[Sca-cooks] St Lucy's Day Cookie Recipe Contributions (long)....

[Sue Clemenger]

Well, I'd originally thought to do the recipes that follow, and then I 
got this crazy idea to find out what I could about traditional foods for 
St. Lucia's Day, and even found a bunch of neat stuff, and then I got 
mired down in...other things!
So, it's back to my original recipes, and maybe something extended on 
St. Lucy festivals next year? <g>  Here they are...Maire's Family Cookie 
Recipes, sort of ;o)

This first recipe came to me from my little sister, Cris, who took Best 
in County (Jr. Division) with it in 1988.

_Lemon Kiss Cookies_

1.5 c butter (soft)
0.75 c granulated sugar
1 T lemon extract
2.75 c all-purpose flour
1.5 c finely chopped almonds
1, 14 oz. pkg Hershey kisses (unwrapped)
Confectioners' sugar
0.5 c semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted w/ 1 T veg. shortening

Oven: 375 farenheit

Beat butter, sugar, and extract together until light and fluffy.  Add 
flour and almonds, beat at low speed until blended.  Cover and 
refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Shape scant tablespoonsful of dough around the hershey kisses (1 T 
dough/1 kiss), covering the kisses completely.  Form them into little, 
individual balls and place on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 8-12 minutes until bottoms of cookies are light golden brown. 
Cool 1 min, remove from cookie sheet and cool completely.  Sprinkle 
cookies lightly with the powdered sugar, and drizzle tops with melted 
chocolate.
-----------------------------------------
_Barb's Triple Ginger Cookies_
I love soft ginger cookies, but wanted one more, well, gingery.  So I 
experimented.  I even tried them using a corn syrup base instead of 
molasses (to get a "white" cookie), but they do definitely taste better 
made with molasses.
I dedicate these cookies to my Mom (Barb), because they were one of the 
last things she could actually still eat when in the terminal stages of 
breast cancer.

4.5 c all-purpose flour
4 t baking soda
2 T (fresh) ground ginger
2 t ground cinnamon
1 t ground cloves
0.5 t salt
2 c packed brown sugar
1.5 c softened butter (unsalted preferred)
0.5 c molasses
2 eggs
Up to 1 cup candied ginger, cut into little bits (try and get the fresh 
stuff, and not the nasty, dried out stuff in the little boxes.  It's 
easier to cut)
And...one-half cup of fresh ginger, peeled and grated

Stir together the first 6 ingredients.  Combine the remaining 
ingredients and beat well.  Add dry ingredients to beaten mixture, 
stirring well.  Form into balls (I use an ice cream scoop for big 
cookies), and roll in granulated sugar, if desired.  Place cookies 2 
inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet, and bake in a 375 degree oven 
(farenheit) for about 10 mins.  Don't let the bottoms get too brown.

-------------------------------------------
Jim's Monster Chip Cookies
My brother, Jim, likes anything chocolate, so these are for him.  Do 
feel free to experiment with different kinds of chocolate bars, or 
different kinds of nuts.  The basic idea is serious chocolate and nut 
chunkage. ;o)

3 bars (3 oz each) semisweet chocolate (candy bars are fine)
1.25 c pecan halves
1 c plus 2 T _unsifted_ flour
0.5 t baking soda
0.5 c butter, room temp/softened
0.33 c smooth peanut butter
0.5 c granulated sugar
0.5 c packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 t real vanilla
Oven: 325 farenheit

Break chocolate into individual squares, and then cut into halves, 
diagonally.  Set aside 0.5 c of the pecan halves; coarsely chop the 
remainder.  Stir together flour and baking soda.
Beat together the butter, peanut butter, and sugars until fluffy.  Add 
the egg and vanilla.  Stir in flour mixture; stir in chopped pecans.
Using a 0.25 c measuring cup (or an ice cream scoop), mound dough onto 2 
greased cookie sheets.  (Recipe makes about 12 cookies, so that's 6 
cookies/sheet.)  Push chocolate pieces and pecan halves into the mounds, 
distributing evenly.  Bake for 15-17 mins. until golden brown around the 
edges and light-colored on top.  Halfway through the baking switch the 
positions of the 2 cookie sheets, to ensure even cooking.  Cool on 
sheets for about 3 mins., and then remove carefully with a spatula, and 
cool completely on brown paper (old grocery sacks are great).

---------------------------------------
Dad's Favorite Fruitcake
(aka "Guinness Cake")
 From the time I was about 12, my "big" present to my dad was a homemade 
fruitcake (he was insane for the stuff).  We tried a lot of recipes over 
the years, including one really neat one that I no longer have, that had 
you do your own candied pineapple and cherries, and then bake the cakes 
in cleaned soup cans.  That was the same year that my Dad's dog found 
the cooling (and well hidden) fruitcakes, and ate ALL of them, except one.
If you want, make this a few months in advance (I usually started them 
in early October), and do the whole "wrap in liquor-soaked cheesecloth 
and then tinfoil, and rewet the cheesecloth once a week thing.  I 
usually kept the cake in the veg. drawer of the fridge, but the freezer 
would work just as well.
*If you leave out the two starred ingredients, increase the total 
poundage of other dried fruits to 2 lbs.

4 large eggs, beaten
1 lb flour
1 lb sugar
1.5 lbs dried fruit (any assortment), chopped
1 t baking soda
1 c butter
0.25 lb cherries*
0.25 lb mixed candied peel*
0.25 lb almonds, slivered OR coarsely chopped
pinch freshly ground nutmeg
1 standard bottle Guinness stout
juice of 1 lemon

Rub the butter into the flour, as if making a pie crust.  Mix well with 
the dry ingredients.  Add the guinness, lemon juice and beaten eggs. 
Bake in a thoroughly greased tin in a slow oven (300-325 farenheit) for 
about 3 hours.
This makes lots of relatively tasty fruitcake.  The container I usually 
baked it in was a honking huge, old bundt cake pan, but a good-sized 
springform pan, or angelfood-cake pan would also work.

Happy Holidays from Maire....