Here's a holiday sugar cookie that doesn't need rolling. Just four ingredients and simple candies make creating snowmen faces super fun and frosty.
Prep Time: 1 hour 15 min
Total Time: 1 hour 15 min
Makes: 2 dozen cookies Gain access to member-exclusive recipes. Sign Up or Log In
1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
1 container (12 oz) Betty Crocker® Whipped fluffy white frosting
Red string licorice
Assorted candies
1. Heat oven to 375°F. In medium bowl, stir cookie mix, butter and egg until soft dough forms. On ungreased cookie sheets, drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart.
2. Bake 11 to 14 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling racks. Cool completely, about 15 minutes.
3. Frost and decorate 1 cookie at a time. After spreading frosting on cookie, add licorice for band of earmuffs and candies for ear "covers" and snowman face.
High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): Decrease butter to 1/3 cup.
Special Touch
Holiday party?
Bake the cookies ahead and let party goers do the decorating.
Nutrition Information:
1 Frosted Cookie (Undecorated): Calories 200 (Calories from Fat 80); Total Fat 9g (Saturated Fat 4g, Trans Fat 2g); Cholesterol 20mg; Sodium 105mg; Total Carbohydrate 29g (Dietary Fiber 0g, Sugars 20g); Protein 1g Percent Daily Value*: Vitamin A 2%; Vitamin C 0%; Calcium 0%; Iron 0% Exchanges: 1/2 Starch; 1 1/2 Other Carbohydrate; 0 Vegetable; 1 1/2 Fat Carbohydrate Choices: 2
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.
Christmas Cooking - Tips To Make It Easy
The most energetic and frantic time of the year for most of us is Christmas. It seems that we are so consumed by preparations and planning for the festivities that there is little time to consider anything else. But consider we must. Cooking for Christmas is the most time consuming task of all and it is obviously not the normal fare. For some,Christmas cooking is just a bit too challenging for their culinary skills. So to avoid disappointment and the fear of criticism, some simple yet effective ideas for meals have been devised for you to buy and prepare well in advance. Your guests and family will certainly enjoy the results and hopefully you will be applauded for your talent!
There is a simple solution to the problem and that is to prepare and freeze dishes in advance. In that way there is less pressure to perform miracles when short of time and allows you the space to create some wonderful casseroles that you know your family will enjoy at your leisure, thus reducing the risk of failure. Casseroles and similar dishes are perfect for prior preparation and freezing and are ideal for the times when cooking a meal is the least of your priorities. If you have guests to dinner in the Christmas holidays a home cooked casserole with a traditional edge to it will always be well received. You can prepare and freeze your favorite dishes months in advance and if you really want to be prepared for Christmas you can make and freeze enough for many Christmas occasions and events, giving you more time to spend on all the other myriad of preparations.
There is another interesting and innovative way to achieve all the benefits of home cooked food without actually preparing it yourself. There are quite a few companies that offer you a service that enables you to create an entire menu for a meal. The food is frozen and can be taken home for you to keep in this way until you are ready to bake and serve. These meals are a fantastic idea for convenience and because you have included your specifications are the closest thing to a home cooked meal as you can get. You can choose from a variety of dishes but remember that their menu choices are not always constant so your particular preferences may not always be available. The best thing to do is to keep an account of when your favourite dishes are on the menu and to plan to buy them at that time and keep them frozen for those occasions when you will enjoy serving them.
If you are looking for a simple uncomplicated way to have good food at hand without a great deal of expense and planning, then it is certainly worthwhile looking in the frozen food section at the supermarket you frequent. The choice of dishes is actually very good as is the quality. These frozen ready meals can be heated easily at home in your oven and usually come in ovenproof containers. The best choices are usually pasta dishes such as lasagna or macaroni. They may not be as attractive as your own frozen casseroles or the assembled meal menu option but are certainly good value in terms of cost and are quick and easy to prepare making them an ideal choice for informal family meals.
It is not always necessary to be the consummate chef or to spend hours of your precious time preparing a Christmas dinner for it to be enjoyed. There are shortcuts and its worthwhile taking them. If you have planned your Christmas meals well in advance you will be assured that one aspect of the Christmas season is taken care of.
There is a simple solution to the problem and that is to prepare and freeze dishes in advance. In that way there is less pressure to perform miracles when short of time and allows you the space to create some wonderful casseroles that you know your family will enjoy at your leisure, thus reducing the risk of failure. Casseroles and similar dishes are perfect for prior preparation and freezing and are ideal for the times when cooking a meal is the least of your priorities. If you have guests to dinner in the Christmas holidays a home cooked casserole with a traditional edge to it will always be well received. You can prepare and freeze your favorite dishes months in advance and if you really want to be prepared for Christmas you can make and freeze enough for many Christmas occasions and events, giving you more time to spend on all the other myriad of preparations.
There is another interesting and innovative way to achieve all the benefits of home cooked food without actually preparing it yourself. There are quite a few companies that offer you a service that enables you to create an entire menu for a meal. The food is frozen and can be taken home for you to keep in this way until you are ready to bake and serve. These meals are a fantastic idea for convenience and because you have included your specifications are the closest thing to a home cooked meal as you can get. You can choose from a variety of dishes but remember that their menu choices are not always constant so your particular preferences may not always be available. The best thing to do is to keep an account of when your favourite dishes are on the menu and to plan to buy them at that time and keep them frozen for those occasions when you will enjoy serving them.
If you are looking for a simple uncomplicated way to have good food at hand without a great deal of expense and planning, then it is certainly worthwhile looking in the frozen food section at the supermarket you frequent. The choice of dishes is actually very good as is the quality. These frozen ready meals can be heated easily at home in your oven and usually come in ovenproof containers. The best choices are usually pasta dishes such as lasagna or macaroni. They may not be as attractive as your own frozen casseroles or the assembled meal menu option but are certainly good value in terms of cost and are quick and easy to prepare making them an ideal choice for informal family meals.
It is not always necessary to be the consummate chef or to spend hours of your precious time preparing a Christmas dinner for it to be enjoyed. There are shortcuts and its worthwhile taking them. If you have planned your Christmas meals well in advance you will be assured that one aspect of the Christmas season is taken care of.
Traditional Christmas Cooking - Reasons People Still Preserve It
What is traditional Christmas cooking? Well, that depends on you and your family. Tradition is something you make up as you go along. A traditional Christmas is what is traditional in your home. It may be a recipe handed down from your great grandmother or it may be something you thought of in a desperate hurry last Christmas Eve. Anything can become a tradition. What makes something traditional depends on how we feel about it.
That said, once something becomes traditional then you change it at your peril. If your children expect to come home to stir the Christmas pudding and put in the family favors then you had better not change it. They may be away at college or carving out a big career for themselves in the city but they will still expect Christmas to be the Christmas they remember. Christmas cooking is a big part, maybe the biggest part, of the way we remember Christmas.
Every part of Christmas is accompanied by food of one sort or another. The tastes and smells of that food fixes the memory of Christmas in our minds. That smell of cinnamon or hot sugar. If we catch a hint of it anywhere at anytime we are transported instantly back in time to a Christmas kitchen of our childhood. That is the power of traditional Christmas cooking.
I remember how when my mother-in-law was alive and would come to us for Christmas dinner, I had to cook a big traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Turkey seemed a very dry meat to me so I looked through one of my cookery books and found a recipe that involved glazing the turkey with apricot jam for the last 15 minutes of cooking. As a "proper" cook I was appalled, but it seemed to work, so every year I poured a pot of apricot jam over my turkey and, I have to confess, it was delicious.
When my mother-in-law died I saw the opportunity to change our family's traditional Christmas cooking routine. At last my culinary skills would find true expression in a Christmas dinner that would be original and exciting. No more apricot jam for me. I would amaze family and friends with my creations. But no matter what I tried in subsequent years nothing was quite as good as the old turkey recipe with its apricot jam. It had become part of our family's traditional Christmas cooking. So I gave in and everyone was much happier, even me.
However good a cook you are and whatever new recipes you may attempt in the rest of the year Christmas is a time to come back to traditional Christmas cooking whatever that might be for you and your family. There is a profound wisdom in that which cooks too easily forget. When we cook we are engaging in one of the great acts of social ritual. We are not just cooking for ourselves we are cooking for other people. Our Christmas dinner table expresses not just our skill but our human relationships. Traditional Christmas cooking encapsulates all those relationships, gathered over the years, with people still living and people long since dead that go into making us what we are. At Christmas ghosts sit down at out tables. Traditional Christmas cooking makes sure they are happy ones.
That said, once something becomes traditional then you change it at your peril. If your children expect to come home to stir the Christmas pudding and put in the family favors then you had better not change it. They may be away at college or carving out a big career for themselves in the city but they will still expect Christmas to be the Christmas they remember. Christmas cooking is a big part, maybe the biggest part, of the way we remember Christmas.
Every part of Christmas is accompanied by food of one sort or another. The tastes and smells of that food fixes the memory of Christmas in our minds. That smell of cinnamon or hot sugar. If we catch a hint of it anywhere at anytime we are transported instantly back in time to a Christmas kitchen of our childhood. That is the power of traditional Christmas cooking.
I remember how when my mother-in-law was alive and would come to us for Christmas dinner, I had to cook a big traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Turkey seemed a very dry meat to me so I looked through one of my cookery books and found a recipe that involved glazing the turkey with apricot jam for the last 15 minutes of cooking. As a "proper" cook I was appalled, but it seemed to work, so every year I poured a pot of apricot jam over my turkey and, I have to confess, it was delicious.
When my mother-in-law died I saw the opportunity to change our family's traditional Christmas cooking routine. At last my culinary skills would find true expression in a Christmas dinner that would be original and exciting. No more apricot jam for me. I would amaze family and friends with my creations. But no matter what I tried in subsequent years nothing was quite as good as the old turkey recipe with its apricot jam. It had become part of our family's traditional Christmas cooking. So I gave in and everyone was much happier, even me.
However good a cook you are and whatever new recipes you may attempt in the rest of the year Christmas is a time to come back to traditional Christmas cooking whatever that might be for you and your family. There is a profound wisdom in that which cooks too easily forget. When we cook we are engaging in one of the great acts of social ritual. We are not just cooking for ourselves we are cooking for other people. Our Christmas dinner table expresses not just our skill but our human relationships. Traditional Christmas cooking encapsulates all those relationships, gathered over the years, with people still living and people long since dead that go into making us what we are. At Christmas ghosts sit down at out tables. Traditional Christmas cooking makes sure they are happy ones.
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