Recipe Round-Up: Cookies

I forgot all about this month’s round-up despite seeing all the reminders that popped up this week. I want to contribute something for those with allergies to dairy, nuts, eggs, and soy. I found this simple cookie recipe a few weeks ago and made them for Benjamin over the weekend. He was very excited about having some holiday cookies.

It’s a simple shortbread cookie. All you need is butter, sugar and flour. Now, I can’t use butter because Ben is allergic to milk. I didn’t want to use the milk and soy-free margarine he can eat because I was afraid that would make the cookies runny. I used butter-flavored Crisco (mixed with a little water) instead.

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter (I used Butter-flavored Crisco)

• Put all the ingredients into a bowl.
• Rub the ingredients together with your fingers. Hannah did this part. All she did was use her fingertips to mix the flour, sugar, and crisco together, until it looked like cookie dough.
• At this point, mix in some flavor. You could add cinnamon, chocolate chips, coconut, vanilla, whatever. I didn’t add anything the first time I made them because I wanted to taste what they were like plain. Pretty blah. I think next time I’ll add vanilla.
• Pinch off small portions of dough and form it into a small ball, about an inch in diameter.
• Squash with a fork. I added colored sugar at this point so they would look festive.
• Bake in preheated oven at 325 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Remove and cool on a rack.

You don’t have to roll these into balls and squash them with a fork. You could roll out the dough and use cookie cutters. Here’s a simple icing recipe for decorating:

• 3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoons water
• food coloring of your choice

Mix these together to desired consistency and color, then decorate your cooled cookies.

For lots more holiday cookie recipes, visit Rebecca Writes.