Question Friday - Holiday Edition: The Wranglers' Favorite Holiday Recipes!

Hi there, WordWrangler readers! We hope you're having a wonderful holiday season. Today on the blog, we are sharing our favorite holiday recipes. Here we go!

Liz's Recipe: My favorite recipe changes every year, and none of them are mine, per se, because they've all been stolen borrowed from people much more adept in the kitchen than I am. However, I’ve loved these cookies ever since my sister made them when I was a kid. Mine aren’t as good as hers were, but that’s one of those gifts memory gives us. I got this particular recipe for them off cooks.com, and you can mess with it to make it your own—they’re always good!

Cherry Winks

2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 c. sugar
2 tbsp. milk
1 c. dates & nuts, chopped
1/3 c. finely chopped Maraschino cherries
2 2/3 c. corn flakes (crushed to 1 1/3 c.)
15 Maraschino cherries, cut in quarters
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 c. butter, softened (I use butter flavored Crisco)
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla

Stir together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. In large bowl beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs; beat well. Stir in milk and vanilla. Add flour mixture; mix well. Stir in nuts, dates and chopped cherries. Shape level tablespoon of dough into balls. Roll into crushed corn flakes. Place on greased baking sheets, flattening slightly. Top each with cherry quarter. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 14 minutes or until lightly brown.

Nan's Recipe: My croissants. I make them every year for my neighbors and friends.

Butterhorns
4 ¼ Cups all-purpose flour
½ Cup sugar
½ tsp. salt
¾ Cups Butter Flavor Crisco
1 Cup milk, warmed to 116 degrees F
3 eggs, beaten and warmed
1 package of quick-rise yeast (I use Red Star)

Run a sink of hot water. Beat your eggs in a small bowl and set the bowl in the sink of hot water to warm them.

In a small saucepan, warm the milk over a very low heat. Watch it—any warmer than 116 degrees and it kills the yeast, any cooler and the least won’t activate.

In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar and salt, and using a pastry blender, mix the shortening into the dry ingredients until it’s well mixed, it’ll look slightly grainy.

When your milk is warm, whisk the yeast into it and make sure it’s well-mixed.

Add the milky yeast and the warmed eggs to the dry mixture and mix it all together. You’ll get a sticky dough.

Cover the bowl with a tea towel and put it in a warm place to rise until doubled in size.

After first rising, dump the dough (you’ll have to scrape it out of the bowl) onto a floured board, knead just a couple of times, so you can work with it without it sticking to your fingers. make it into a loaf and cut it into thirds. With a floured rolling pin, roll each third into a circle and then cut it into 8 equal pieces—like a pizza. Roll each piece from the wide side and set it on a cookie sheet. Curve it a little bit. Make them look like crescent rolls.

Cover the cookie trays with tea towels and set them in a warm place to rise until almost doubled in size.

Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven until they’re slightly golden. Eat them right from the oven with lots of real butter!!

Kristina's Recipe: Like Liz my favorite holiday recipe changes every year. Last year it was a banana cake I made, the year before it was an iced cookie recipe. This year, peppermint cocoa. I can't get enough of it!

Candy Cane Hot Cocoa Ingredients:

3 cups of sugar
2 cups of cocoa
1 tablespoon salt
6 Candy Canes (peppermint sticks can be substituted if you're out of Candy Canes)
1 cup of milk per serving/6 cups total

Directions:

In a large bowl combine the sugar, cocoa and salt; once combined you can store it in a Tupperware or Ziploc bag because this makes about 6 cups of cocoa. When you're ready to make the cocoa you can make single servings or the whole batch. For single servings: warm 1 cup of milk in the microwave, add 2 tablespoons of cocoa and stir with one candy cane to mix and then leave the cane in the cocoa to dissolve. Serve.  For a whole batch: warm 6 cups of milk in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring regularly. Do not boil the milk. Add two tablespoons of mix for every cup of milk and stir. Pour the cocoa into mugs, stir some more with the candy cane and then leave the cane in the mug. Serve.

Margie's Recipe: Life-like Cookie Dough

This recipe was given to me by a good friend's mother the first year I was married and it's a holiday staple for me at this point. It's a cookie-cutter recipe and probably the best one I've ever tasted. And not too difficult either.

1 cup of butter
1 cup of sugar
4 TBSP of milk with a tsp of baking soda dissolved in
tsp of vanilla--I usually add it to the milk/soda above
2 eggs beaten
pinch of salt
4 cups of flour

Mix ingredients in order written. Chill several hours or overnight.
Roll out to a not-too thick, not-too thin sheet and cut at will.

Bake at 325, for about ten minutes. Watch carefully, as these are best when served soft.
Enjoy!

Thanks for joining us today! Have a wonderful holiday season!