Candy Cane Crinkles

And so it begins...Christmas cookie baking!

Yesterday one of my co-workers received some very yummy-looking peppermint chocolate cookies from her Secret Santa. Since we are having a cookie swap tomorrow, I felt that I MUST make some kind of cookie with crushed candy canes in them. I had a recipe pinned on Pinterest already, and tried it out tonight. It's just wonderful!

Soooo...not only do you get this delish recipe, but you also get a printable sheet of recipe cards for your own cookie swap. How sweet is that? You can nab the PDF here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/aabkswmj6gtnuba/Candy%20Cane%20Crinkles.pdf

Without further ado, here is the recipe...I hope you enjoy!

Candy Cane Crinkles

3 candy canes, crushed
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray cookie sheets lined with foil or parchment paper lightly with cooking spray. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla and egg; scrape sides and mix again. Combine all dry ingredients (except powdered sugar) and slowly mix into butter mixture until just combined. Scrape sides and mix again, and stir in crushed candy canes.

Pour powdered sugar on a plate. Roll dough into 1” balls, and then roll in powdered sugar. Place on cookie sheet and repeat with remaining dough. Bake 9-11 minutes or until bottoms are barely brown and cookies are matte (not melty or shiny). Cool on cookie sheets for about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling racks.

Makes 2 dozen cookies.


The original recipe came from www.laurenslatest.com. I changed it just a bit by adding an extra candy cane, and rolling the dough balls to 1" size.

My pictures of the cookies did not turn out great; I borrowed the one above from the fivefoldministryschool blog.

Warm and Cozy Winter Toesies!

Hello friends, it's been so long since I've been here...it seems my family and I are always going in a bazillion different directions! Things have calmed down a bit now that my oldest is done with marching band for the year, so before we get too far into the holiday season, I wanted to share a fun gift idea and printable with you!

I made these little gifts for my co-workers last Christmas and they were a big hit. The original idea came from Pinterest*, but I made up my own version of the tags with some fun text and fonts and colors (red, grey, aqua, and hot pink). Basically, it's a bottle of nail polish and a pair of socks arranged in a clear cello bag and tied with the tag and a bow. I found some adorable plush socks at Old Navy in fun colors and paired them with Essie nail polish in coordinating shades, with some shredded paper fill and wide Christmas ribbon to bring it all together. So. Darn. Cute.

All you need is nail polish and socks of your choice, a cello bag about 9" long, the tag (printable at bottom of this post, and ribbon. Here is a quick mock-up of the supplies:

Nail polish (OPI) and socks I found at AC Moore today.

Printable PDF with four tags in four colors!

You could also add a nail file in a cute pattern and/or some foot lotion in your giftee's favorite scent. For someone super special, how about a gift certificate for a pedicure too?

These would make great teacher, Secret Santa, co-worker, babysitter, and girlfriend gifts. I had a lot of fun putting them together and hope you enjoy too! You can download the printable for the tags here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tgq2dr72jma60ch/Cozy%20Toesies.pdf

Let me know what you think! XO Beth

*P.S. Original version is here:http://www.ourbestbites.com/2011/12/cozy-toes-holiday-printable/