So now that the craziness of Christmas is over, there's tons of leftovers... in our house, there's not usually leftovers of Christmas dinner or anything like that. Our leftovers? Cookies, cookies and more cookies.

All of them got the same cookies, but the boxes were somewhat different. One family has an adorable little boy, who's maybe 2 1/2 years old, so I gave them extra chocolate chip cookies. Another family has a golden labrador that my pup loves to sniff through the fence, so I gave them a baggy with some of the homemade doggy treats that my pup loves. The last neighbour couple got extra of each kind of cookie, because they share fresh-picked fruit with us and I share my fresh-picked tomatoes with them. Being the youngest couple in our neighbourhood, I look up to some of the other couples and feel grateful for the good neighbours we have.

So I did some fairly standard cookies this year, and only 2 of the recipes were family recipes. (Most of my family's recipes would have taken me the whole week to make, and I only decided on Christmas Eve to give cookies. That's the procrastinator coming out again.) Aside from the chocolate chip cookies, I also made my grandmother's recipe snickerdoodles, which was supposed to be made with all vegetable shortening. Despite trying to stay true to my grandmother, I had to deviate and use butter for half of the fat. These cookies are perfectly soft and tasty, but do NOT overcook them or they turn crispy. Snickerdoodles shouldn't be crispy!

Snickerdoodles:

1/2 c. butter, softened
Whipped Shortbread (adapted from Chow Times):

1 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. icing sugar
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla bean paste (or 1/2 of a scraped vanilla bean)
2 Tbsp. cornstarch

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Line your baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Mix together butter, sugar, salt, cornstarch and flour. Pulse your mixer or handmixer, to keep from being covered in flour (aka "the flour monster"). Mix until smooth. Add extract and vanilla and mix well.
3. Whip batter for 10 minutes, until it looks like fresh whipped cream.
4. Place batter in either a pastry bag or a plastic baggie with the corner snipped off. Pipe batter into 2 inch disks, 2 in. apart. (Chow Times has an excellent visual of how these look when piped.)
5. Wet your finger and gently press down the points of the cookie (if these are left sticking up, they'll burn). OR you can place a piece of candy over the point before baking.
6. Bake for 17 to 20 minutes, until very lightly golden brown. Remove and let cool on the sheet. (I have a hard time getting these to cool on a wire rack without falling apart.)

And last but not least, I had to make the ever popular gingerbread cookie. I've used a different version every year, and I'm still on the fence about this particular recipe. It's tasty, but it doesn't taste quite the same as others I've had. I'm wondering if it's the type of molasses I used... wasn't blackstrap but the acidity is a bit much.

One part of these cookies I loved was that I got to use Royal Icing for the first time! I have so much Royal Icing left over, I've been tempted to just eat it by the spoonful. *shifty eyes* Yes... only tempted...

I got the RecipeZaar.com link to this recipe from Em, The Repressed Pastry Chef. Her little people are obviously much nicer, but I happen to like my psychadelic coloured man, the abstract tree and my version of a 70's gingerbread man. :-D The Royal Icing recipe is from Williams Sonoma, and the only deviation I made was to use Wilton Clear Vanilla Extract and Gel colors.

Sorry for being so late with jumping on the Christmas cookie bandwagon, but at least it happened! lol Hope everyone had a great holiday season!