Cookie Trees

Boy, do I love holiday cookies. I also love that its tacitly okay to eat like 10 a day. (Please don't tell my gym instructors I just said that). But if you're going to eat that many, you need a nice variety, right? So it doesn't seem like you just ate the whole package of cookies? No no, you just sampled a few here and there from different groups. It's totally fine. What I love to do is make a "cookie tree" - stack different types of cookies in layers on a large paper/plastic plate, to make a pyramid. Wrap it up in green cellophane (or recycled paper), tied with curling ribbon right at the top of the pyramid. You can leave it there, but I like to add a sparkly star-shaped "pick" to make it festive. I find those at all the craft stores, or places like Garden Ridge. It's an easy way to make a simple, homemade gift that much more festive.

This year, I made my favorite Snickerdoodles and Peppermint Brownies, decorated store-bought sugar cookies with a few nieces/nephews and tried out a new spice cookie that turned out great: chocolate-garam masala-gingerbread cookies from Aarti Sequeira on the Food Network:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aarti-sequeira/garam-masala-chocolate-gingerbread-recipe/index.html

Give those a shot if you like a spice cookie. I was really happy with them, and I love Aarti - she was my favorite on Next Food Network Star from day 1 this season, and all of her recipes that I've tried are fantastic. For the Peppermint Brownies, just add about a Tbsp of peppermint extract to your regular brownie mix. The Snickerdoodles are here (you can use red/green colored sugar for the topping as well, but don't use JUST that - mix it in with the white sugar or they look TOO festive):

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/gale-gand/snickerdoodles-recipe/index.html

Here are my other favorite cookies that didn't make the Tree group this year, but that I plan to make next week:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chocolate-Candy-Cane-Cookies-233372

Happy Eating!