Welcome to the third issue of the 2003 season for the Christmas-Cookies.com newsletter. Keep reading for exclusive recipes, baking tips, new cookbooks, and more!

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View our past newsletters for more tips and recipes

• Easy Holiday Quick Breads: Tips & Recipes
• Recipe: White Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
• Recipe: Almond Thins

• Article: A Dash of Cinnamon, A Pinch of the Past, A Smidgen of the Future
• More Christmas Cookie Recipes!

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by Rachel Paxton

Quick breads are a quick, easy accompaniment to any holiday meal.

For the best-tasting holiday quick breads, here are some helpful
hints:

• Only grease the bottoms of the loaf pans or the sides of the bread will pull away from the sides of the baking pan.
• Bake in the center of the center rack of the oven.
• When adding liquids to the dry ingredients, stir only until dry ingredients are moistened. Batter will be lumpy.
• Quick breads can be made ahead and frozen from 1 to 2 months.

Cranberry Pumpkin Bread

2 eggs, beaten slightly
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup canned pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine eggs, sugar, vegetable oil, and pumpkin, mixing well. Combine flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center of the batter and add the pumpkin. Stir in cranberries. Spoon batter into 2 greased and floured loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour.

Cranberry Bread

2 cups flour
1 egg
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup cranberries, sliced
1 cup sugar
1 cup nuts, chopped (optional)
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon baking soda
Juice and rind of 1 orange
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add water to orange juice to make 3/4 cup liquid. Mix all ingredients together and pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake for 30 minutes.

Pumpkin Bread

5 cups flour
4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 large can pumpkin
2 cups nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together vegetable oil, sugar, and eggs. In another bowl, mix together flour and baking soda. Add flour and pumpkin alternately to the egg mixture. Add nuts. Pour into 2 greased loaf pans. Bake for 1 hour.

Apple Bread

3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/4 cups oil
2 apples, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients until well blended. Pour batter into 2 greased loaf pans. Bake for about 1 hour.

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom who is the author of What's for Dinner?, an e-cookbook containing more than 250 quick easy dinner ideas. For more holiday recipes, organizing tips, home
decorating, crafts, holiday hints, and more, visit Creative Homemaking at http://www.creativehomemaking.com.

More tips for Quick Breads:

• Quick breads make wonderful home-made gifts at Christmas time
• They are much lower in fat than their cookie counterparts
• They are quicker and easier to prepare than (dare we say it...) Christmas cookies!
• They are great for breakfast on Christmas morning
• They can be baked in disposable loaf pans or even in used coffee cans, and presented right in the pan

1. 49 easy and delicious recipes perfect for gift-giving or just impressing your guests
2. Heartwarming short stories that will help you get in the Christmas mood
3. Wonderful color photography of each recipe
4. Professional baking tips for best results and minimum fuss
5. All you need to know about packaging cookies for shipping and gift-giving
6. Consistent best-seller at Amazon.com!

Psssst....it's on sale at other booksellers....click here to see the full list and sale prices as low as $10.68.

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White Chocolate Peppermint Cookies - No Bake!

Good selection for early Christmas baking as it freezes well. Recipe submitted by Julia Ryan.

1 pound white chocolate or melting wafers
1 cup crushed candy canes
1 cup toasted pecans, coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon clear vanilla extract (or regular vanilla extract)

Melt chocolate in the top of a double boiler over hot (not boiling) water. Stir until all chocolate is melted and smooth. Quickly add other ingredients and mix by hand. The mixture will start to harden - put it in the microwave at half power for 20 seconds. Drop cookies by teaspoons onto waxed paper.
Chill until set. Can be stored at room temperature in covered container.

Almond Thins

This recipe is from Traci Hurley of Burlington, Ontario, who writes: "The following recipe is a long-time family favourite ... we get asked for the recipe all the time!"

graham crackers (enough to cover the bottom of a cookie sheet with raised edges)
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup pecan pieces
1 cup butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar

Pre-heat oven to 350 F. Spread graham crackers over the bottom of a cookie sheet to cover. Sprinkle almonds and pecans over crackers. In a saucepan, melt and boil the butter and brown sugar for 3 to 4 minutes, DO NOT STIR! Spoon the butter mixture over the crackers and bake for 10 minutes. (Sugar mixture will bubble over the crackers). Lift out and let cool further on a wire rack. Keeps in freezer for months.

For over 365 more Christmas recipes, visit www.Christmas-Cookies.com!

by Kristin Johnson

Close your eyes and remember December,the smell of cinnamon in your mother's or grandmother's kitchen and the warm scent of dough baking in the oven. Imagine opening the oven door and, with assistance, taking out the heated cookie sheet. Devour the cookies, small works of art, with your eyes: Fudge Brownies, Gingerbread, Nut Rolls, Painted Cookies, Sugar Cookies... With each bite, taste your childhood and family history. You can trace your blood and traditions not by DNA, genealogies and family heirlooms, but by recipes given from one generation to the next, like oral histories handed down in clans before recorded fact caught on.

Scholars once sniffed at "women's lore," but the notations of "1 dash nutmeg" and "1 cup chopped nuts," when handwritten on a yellowing page, are as important to memorize as the dates of the American Revolution. They are a tangible reminder of love, care and craft in any society, but particularly in America, where encouragement to eat bags of artificially sweetened store-bought Christmas sweets leave people sugar-craving, guilty, physically and emotionally empty Christmas cookies are the opposite of this trend. They represent home, family, comfort, joy, and tradition.

It's a miraculous event when generations gather around the stove to spend a day together, getting their hands dirty and sharing of themselves. It is miraculous because those memories are irreplaceable. It's miraculous because children get curious and ask, for example, "Why are the Christmas cookies German? What was Christmas like when you were my age? Did Santa Claus visit you?"

Mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather can share with children the family history and everyday moments in the past, such as, "Your grandmother made a mistake and measured one cup of walnuts when the recipe called for half a cup. But the cookies tasted better, so to this day we always use 1 cup of walnuts in the recipe." By reliving these rare glimpses of a life you may have forgotten, you honor and
celebrate yourself as well as your family. Christmas cookies themselves transmit and record history and tradition.

In addition, Christmas cookies are a thread to Christmas past, not only our past, but long past. The word cookie came about thanks to Dutch settlers in North America during the 1700s to 1900s. Koek is Dutch for cake, so koekje, later cookie in English, means "little cake." Christmas cookies like German Springerle continue the custom of serving Christmas baked goods started by the Romans, Teutonic/Germanic tribes, and other pre-Christian civilizations. Christian religions sanctified these symbols of worship of the harvest gods by adding a "J" on the top to mark the breads as offerings to Jesus Christ. Ancient European peoples ate gingerbread at Winter Solstice feasts. When you bake gingerbread and Springerle, you're participating in a tradition that endures.

In that spirit, here is a recipe for successful cookie-making:

Start with 1 family, 1 kitchen, and a box of recipes. Add an uninterrupted period of time. Subtract phone calls, televisions, or any other distractions. For best results, add the Prayer Before Baking from the book CHRISTMAS COOKIES ARE FOR GIVING:

"God bless this mixture with the sweetest and tastiest ingredients:
joy, faith, family, friendship, love, and health. Let the scent of
this holiday offering rise to Heaven and make the angels sing, for
the happiness of mankind is their feast. Let us taste our blessings
with each bite as we share the company of our loved ones. Amen."

Sprinkle with laughter. Add amusing family stories with a lavish hand. Fold in 1 cup patience and understanding, blended with 1 gallon youthful enthusiasm and a pinch of baking know-how. Eat your
mistakes with joy. Bake lovingly and well. Enjoy warm, delicious, Christmas miracle cookie-baking memories for years to come!

_______________________________________________________

Copyright October 24, 2003 --- Kristin Johnson is an award-winning writer whose book, Christmas Cookies Are For Giving, co-written with Mimi Cummins, makes a perfect holiday gift! Order now from http://www.christmascookiesareforgiving.com.

24 No-Bake Recipes
10 Cookies In A Jar Recipes
15 Fudge Recipes

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