Snowflake Cookies

These beautiful snowflake cookies are made with the same wonderful butter cookie recipe that was my mother's specialty. Last year I showed you how you can take one recipe and make a multitude of cookies for your cookie swap without the hassle of buying alot of different ingredients.
Galletas de Mantequilla Para La Navidad
Christmas Butter Cookies


With all the festivities going on, you don't want to miss out on all the fun. Make it easy on yourself. This particular recipe is "kid" friendly. They'll love getting their hands into the dough and making their own creations. (HINT: slip some kitchen latex gloves on the little ones to minimize the mess.)

The snowflake cookies was just one more to add to the numerous cookies my kids and I have made using Nana's recipe. Enjoy the holidays and have fun in inexpensive ways.

Galletas de Mantequilla
(Butter Cookies)

1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter
½ cup sugar
1-teaspoon vanilla
2 to 2½ cups flour

Cream butter and sugar together. Add vanilla. Slowly, add flour and knead to combine well. Chill dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes for easier handling. Roll out a small portion of the dough between two pieces of wax paper to ¼ inch thickness. Dip cookie cutter in flour and cut out desired shapes. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 10 to 12 minutes (middle of oven) at 325°. If desired, before chilling dough, add food coloring during the mixing process. Also, after cutting with cookie cutters, you may sprinkle shapes with colored decorating sugars. Makes about 1 ½ to 2 dozen, depending on size of shapes cut.

For the Snowflakes, just use some decorator icing to draw on the snowflake lines and sprinkle with sanding sugar.

Shamrock Cookies

No, I'm not Irish, but I once had a wonderful friend who was Irish through and through. His name is Patrick Bresnan. He now works in New York. But in the years that our lives were connected, we never once neglected to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day.

His day would start off by going to early morning mass. He would arrive at our place of employment where he knew his friends and co-workers would be ready to celebrate his birthday. Yes, his birthday is March 17th, being Irish, he was named after his patron saint.



The rest of us would be sporting green hair, clothing, shamrocks, you name it. A wonderful luncheon of corned beef and cabbage, a huge birthday cake, Irish coffee and Celtic music playing in every corner of the building would permeate the day. Those were wonderful times. I miss them and my friend dearly.

So, even though I'm not Irish, I still celebrate Saint Patrick's Day. My love of history and anthropology have given me an appreciation of the gifts all cultures have to offer.



So for today, enjoy these delicious butter cookies made with my Mother's "Galletas de Mantequilla" recipe.

Butter Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 to 2½ cups flour

Cream butter and sugar together. Add vanilla. Slowly, add flour and knead to combine well.
Chill dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes for easier handling. Roll out a small portion of the dough between two pieces of wax paper to ¼ inch thickness.
Dip cookie cutter in flour and cut out desired shapes.
Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 10 to 12 minutes (middle of oven) at 325°. If desired, before chilling dough, add food coloring during the mixing process. Also, after cutting with cookie cutters, you may sprinkle shapes with colored decorating sugars.
Makes about 1 ½ to 2 dozen, depending on size of shapes cut.
For the rainbow cookies, I used a round cookie cutter and then cut each in half before baking. The shamrock cookies, I sprinkled green sugar srinkles before baking. I used royal frosting to decorate the cookies. White as a base for the rainbow cookies and green tinted frosting for the shamrocks. Use M & M minis for the rainbow bands.

Royal Frosting
1 pound (1 box) confectioners sugar (powdered sugar)
6 tablespoons Wiltons Meringue powder
6 tablespoons (about 1/3 cup) water
paste food coloring, if desired

Mix all ingredients in electric mixer for 7 minutes.


The Shamrock

The shamrock, which was also called the "seamroy" by the Celts, was a sacred plant in ancient Ireland because it symbolized the rebirth of spring. By the seventeenth century, the shamrock had become a symbol of emerging Irish nationalism. As the English began to seize Irish land and make laws against the use of the Irish language and the practice of Catholicism, many Irish began to wear the shamrock as a symbol of their pride in their heritage and their displeasure with English rule.
http://www.history.com/content/stpatricksday/symbols-and-traditions

Galletas de Mantequilla / Butter Cookies

My mom made the best butter cookies in the world. She use to make them when she was a cook for the El Paso Independent School system. The kids would devour them, but of course she always managed to bring a couple home for us. I still have her original notes and recipe well guarded. It's a simple recipe, only four ingredients. And it's so versatile I can't begin to describe all the ways my kids and I have made this recipe: the shapes, the colors and the flavors. For the holiday season, I would like to share with you this wonderful recipe. Your children will be able to make them easily with little help from you. Enjoy and know that's it's from the heart.

Galletas de Mantequilla
(Butter Cookies)

1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter
½ cup sugar
1-teaspoon vanilla
2 to 2½ cups flour

Cream butter and sugar together. Add vanilla. Slowly, add flour and knead to combine well. Chill dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes for easier handling. Roll out a small portion of the dough between two pieces of wax paper to ¼ inch thickness. Dip cookie cutter in flour and cut out desired shapes. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 10 to 12 minutes (middle of oven) at 325°. If desired, before chilling dough, add food coloring during the mixing process. Also, after cutting with cookie cutters, you may sprinkle shapes with colored decorating sugars. Makes about 1 ½ to 2 dozen, depending on size of shapes cut.

Butter Cookie Pecan Sandies
(makes about 3 dozen)

Prepare the Butter Cookie dough and add 1 cup chopped pecans. Roll into a log and refrigerate for 40 minutes. Slice into 1/4 inch rounds and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Allow to cool 5 minutes and dust with confectioner’s sugar.

Thumb Print Cookies
(makes about 3 dozen)

With this recipe, you make roll 1 inch balls (after the dough has been in the refrigerator of 40 minutes). Have a cup of finely chopped pecans. Roll half of the 1-inch alls in the pecans, the others leave as is. Using your thumb, press an indentation in the middle of each cookie before baking in the oven. When you remove the cookies, allow to cool for a couple of minutes and then with a spoon, top each indentation of each cookie with jam or preserves. We used raspberry, cherry and apricot. Actually, we got carried away and even topped some of the cookies with a Hershey kiss.

Snowball Surprise
(makes about 3 dozen)

Here we took the same recipe but added 1/4 cup of cocoa. Allow the dough to rest in fridge for 40 minutes. Take a scant amount of the dough and flatten in your hand. Place an unwrapped piece of chocolate (like a Hershey kiss) and place in the middle of the dough. Wrap the chocolate piece with the dough and roll around in the palms of your hands to form a ball. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Dust with confectioner’s sugar.

Then of course, there are the regular cookie cutouts. You can tint the dough with food coloring or use colored sugar sprinkles for the top. You can frost the baked cookies with homemade buttercream frosting. Use your imagination. Better yet, let the kids come up with their own unique cookie for the holiday.
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