My Favorite Holiday Baking Gifts and Quick Knits.
These are my Mom’s recipes for the baked gifts she would always make our friends and nighbors at Christmas. We defiantly were’t a family who bought a million presents so these were the treats she would make once a year to take to people we cared about and I know we all looked forward to them. I have been making them for gifts myself for the past 10 years at this point I’d say and they are just scribbled on snaps of paper in my recipe box so I figured they deserved to be shared. The great thing about these three recipes is they sort of go together for a savory sweet treat. They also all involve rolling things into little balls so you can just make one huge mess in the kitchen and then clean it all up and be done. You also kind of just get on a “roll” with it. Also kids seem to love the part where you get to roll things in sugar so it’s pretty easy to out source some of the rolling while you pick up.
The order I recommend making them in is
Ginger Cookies
Sasage Ball
Bourbon Balls
This way your getting your baking out of the way and the cookies can firm up while you are doing the rest. The Bourbon balls just go in the fridge for a bit and they are the messiest so by the time I’m done with them I just want to wash my hands and be done.
Mom’s Ginger Cookies
These are fantastic with Milk Santa also enjoys them every year. I’ve been told he enjoys the mix up from Chocolate Chip. This keeps me on the good list all year.
2/3 cup Veggie Oil
1 cup Sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup Molasses
2 cups AP Flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon baking Soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 cup sugar for rolling
combine oil , sugar and egg in large mixing bowl beat well
sitre in molasses
Mix together dry ingredients and slowly add them to the mixing bowl with the wet.
Roll the sort of stiff dough into smallish balls and roll in sugar. Bake them on a cookie sheet with parchment paper at 350 Degrees for 10 min.
Keep the oven on and move on to the Sausage balls after you get the Cookes cooling on plates and off of your pans
The Best Sausage Balls
I could eat these ALL DAY It’s a problem. They are great cold or zapped in the microwave for a few seconds. My husband eats them for breakfast all Christmas break.
1 pound uncooked Jimmie Dean Style breakfast sausage
1 pound grated Sharp Cheddar cheese
3 cups Bisquick ( any baking mix )
mix it all together in a mixing bowl. I add a tad of water along and a long as need be to help make the balls.
Bake on a cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 15 minutes
Bourbon Balls
These started out as a rum ball recipe but since my husband collects bourbon and we live in East TN we have a house full of bourbon and no rum. We now prefer it this way.
2 1/2 cups of crushed vanilla wafers
1 cup powdered Sugar
2 Tablespoons cocoa
1 cup chipped walnuts or pecans
3 tablespoons corn syrup
1/4 cup bourbon ( We have been using the Basil Hayden that was aged in rum barrels but use whatever you want. )
Run the cookies and walnuts though a food processor or however you like to chop things and them mix all of the ingredients except the powered sugar together in a mixing bowl.
Roll the dough into balls and then roll them in powdered sugar. Let them chill in the fridge. They are fantastic and people always devour them.
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