Sugar Cookies

I really do believe that three might be the most magical age for Christmas.  Little P is over the moon excited about Christmas, and Santa coming, but still isn't quite old enough to be greedy.  Her list is only 3 items long, and to be honest, she'll be happy just having something under the tree. 

We needed to have something to leave out for Santa, so we decided to make some beautiful sugar cookies.  I searched for the perfect recipe, and in the end, we decided to go with this recipe from Katrina's Kitchen, which promised THE BEST sugar cookies. We weren't disappointed.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1 egg
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 3 cups all purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until smooth.  Beat in vanilla and almond extract, and eggs.

In a separate bowl combine baking powder with four and add a little at a time to the wet ingredients.  The dough will be very stiff.  If it becomes too stiff for your mixer, turn out the dough onto a countertop surface and knead the dough by hand.

Do not chill the dough.

Divide into workable catches, roll out onto a floured surface and cut.  You want these cookies to be approximately 1/4 inch thick.

Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes.  Let them cool on the cookies sheet until they are firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack.

Decorate.

Little P did leave out a plate of her cookies for Santa, as well as a reindeer for Rudolf. He must have loved them because the only think he left on the plate was a few crumbs.

 

No matter what the hemisphere, Christmas isn't Christmas withouth Pumpkin Pie

Little P and I were headed to a Christmas lunch at a friends house, and everyone was asked to bring a dish.  We decided to bring along a pumpkin pie, despite the fact that it isn't very well known here in Australia.  This country hasn't really given pumpkin a chance as a dessert, but we have managed to convert everyone who tries our pumpkin pie.

There are a few specialty shops that stock Libby's Pumpkin Puree, so we decided to save ourselves a bit of time by using that as a base.  Oh, and we used premade pie shells too... this is cooking with a toddler after all!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 2 large eggs
• 1 - 15 oz can of Libby's pumpkin puree
• 1 - 12 oz can evaporated milk

Mix sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger and cloves in a small bowl. 

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, and then stir in the pumpkin puree and the sugar-spice mixture.  Gradually stir in evaporated milk.

Pour into pie shell, then bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes.  Reduce temperature to 350 then bake for another 40-50 minutes until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack for 2 hours, then refrigerate or serve immediately.

 

 

I somehow managed to forget to take a photo of the finished pie, so the one above is from Libby's website.   We had a great time at the Christmas lunch, and the pumpkin pie was a hit!