by Ellen Easton

Store bought or homemade a variety of holiday cookies are prefect for swaps, trimming the tree, gifts, and centerpieces or with a cup of tea.

Ellen Easton’s Chewy Ginger Cookies  Print This Post

3 1⁄2- cups all-purpose flour; 
2 tsp. baking soda; 
2 tsp. ground ginger; 
1 tsp. ground cinnamon; 
1 tsp. ground cloves; 
1- cup sweet butter, unsalted; 
1- cup white granulated sugar; 
2 large eggs; 
1⁄2- cup molasses; 
1 TBS Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Extract; Domino Brownulated sugar

{Optional- for extra zing add very finely diced crystallized ginger bits to the batter!}

Place all of the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix together. Cream the butter with one cup of white granulated sugar. Add the eggs, molasses and Vanilla extract. Blend well. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix together well. To avoid the batter from sticking to the paddles or your hands, dust with flour. On the paddles or in your hands roll the batter into one-inch balls. Roll each ball in the Brownulated or white granulated sugar. Separate two inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Preheat the oven 350 degrees. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until done. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool down. Delicious when served warm.

Ellen’s Mini Vanila Meringue Kiss   Print This Post

2 egg whites; 
1/2 cup superfine sugar; 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use a nonstick sheet. In a clean dry bowl, at a high speed, beat the egg whites, slowly add in the sugar and vanilla until stiff and shiny. The egg white should form standing peaks. Either pipe with a pastry bag or spoon into mini peaks in the shape of a “kiss” onto the baking sheet. Bake for one hour, until crisp. If the meringues look too dark, turn off the oven and allow to crisp inside the cooling oven. Yields: 40

Before baking, be inventive; add flavorings, cocoa, coconut flakes, chocolate bits, dried fruit bits or nuts to this batter. You can also add a drop of food coloring to change the color and colored sand sugar to dust the top.

Meringues are also used to make small baskets and cups or finger shapes. The baskets and cups may be used to hold berries, fillings and ice cream.

The fingers may be served, as is, or they may be filled with jam, chocolate ganache and other fillings and served closed.

Meringue can also be crumbled to sprinkle on top of other desserts or berries.

Ellen Easton’s Sugar Cookies  Print This Post

1/4 cup granulated sugar; 
1/2 cup melted butter; 
2 eggs, beaten; 1 tsp. vanilla extract; 
2 cups flour; 
2 tsp. baking powder; 
1/2 tsp. salt; 
Colored sanding sugar for decoration {Optional- Pinch of ground nutmeg, pinch of ground cinnamon}

In a dry bowl, blend sugar and butter together. Add beaten eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Add to the butter mixture and blend together well. Refrigerate and chill until pliable. Place the dough on a lightly floured board and roll to a 1/8” thickness. Cut to desired shapes with mini or small cookie cutters. Sprinkle with additional sugar. In a preheated oven- set at 350-degrees, bake for 6 to 12 minutes or until lightlybrowned on the edges. Remove from the oven and cool on wire racks. Yields 24 to 36

To make edible ornaments or napkin rings, using a dowel or a straw, place a hole in the dough, before baking.

Once the cookies have cooled, run a ribbon of your desired length through the hole and tie off in either a knot or a bow.

Use the ribbon portion to place the cookie ornament on the tree, centerpiece or mantle. If using as a napkin ring, place the napkin inside the ribbon and place on the table.

Additions to this recipe may include flavored extracts or liquors, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, coconut flakes, savories, fruits, herbs, savories and spices to taste.

This cookie is easily decorated with colored icing, sugars and sprinkles or painted with food coloring.

Platter of Walkers Shortbread and St. Denis Cookies

Recipes and Photos ©Ellen Easton

Ellen Easton, author of Afternoon Tea~Tips, Terms and Traditions (RED WAGON PRESS), an afternoon tea authority, lifestyle and etiquette industry leader, keynote speaker and product spokesperson, is a hospitality, design, and retail consultant whose clients have included the Waldorf=Astoria, the Plaza and Bergdorf Goodman. Easton’s family traces their tea roots to the early 1800s, when ancestors first introduced tea plants from India and China to the Colony of Ceylon, thus building one of the largest and best cultivated teas estates on the island.