Jolene's Recipe Journal

Gingerbread Simple Syrup is perfect for adding a festive touch to your favorite beverages or as a topping for pancakes or waffles. 

These cookies are soft, buttery, and have a lovely lemon flavor. You can decorate them with colorful sprinkles or icing to make them look even more festive! I try to make a variety of cookie during the holidays whether it be flavors or type. The go-tos are always chocolate and gingerbread but I also pick something citrusy. I found Judy M's recipe on the Taste of Home website and I didn't make any changes to the base cookie. I recommend splitting the dough into two disks to chill rather than one. Working with half at a time ensures the dough stays cold. I personally like to use a pastry mat for rolled out cookies, it allows you to use less  flour and the clean up is easier. I used some vintage copper star and bell cutters. The amount of cookies you get will depend on the size and shape of the cutter, but this recipe makes about 10 dozen. I cut out half the dough, formed the scraps back into a disk and then popped that disk in the fridge and pulled out the other one. The recipe c

When I was a kid, Christmas afternoon was spent with my dad's side of the family, and I remember a house bursting at the seams with people and tables full of goodies that my grandmother and aunts put together. Pizzelles, rosettes, bowties, totos, little tarts filled with lemon or chocolate.   Rosettes are made by dipping a special iron mold into a thin batter made of flour, eggs, sugar, milk, vanilla and salt and then deep-frying the mold in hot oil until the cookie is golden brown and crispy. Once you get into a rhythm, these go real fast.   I did them in a high sided saucepan with a candy thermometer, but using an electric skillet or fryer helps regulate the temperature easier.     I set up a table with 2 baking racks over two full sheet pans. My son was on powdered sugar duty. You want to get that on while the cookie is still warm so it sticks. You could also use cinnamon sugar.  The recipe I used calls for dipping them into a glaze but I didn't do that. My iron is

These bite-sized cups are made by pressing gingerbread cookie dough into a mini muffin tin and baking until they're crisp and golden brown.  One of the treats on my cookie trays each year is something gingerbread related and this time around I chose these Gingerbread Cookie Cups from Taste of Home. The dough is very quick to put together because it starts with a mix, but you need to factor in the chilling time when you make them. My guys were in and out of the fridge 100 times so mine took almost 2 hours to chill. I used a cookie scoop to distribute the dough into the mini muffin pan and then a tart press to make the indentation. I used it again after they were baked to make sure there was a nice deep well to fill up. Once cooled, you fill them with a mixture of cream cheese, butter, vanilla extract, and confectioners' sugar. I used a piping bag with a star tip to get the filling in, you can also use a zip top bag with the corner cut off. On about half I sprinkled a little bit

Eggnog biscotti are a delicious holiday twist on the classic Italian cookie, filled with the flavors of vanilla, nutmeg and rum! Though I've eaten lots of biscotti I've never attempted to make it before. I searched the Taste of Home site for a seasonal version and found a recipe from one of my fellow Community Cooks, Shannon Dobos, that looked great for a first timer. I made absolutely no changes to her recipe. The dough came together nicely and I got it into the two rectangles with no trouble at all. I greased the sheet but next time I'd use parchment paper. After the first bake you slice the rectangles across the short side into about 1" strip.  Then you lay those on their sides on the baking sheet and back into the oven they go. Once they were cooled, I stood them up and I placed the wire cooking rack over a baking sheet.  I made the glaze as listed, using the optional rum. We like Bacardi Gold.   Half of the cookies got festively colored sprinkles. The other half