Holiday Cookie Lineup - 7 EASY Recipes

'Tis the season of baking! Most of us will be baking in the next two weeks, be it for parties, our own holidays or new year celebrations.  Since I plan on being occupied with my own fun over the next few weeks, I thought I'd do one of those fantastic cheater posts where I review my favorite holiday-friendly cookie recipes in case you are making some last minute dessert menu decisions. The best part about my list is that they are all SUPER easy, so if you have one of those, "OH CRAP, I FORGOT TO GET A GIFT FOR SO-AND-SO," moments, you can quickly whip up a batch of cookies and act like you planned it that way all along.

Have a cookie that should be on this list? I'm not fancy enough for a linkey, but leave a comment with a link to your favorite, easy, cookie and let's all share!

Gingerbread Ninjas (or Ninjabread Men)

Last summer, I bought ninja shaped cookies cutters. I have since been waiting and waiting and waiting for it to be gingerbread season so I could make the coveted ninja-bread-men. As in, gingerbread men shaped like ninjas. If you are not ridiculously excited right now, then I just have to say it-- we can't be friends. But, I guess I'll also state that this recipe does not exclusively work for ninja shaped cookies, and if you wanted to make non-ninja gingerbread men (or ladies), then I suppose that would be acceptable.

To ice these, I used royal icing for the first time. Since I was a first-timer, I used Wilton's recipe. I found I needed to add 3-4 more tablespoons of water than it called for in order to make it pipe-able, and also that it dries so candy-like that it fell off the cookies very easily. However, it piped on well and made for good detailed decoration. Anyone with royal/detailed icing tips, I'll gladly take them!!

Apple Cupcakes with Honey Mascarpone Icing

Happy (Jewish) New Year!! For those of you who don't celebrate, one of the key culinary features of the Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) meal is the dipping of apples in honey. We do this to bring sweetness to the year to come.  So, you know, you could take the reasonably healthy route of just dipping apples in honey-- or, you could be me and add a zillion calories to the process by making apple cupcakes with honey mascarpone icing.

Dude-- can we say Worth.The.Calories???????

I'm really quite pleased with myself on this little invention. I have been building this one in my head since last Thanksgiving, when I made this caramel-apple cake. A few months later I got the idea for a mascarpone icing when I saw this recipe on pinterset. From there, I Frankensteined together my creation. So, without further ado.....

Honey Cake

Hellooooooooo! I took a little break, but I. AM. BACK! Summer is on the way out the door, the heat has *finally* broken here in Chicago and I'm back in my kitchen. I don't know when fall officially starts, but here in Julie Vision world, it's up and running. I love fall. I the weather; the flavors; bonfires; hoodie sweatshirts; Thanksgiving; everything short of raking leaves, I love.  For me, the start of fall eating is signaled by Rosh Hashanah. For those of you who do not celebrate Rosh Hashana, it is the Jewish New Year. The Rosh Hashanah meal consists of sweet fall flavors to celebrate the season and project sweetness into the year to come. These flavors include apples, honey, and pomegranate. One traditional desert to serve at your meal is honey cake.

Going back to my love of all things fall-- I love honey cake! Though this is a lesser known fall desert, I find it to be a fantastic fall-food-starter. It has great warm, fall flavor, without being pumpkin or apple. I love pumpkin and apple, but, in a season where you can get pumpkin flavored everything--from your coffee to your car air freshener--this sweet, fall-spiced cake is a good one to work into your fall baking rotation. Plus, this recipe is super easy. Double plus, I love to eat it for breakfast. (Cake is *totally* an acceptable breakfast......right? If you aren't sure if that's true, tell yourself it's acceptable to eat holiday foods for breakfast in celebration of your own culture or someone else's culture.....that just makes you worldly.) :-)

The Cookie-Cake-Brownie Cake

Photo by Donya

For Erin's 30th birthday, there needed to be an amazing cake. Not just an amazing looking cake, but an amazing tasting cake. (Have you met the woman? Don't let the skinny exterior fool you-- girl can proudly pack in the desserts like a champ!) I struggled for some time to come up with the best cake idea, and finally, it came to me. Why limit the cake to cake?? I immediately busted out my spring form pan and set to work on the Cookie-Cake-Brownie. This was one layer of chocolate chip cookie, one layer of vanilla-butter cake, and one layer of brownie. I made all three of theses ahead of time and froze them so that I could stack/decorate them the day before the party.

Photo by Donya

Photo by my phone. Not as awesome as photos by Donya. :-)

Iced Sugar Cookies

First and foremost, this post starts with a massive shout out to Donya, who not only assisted in making these cookies, but took all the amazing photos that you see in this post. AND, she let me use her stand mixer. STAND MIXER!!! I wanted to steal it, but it wouldn't fit inside my jacket.

I'll back up a moment-- these cookies happened because Donya and I worked with Erin's husband to throw her a surprise 30th birthday party. We had to be awwwwwfully sneaky to do this, because, as far as Erin knew, Donya and I had only met in passing and didn't really know each other. This was true, except that we spent the past month emailing 320482304234723948732 times a day planning the party. (and giggling.)

As this party took place over an hour from where I live, but only about fifteen minutes from where Donya lives, we decided that the day before the party was going to be 'last minute errands-decoration making-baking slumber party of fun.' And it was just that! We finished all the last minute decorations (pics to come!), iced the cupcakes (posts to come!), baked up a batch of these bad boys, and still had time to go out for a fabulous dinner and do a load of laundry. I've now determined we are the best party planners ever, and shall henceforth be referred to as "Crooked Vision." :-) (The universe that exists in my brain is SO AWESOME, you have no idea.)

Crooked Vision!!!!!

The recipe itself has been in my family for over 150 years and came from my great-great-great-great-great grandma on my mom's side. The original recipe calls for lard, but over the years it has been adapted to shortening-- I do not recommend using butter! The cookies have a light, cakey, texture and freeze really well. (No, YOU repeatedly got caught stealing frozen cookies out of your grandma's freezer.) This is the recipe we use for Christmas cookies, or really any kind of celebration. My grandma still mails me a box of these on special occasions, because my grandma is awesome.

Sheep Cupcake Decorating Tutorial

I was invited to Easter at a friend's house this year and was very excited at the prospect of baking cute, kid friendly Easter things.  This is the first time I've done any Easter baking, and everyone told me that meant I had to make a lamb cake. I googled lamb cake. I entertained the idea for about a twenty-four seconds before one of the ladies at work mentioned that, unless you really know what you are doing, the head of the lamb cake often falls off. I'm a lot of things, but I am NOT the guest who shows up with the decapitated lamb on Easter. (Maybe on Christmas.........;-))

Risk of headless lamb aside, I continued to google and see if I could find an adaptation of the lamb cake that held less risk of accidental, offensive, mutilation. I came up with these little lamb cupcakes that are SO CUTE!! (My inspiration came from here and here.)

What you need to make these little sheepy cupcakes:

- One dozen cupcakes (I used the dark chocolate cake recipe here. I wanted the cupcakes to have nice, high, domes on top, so to bake them, I started them at 450* for seven minutes, then took them down to 350*F for another seven. This process makes them 'poof' more while baking.)

'Poofy' cupcake

- Approximately two cups thick white icing. (I think one store bought can would do it, but I used the recipe below since it is easy and tastes better than canned icing.)

- One medium sized bag mini-marshmallows.

- One dozen Milano cookies. (Chocolate ones also make cute little sheep, but they are more difficult to find.)

- Two dozen mini-chocolate chips or two dozen candy eyes. (I used Wilton candy eyes.)

Passover Bagels

So, anyone who has ever been to a Passover Seder knows that Passover baking is not always the finest. During Passover, those who celebrate remove all grains and grain based items from their homes, with the exception of matzo and flour made from matzo. We also refrain for eating anything with leavening, such as yeast, baking powder, or baking soda. (This article does a good job of explaining the basics, if you are interested.) Naturally, this makes baking complicated. Things tend to not taste quite like what they are trying to be and often end up like edible rocks.

My family celebrated almost every year of my childhood with another family, and that other family always made Passover Bagels. The matriarch of the other family, Susan, remains to this day as one of my favorite adult figures from my childhood. Susan didn't cook-- in the whole of my youth, I recall her making a total of three things, all of which made repeated appearances at various functions: orange jello mold, caramel brownies, and passover bagels. All three were delicious. Though Susan passed away a number of years ago, I think of her every Passover, and this year, I tried my hand at her Passover bagels.

Before we get to the recipe, keep a few things in mind: 1) generally, these don't look exactly like bagels-- in fact they look a little bit of a mess; 2) they won't taste like regular bagels; 3) despite items 1 and 2, they are delicious. Susan used to make hers the size of regular bagels, I made mine a bit smaller so that they can be eaten like a dinner roll with the Passover meal.