Ingredients

Christmas is one of the funnest times of the year for homeschooling!  You can decorate the tree, listen to Christmas music, shop and wrap gifts, make home-made cards – and especially bake cookies!

Today Leah and I made home-made sugar cookies with vanilla frosting, green sugar, colored sprinkles, and chocolate chips. Yum!  I am taking the extra ones tomorrow to the Women’s Aglow Bible study meeting – then I won’t eat them!

Here are the basic ingredients for Ray’s grandmother Forte’s sugar cookie recipe:

1 cup oleo
1 cup Wesson oil
2 cups sugar
A pinch of salt

I threw in a few more things like a couple of cloves, and a little of nutmeg, allspice, and cinnamon.

Beat ingredients well in large bowl.

We mixed the oleo, Wesson oil, sugar, and salt with these extra ingredients. Beat well in a large bowl.

Now you add the following ingredients:
2 eggs
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon extract
4 1/2 cups of sifted flour

I don’t really enjoy cooking (Gasp! Shocking confession of a homeschooling mom!), but I do like baking. Leah enjoys baking with me, especially stirring the ingredients with a big spoon, lol.  She had a fun time today sifting the flour and icing her cookies, putting the colored sprinkles and green sugar on them.

Teaching your kids the different tools in the kitchen, such as a flour sifter, and baking or cooking can be a fun part of home economics, counting as part of their school work.

flour sifter

After you have mixed the ingredients well, then you bake the cookies on a cookie sheet at 300 to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 7 to 10 minutes.

If you like your frosting gooey and sticky, go ahead and spread it on the cookie while it’s still warm. Then you can sprinkle it with the green sugar or colored sprinkles.

For the chocolate chip sugar cookies, place a few, semi-sweet chocolate drops onto each cookie after you have rolled the dough into little balls and put them on your cookie sheet. I first spray a little bit of baking spray onto the sheet to keep the cookies from sticking. The spray does make it cook faster so you have to watch it (our first batch was too done on the bottom.)   The chocolate melts just a little in the oven -it’s wonderful!

“Make a list of important things to do today. At the top of your list, put ‘eat chocolate.’ Now, you’ll get at least one thing done today.” ~ Unknown author

Of course the best part of all when you’re baking  is the eating! 🙂  Here is Leah’s decorated cookie.

Leah's decorated cookie

What are your favorite Christmas goodies to bake?  Share in the comments below.

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