Betty Crocker - Betty Crocker Christmas Cookies: HMH Selects

Christmas Cookies Wiley Selects Copyright 2010 by General Mills, Minneapolis, Minnesota. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Trademarks: Wiley and the Wiley logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons and/or its affiliates. All other trademarks referred to herein are trademarks of General Mills.

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For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (877) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002. Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com. ISBN: 978-1-118-24289-6 (ebk); ISBN: 978-1-118-24293-3 (ebk) Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Cover photo: General Mills Editorial Director: Jeff Nowak Manager, Cookbooks: Lois Tlusty Food Editor: Andi Bidwell Recipe Development and Testing: Betty Crocker Kitchens Photography and Food Styling: General Mills Photography Studios and Image Library John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Publisher: Natalie Chapman Executive Editor: Anne Ficklen Editor: Cecily McAndrews Production Manager: Michael Olivo Cover Design: Suzanne Sunwoo Art Director: Tai Blanche Layout: Indianapolis Composition Services Manufacturing Manager: Kevin Watt Dear friends, When the holiday season rolls around, we bet you cant wait to get out your cookie recipes once again. Its no wonder Christmas is the traditional time to bake these sweet treats: theyre wonderful for holiday entertaining, great as gifts, simple to bake-and they make the house smell heavenly! A busy schedule makes it hard to spend hours in the kitchen (and what busier time is there than Christmas?), so weve included a chapter of easy cookies and bars. Simply take your favorite cake or cookie mix, mix it up with a few simple additions, and voila! fresh, hot goodies for your family to enjoy. A holiday cookie swap is a much-beloved tradition in communities across the nation, and for good reason: in addition to spending time with friends, you can pick up a variety of sweets for your family to enjoy. In the Cookies to Share chapter, each recipe makes four dozen cookies or more, so theres plenty to go around. Family Favorites and Extra-Special Cookies and Bars offer goodies for everyone from the smallest cookie-munchers to your most sophisticated guests.

From , we have gathered all the best Christmas treats. Happy Holidays! Warmly, top ten baking secrets 1. Start with the right ingredients. Most of our recipes call for butter and/or margarine. (Some call for butter only.) Be sure to use the regular varieties of each, not the light, whipped or spreadable choices. For best results when using margarine, select one that contains at least 80 percent vegetable oil (this type of margarine will have 100 calories per tablespoon).

Use all-purpose flour unless otherwise specified in the recipe. 2. Measure correctly. Nested metal or plastic measuring cups ranging from 14 to 1 cup are used for dry ingredients such as sugar and flour, and for solid fats such as butter or shortening. For flour and sugar, lightly spoon the ingredient into the cup, then level it off. For butter, margarine, shortening and brown sugar, spoon into the cup and pack down firmly with a spatula or spoon, then level off.

Glass or see-through plastic measuring cups are used to measure liquids. Place the measuring cup on a flat surface, and read the measurement at eye level. 3. Chill dough if necessary. This step, especially on shaped or cutout cookies, ensures easier handling. 4. 4.

Choose the best cookie sheets. Shiny, smooth-surface or textured aluminum cookie sheets provide the best baking results. If using dark nonstick or glass baking pans, follow the manufacturers directions, usually reducing the oven temperature by 25F. Cookie sheets should be at least 2 inches shorter and narrower than the inside dimensions of your oven, so heat can circulate around them. For even baking, bake cookies on the middle oven rack and bake one sheet at a time. 5. 5.

Prepare cookie sheets as necessary. The recipe directions will indicate whether or not to grease the cookie sheets. To grease, use shortening or cooking spray. Cooking parchment paper can replace greasing. Parchment paper, available in the grocery store near the foil, can be torn to the length of the cookie sheet and placed on the sheet, curled side down. 6.

Bake a test cookie. Before baking an entire sheet of cookies, take the time to bake a test cookie. If the cookie spreads too much, add additional flour to the dough, 1 tablespoon at a time, until dough feels a bit firmer. If the test cookie is too firm and/or dry, fix the dough by mixing in 1 to 2 tablespoons milk until the dough holds together better. 7. Mix, bake and decorate in stages.

Most cookie doughs can be refrigerated or frozen for baking later. Store cookie dough in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator up to 3 days, or freeze up to 6 months. Once cookies are baked, cover them tightly and decorate within a few days, or freeze them and decorate when you have the time. 8. Line pans for perfect bars. To cut bars evenly, line pans with foil.