Candy Cane Cookies

My last official holiday cookie post. Actually, it's also my last post of the year! I can't believe 2011 is almost over. Happy New Year's Eve!

Every year I always want to put something minty in my cookie boxes. Peppermint just seems to be a must during the holiday season what with seeing candy canes all over the place. I was tempted to remake last year's mint chocolate chip truffles, but decided at the last minute to try something new this year. I searched for candy cane cookie recipe and found these cute cookies. They're super festive and just minty enough, a wonderful addition to a set of holiday cookies.

Gingerbread Gentlemen

My second holiday post for this year: Gingerbread Gentlemen.

Every year at Christmas, ever since I started baking 4 years ago, I've been making my go-to Thick and Chewy Gingerbread Cookie recipe to share with friends and family. To keep things interesting, last year I started playing around with the appearance of my gingerbread men and made Gingy-bread Men (a la Shrek). This year, to mix things up, I stuck to royal icing and made Gingerbread Gentlemen.

They're one part Victorian men's fashion, one part Mr. Moneybags, and one part Mr. Peanut, which combines so many things I like: the 19th century*, board games, pop culture cartoons, fancy schmancy accessories (bow ties, top hats, monocles, and walking sticks**), and of course, mustached cookies. Win? You bet :P. They seemed to be many of my friends' favorite cookie out of all my holiday cookies.

*more specifically: art, literature, and history
**too bad there wasn't room for pocket squares and braces/suspenders

Santa Sugar Cookies

Hope all of you had a wonderful holiday break! Last week was nonstop cookie baking. To one-up last year, I had two rounds of cookies this year: one featuring oldies, but goodies (most of which are already on this blog) and another which centered around newer recipes.

Before I started baking this year's holiday cookies, I looked back at all of my past holiday cookie recipes and was surprised to see that there was nothing centered around Santa Claus. Thus, I decided that some sort of Santa cookie was a must this year. I didn't want something too complicated, so I stuck with a circular cookie cutter and my go-to sugar cookie recipe. When I think of Santa, I see his signature hat, rosy cheeks and a red nose (because it'd be freezing riding around in a sleigh all night), a big beard, and an all-around jolly face. So today I have a how-to guide for making Santa sugar cookies.