Third Annual Virtual Cookie Exchange

I was supposed to get this up on Friday but I was in massive baking mode because of our Christmas Open House on Saturday. If you want to check out the other contributprs, just go to Jenn's blog and see.

I made 11 different items on Thursday and Friday and have given you a picture of all items.



Starting at the top of the plate and moving down by row:

Sugar cookies, which I had intended to ice

Kiflins, Chocolate Walnut Truffle Squares, Egg Nog Tea Cookies, Earl Grey Bocca di Nonna, Maple Walnut Shortbread, Plain Shortbread

Tart Cherry Streusel Bars, Carrot Cake bars, "Inside Out" Almond Joy Macaroons, Fig-Date Rugelach


If anyone wants any recipe other than the one below just email me. My email is in my profile.


So without further ado. This recipe was in the Cuisine at Home Holiday COokies issue from 2006 (I think).


Egg Nog Tea Cookies with Butter Rum Icing

Makes about three dozen 2" cookies
Total time: about 1 1/2 hours + chilling


FOR THE COOKIES:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp table salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract


FOR THE ICING:

2 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 Tbsp milk
1/4 tsp rum flavouring or light rum
Red and green candied cherries for decoration


Preheat oven to 350F; line two baking sheets with parchment paper

Whisk flour, nutmeg and salt together for the cookies in a bowl; set aside.

Cream 1 cup of butter and sugar together in another bowl with a mixer until smooth. Add egg and vanilla; beat until incorporated, the mix in the flour mixture just until blended. Cover and chill dough for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.

Roll dough into scant 1 1/2" balls. Arrange on prepared baking sheets spacing 2" apart. Bake 10 minutes, or until firm to the tough and lightly brown in the edges. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Whisk powdered sugar, 2 tbsp butter, milk and rum flavouring together for the icing. Frost cooled cookies, then decorate with candied cherries or ground nutmeg. Allow icing to harden before packing cookies.

(Freeze cookies unfrosted for up to 1 month)


Note: I added a bit more milk to the icing to make it more spreadable and I decorated as I iced as it started to harden fairly quickly.