Christmas Goodies

These are one of Martin's favorite holiday cookies! Since finding Paula Deen's recipe, I have made them for him every Christmas.

White Choocolate-Cherry Chunkies

1 stick Butter, softened

1 cup Brown Sugar

1 cup Sugar

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

3 cups Flour (Possibly a bit more, if dough is not stiff)

1 tsp Baking Soda

½ tsp Salt

2 Tbs. Milk

1 cup chopped Macadamia Nuts

½ (to 1) cup candied Cherries

1 ½ cups White Chocolate Chips

*Preheat oven to 375.

*In medium bowl, cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Set aside.

*Sift together flour, soda and salt. Add milk to the butter mixture and then add the flour mixture. Mix just until combined. Batter should be stiff!!

*Add cherries, nuts and chips, stirring ONLY to blend. Drop by heaping tablespoons full onto a greased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake for 11-13 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

**We found it needed a bit more flour. Martin wanted more cherries.

**The baking time for us was more like 8 ½-9 minutes.

**Dependent on your weather, the dough needed to be refrigerated before baking and definitely in between batches, or it gets soft and sticky. At least it did in 2008, as it was HOT!!! This year, I had no trouble.

Pretzel logs dipped in various chocolates, caramels, etc... and then rolled or dipped in chopped peanuts, coconut, mini chocolate chips, white choc. chips, crushed Butterfinger bars, etc... then drizzled with more colorful candy making melts/chocolates. YUMMY!! We had these at our Christmas buffet, at our Family Christmas dinner 2 days later and finished them off at our New Year's eve party!


The is a Crescent Holiday Appetizer Tree (find it and the recipe at Kraftfoods.com) made for our family Christmas Buffet.
This tree is made from 2 rolls of Pillsbury Crescent dough (the recipe calls for 1, but it looked so small, so I doubled it. Impressive to see, but was WAY too much) Unwrap, but not unroll the dough. Slice into 16 thin slices. Arrange on a baking sheet in a triangle, with the final pc. being the trunk. Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes.
Spread with your choice of flavored cream cheese. Buy an 8 oz. sour cream and chive type or make your own blend. This one has a spicy chipotle mixture in it.
Decorate with strips of bell pepper for the garland and other chopped colorful veggies for the decorations/baubles. Such as broccoli, thin carrot slices, red or green onions, cauliflower, yellow bell pepper, etc...
I didn't have a tray large enough to serve iton, so I left it on the baking pan. Making it smaller next time!!