so many and you can have them at home for your own family. Plus you take them with you. I think I’m gonna add my pineapple now. And I’m gonna, what I like to do is put my chocolate chips. Let me put the baking soda in there first. We mix that around a little bit because I like to make sure it gets evenly distributed. Then I’d like to add my chocolate chips and my walnuts to the flour because when it gets covered with flour then I think it stays better in the cookie. Just kinda like what you do with the cake. I just kinda got into the habit. We’re gonna mix the pineapple and then we’re gonna add this. And these are dropped on an angrys cookie sheet and bake the 350 for about 15 minutes. I’ll tell you what. This is pineapple chocolate chip cookie. Thanks to Debbie Johnston. We’ll be right back after this important message.
- [Narrator] To receive your Christmas packet number 200 containing all of this month’s special holiday recipes, listen very carefully. Just send a self-addressed business size stamped envelope with a dollar or more to At Home. Number 200 CTV Wall Pennsylvania 15148-1499. You will only need to write once this month to receive all our Christmas recipes from At Home. And have a blessed holiday.
- Don’t forget now. All of the recipes that you’ll be seeing this month on At Home. All of the special Christmas recipes through Christmas days buffet are in this one little booklet. That is just for your enjoyment. And all you have to do is send an envelope that’s this size that has your name, address, your city, state, zip, the whole thing and a stamp and fold it up and place it in an envelope that it’s addressed to At Home. Number 200, CTV Wall Pennsylvania 15148-1499. And include your request plus a couple of dollars to help us with the printing costs. And we will, by return mail send you the booklet with all of the recipes. Remember that’s recipe number 200. And what we’ve prepared today that all the recipes are in that booklet. Here we have our pineapple chocolate chip cookies. We’ve put them in a jar. This is a great way to give a gift or on a nice platter. Next to them, turtle cookies. Are these incre… I told you they were gonna look good and they’re gonna taste even better. And next to that are the pecan pie bars. A sweet treat to appease your sweet tooth. Tell you what, these are great ideas for your holiday giving and holiday enjoyment in your own family get togethers. We hope that you’re enjoying at home. It’s a lot of work preparing these programs, but we’re glad that we can do it for you because we care about you. And we want you to have a nice holiday season with your family and friends and those that you love around you. And if maybe your holiday is gonna be a little different because you don’t have a lot of family or friends, that’s okay. Try to hook up with someone else who doesn’t have a lot of family. But one thing I really want you to do is be sure to join us the next time. Because it just wouldn’t be the same without you here At Home. See you then.
- [Narrrotor] Fresh produce provided by Jordan Banana. Wholesalers or fresh fruit and vegetables in Diavosburg PA. Cookware provided by Wholeys. Your favorite gourmet deserves the best for less from Wholey Balcony cookware. Groceries provided by Foodland where the answer is always yes. Cornerstone television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
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