The Christmas season is the time of the year when I feel most connected to my family & who I am at my roots. One of my favorite Christmas traditions is Christmas Cookies!! I remember baking them a week in advance only to cover them up & wait to bring them to my Grandmothers. In my Grandmother's room on Christmas Eve each family brought their platter of cookies to keep there: we were strictly forbidden from braking into them early. As you could imagine this was a terribly long wait for sweets as a child. Directly after mass, we would all come back for an enormous feast - & then after all our waiting -- the cookies were brought out!! Perhaps it was just that I was a child, but it seemed so special that this one time of the year we were greeted with an array of beautiful, colorful cookies! After all that excitement & waiting I would actually find myself unsure which cookie I wanted to eat first!
This year I decided to make boxes of cookies for some of my Aunt & Uncle's families as well as some family friends. I had so much fun baking away to my little heart's content while listening to Bing Crosby's deep smooth voice!
My mother & best friend had the same favorite cookie, which ironically was the most fun to make! I found this recipe from one of my favorite Food Network chiefs, Alton Brown:
Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheels. Essentially, they're just sugar cookies; the batch is divided, one is flavored with coco powder, & the other with peppermint & candy canes.
In a very simple fashion, you lay one flat sheet of dough upon the other
Slice them into discs, bake them
& Enjoy!! :)
