I'm in.

Thank you for the giveaway and Happy Holidays! +1

German Christmas Cookies

50g almonds
50g hazelnuts
280g flour
70g sugar
pinch of salt
200g butter
2 egg yolks
5 packets of vanilla sugar
1/2 cup of icing sugar or powdered sugar

Grind the nuts very finely, if not bought pre-ground. Sieve the flour onto a large baking board. Place the ground almonds, hazelnuts, sugar, salt, small flakes of cold butter and the egg yolks in the middle. Bring all the mixture together with your hands and knead into a dough. Wrap the dough in aluminium foil and leave to rest in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C. Divide the dough into about 4 pieces and roll each piece into a log 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. Cut the log into pieces about 2 inches long. Bend each piece into a crescent and taper the ends. Place on a baking sheet and bake in the middle of the oven for about 10 minutes until golden brown.

Mix together the vanilla sugar and icing sugar. When the cookies are cool enough to handle, dredge each cookie in the mixed sugars. Tap off any excess and leave the cookies to cool on a wire rack.

Store your Vanillekipferln carefully between sheets of baking paper or parchment in an airtight container or tin.

I like the flavor of licorice & Anise flavored cookies are one of my favorites, especially at Christmas time. I found they are even better with a lil bit of icing & sprinkles :) Here is a recipe I hope you like:

Ingredients for the COOKIES:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons anise extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 -3 tablespoons milk

Ingredients for the ICING

2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1/8 teaspoon anise extract
food coloring (if you like a nice color to the icing)
Christmas colored Decorative Candy Sprinkles (if serving for Christmas, otherwise use any kind/colors)

DIRECTIONS:

FOR COOKIES:

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2) Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition. Add anise extract.

3) Blend flour and baking powder. Start by adding about 1/3 of these dry ingredients to the butter/sugar in your mixer, then add 1 Tablespoon milk. Add another third of the flour and another 1 Tablespoon milk. Finally, mix in enough of the remaining flour until your dough is like a brownie batter (it should be softer than a drop cookie dough).

4) Use a Tablespoon to make simple round drop cookies - use wet fingers to pat any rough edges OR for an Easter-Egg look, roll 1 Tablespoon dough into an elongated ball.

5) Bake cookies 10-12 minutes (they won't be brown but the insides will be soft and cake-like).

FOR ICING:

1) Mix sugar, milk and extract to make a sugar glaze. HINT: When I make the icing, I make it thick but then I microwave it for 10 seconds so it is thin enough for dipping. Also, I like to divide the mixture in thirds, and then add ONE DROP of food coloring to each batch (red & green for Christmas).

2) Hold cookie in your hand and turn upside down so you can dip the top half in the glaze; turn over and immediately top with sprinkles so they will stick.

3) Allow icing to harden overnight; then store in air-tight containers or freeze. I find the icing hardens after a few hours or I just eat em when the icing still isn't quite set up if i Can't resist the urge to eat one anymore lol.

(it's going to start out as a cake and it'll end as cookies :D)

you'll need

for the stuffing: 250g of dates. 2 tbsp of lemon-juice. 2tbsp water. 85g pistachios (without the shell, and cut into very small pieces). 2 tbsp of honey.

for the dough: 150 g of butter. 255g flour, 25g light-brown sugar, water

dough: mix everything in a kitchen machine until you get a sandy dough. Add water until you get a soft, non-sticky dough.

contents: heat the dates, lemon-juice and water in a pot. Stir all the time.Cook for a bit. Wait until you get a nice "mass". Take it from the fire and mix in one tbsp of honey and the pistachios. Stir again.

bringing it together: take the cake, make two big pieces about the same size. Put the contents on one side and spread it. Put the other side on top of it, stick the sides together and make some lines on top of it. Put some milk on top of it (for the color) and put it in the oven: 200 degrees, about 20-25 minutes. After this is done put some honey on top of it (for the taste), put it on a roster and let it cool down.

After it's cooled down, carve it up into little pieces. Done.

I'm in, thanks Dotur :)!

Here is my favourite cookie recipe, simple and delicious!

Scotch Shortbread Cookies

230g butter (at room temperature so it is soft) -- I prefer unsalted butter, but salted works fine too
65g icing sugar (also known as confectioner's sugar, it's the white powdery sugar, not the crystalised one)
240g flour
70g cornstarch (you can use replace this with an equal weight of flour if you don't have any cornstarch.)

1. Mix together the butter and icing sugar in a large bowl.
2. Add the cornstarch and flour to the butter/sugar, and mix.
3. Form cookies into shapes roughly a half centimeter thick. (You can do this by hand, or use cookie cutters).
4. Place cookies on baking tray and bake at 175C for 25 minutes.

great idea for a GA. NOT IN, however I love cooking and baking, so I'll share one of my favorite recipes.

Banana chocolate chip cookies

These cookies will be more cakey than cookie, but they are amazing. Especially great for your overripe bananas. Sorry, this isn't in metrics, cause we're stubborn like that. :) how does not creaming the sugar and butter change the consistency? Or I guess, why not use a blender? What consistency are you looking for when you "mash"?

you dont use a blender because it makes a crappy cookie.

Thanks for all those recipes. Sadly I had to disqualify a few because of Fahrenheit, Inch and Cup.

The winners are:

SalarShushan and the "Polvorones"

RoloTony and the "Best big, fat chewy chocolate chip cookies"

Pardinuz and the "Honey biscuits"

I'll send you a PM too, just replay to the PM with the name or link of the game you want.

Wow! Thank you for Sam & Max Hit the Road, Dotur! Congratulations to all the other winners too :D
Happy Holidays & Happy New Year, Everyone!

OMG! Thank you, Dotur!

Congrats to the winners and Happy New Year! :)

congrats to the winners and thank you for your generosity.