holiday baking | A Small Town Kitchen

Cherry Winks

Sugar Glazed Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Crescent Cookies

Whew! Have you survived Christmas, are you still celebrating with family?

I am not sure that I have survived and recovered yet. LOL

Don’t get me wrong…I love, adore and dream of Christmas, all year long. When it is over, I am like,” what happened, it is over already?”

Gee… I must have blinked. Only a second ago, I had packages wrapped under the tree, cookies out for Santa, goodie trays nearly finished, and then I blinked and I have wrapping paper, boxes, and bows, cookie crumbs and little pieces of wrapping paper stuck with scotch tape all over the floor.

It was like Christmas exploded in my living room and kitchen.

I will be pulling little pieces of wrapping paper from under my couch till summer along with a few candy canes.

It just makes Christmas last that much longer.

Anywho…enough of my silly chit chat…LOL….lets talk Christmas baking and cookies. This year, I wanted to make new cookies. As in new to me, but old cookies to my Mom and family. I did make a delicious chocolate chip cookie for Christmas I will share with you later, but for my gifts to my teacher friends, I wanted to make some vintage cookies.

I settled on Cherry Winks, Glazed Raisin-Oatmeal Cookie and Crescent Cookies.

I have never posted 3 recipes in one post before and it would make this post really long with all the pictures.

So, let me start with the Cherry Winks.

I promise to add the other two later tonight or tomorrow morning.

My family loves maraschino cherries. I usually have a jar or two tucked away in the cabinet for some random cherry emergency….like….mmm these little sugar syrup little jewels look good enough to eat for a snack. I really am not saying that I do that…. when you have grand children you can always blame the grand kids for opening your mini marshmallow bags, chocolate chip bags and getting into your cherries when you are not looking. haha!

So, when I was looking through a old cookie cookbook and I saw these cookies, remembering that I have tasted them at church fellowship dinners or Christmas parties way back in my youth, I just knew I have to give them a try.

These cookies have little “winks” of cherries put on the top of each cookie, which gives these cookies their name. They also have chopped cherries added into the cookie dough to add flavor and a little pop of color. I loved the dates and the pecans in the cookies and the crunch of the crushed corn flakes that surround the edges and bottom of the cookies.

These Cherry Winks have all those vintage ingredients in them that you don’t see in a lot of recipes…..I mean dates…and rolled in corn flakes…..

But this adds to the charm of this cookie.

So if you are looking for a little nostalgia and a really good cookie all in a crunchy (but tender on the inside) cookie, give this cookie a try.

Here is what you will need! : )

For this delicious cookie you will need flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, shortening, sugar, eggs, vanilla, milk, chopped nuts, chopped dates, chopped maraschino cherries, and crushed corn flakes.

I took the ingredients to school and some of my wonderful students make this cookie dough when they were all caught up on their work, so I do not have the usual step by step pictures and directions for this recipe and I am sorry!!! The directions are listed below in the recipe though : ).

Look at that beautiful cookie dough. It is full of chopped pecans, dates, and maraschino cherries. I am using my kitchen shears to cut my cherries into small pieces to set down into the cookie dough to form the “wink.”

I used a cookie scoop to scoop out the dough and then I rolled the cookie dough into the crushed corn flakes. Then I pressed the cherry in the top. I ran out of maraschino cherries so I had to get into my candied cherries I bought for a cake…oh well.

Place them on parchment paper and bake. They spread out just a bit and get light tan around the edges.

Then I cooled them on a cookie sheet until I put them in a cookie tin to stay moist.

Here’s to, “Winking at You.”

Here is the recipe:

Cherry Winks

From Vintage 1958 Cookie Cookbook

Ingredients:

21/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup vegetable shortening

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons milk

1 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans)

1 cup chopped dates

1/3 cup chopped maraschino cherries (more for cutting pieces for wink)

21/2 cup crushed corn flakes

Directions:

In a medium bowl lightly stir together flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together shortening and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla and milk. Mix well. Blend in the dry ingredients (the flour mixture).

Mix well. Add in the nuts, dates and cherries. Shape the dough into balls. I used a cookie scoop. Roll each ball into the crushed corn flakes and top with one fourth of a cherry. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on a cookie sheet. Yield about 4 dozen cookies. I made mine a tad bigger and I did not get that many.

Hope you enjoy this cookie recipe!

Becky

Happy Holidays Everyone!

It seems life and commitments to family and work have kept me from posting my recipes.

It has made me sad.

Just want you to know that I think about you and appreciate your patience while I try to juggle all things while messing up most of the time.

But, it is the holidays.

Time to be thankful!

And, I am thankful for you for taking time out of your busy day to read my little blog that has grown a few cobwebs as of late.

So, here’s to taking my kitchen broom to those cobwebs and start posting some recipes.

Shall we? : )

Here is my first one!

Good Old Fashion Gingerbread.

Gingerbread is just a classic dessert or gift to make during the holidays. The fragrance of spices baking together in the oven with the brown sugar and molasses just make your kitchen smell like the holidays. Add a touch of whipped cream, or in my case cool whip and a sprinkling of powdered sugar and you are good to go. You can change up the spices a bit to your liking, and I have cut down on the nutmeg and added a touch of salt to this recipe. Other than that, this recipe is family approved.

So lets get going!

This is what you will need to make this recipe.

You will need some flour, brown sugar, molasses or sorghum, eggs, oil, baking soda, cinnamon, ground ginger, ground cloves and salt and nutmeg which I forgot to put in the picture. Oh and water : )

First thing you will do is add the two eggs to the mixing bowl and beat up a little bit.

Now add in your brown sugar and mix until combined with the eggs.

Now add in your oil and slowly mix with the brown sugar mixture or you will have a big mess….how would I know that LOL

Now, add in your molasses or sorghum and mix in.

In a medium bowl add in your flour.

Add in all your seasoning, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and baking soda and mix together.

Add in the flour mixture into the brown sugar mixture and combine. This will be thick.

Lastly add in one cup of boil water. Can you see the steam. Add this in slowly also, and mix until it is all incorporated.

Now, pour into your baking containers. This recipe is enough to fill a 9 by 13 pan. I have opted to bake a 8 by 8 and a round paper pan because I was testing out the paper pans to bake the gingerbread in as gifts to give away. It would great by the way!

Here is a picture of the 8 by 8 pan and the round paper baking pan. Now pop the gingerbread in a preheated 350 degree oven for the 9 by 13 size pan. I baked mine at 325 for the paper pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the gingerbread springs back slightly in the middle. Do not over bake.

Here is what it should look like coming out of the oven. Just starting to crack a bit on top and the middle is cooked.

Doesn’t it look delicious?

It smells good too…. : )

Here is the recipe!

Old Fashion Gingerbread

Ingredients

2 eggs, beaten

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup molasses

3/4 cup oil

2 1/2 cup flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon ground ginger

2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cloves

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup boiling water

Optional: cool whip or sweeten whipped cream and/or powdered sugar for dusting

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9 by 13 pan

Put the eggs in a mixing bowl and beat the eggs with the electric mixer.

Add the brown sugar to the beaten and eggs and combine.

Add in the molasses to the brown sugar mixture and combine thoroughly.

Slowly mix in the oil to the brown sugar mixture.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.

Add the flour mixture to the brown sugar mixture. Combine.

Pour in the hot water a little at time and mix together with the electric mixer.

Pour the batter into the greased and flour baking pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the top barely cracks and the center is cooked.

Dust with powdered sugar if you want. Now, just wait a couple of minutes and watch it start to disappear.

Enjoy!

Becky

A Small Town Kitchen

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Tag Archives: holiday baking

Vintage Cookie Baking for the Holidays

Old Fashion Gingerbread