Cookie Boxes 2008

For the last few years, I’ve had grand plans to give all of our friends and family with massive platters or boxes overflowing with various kinds of home baked cookies and candies.  For the last few years, I’ve fallen severely short of that goal, managing only a dozen or so poorly decorated cookies for my family and The Picky Apple’s family.  In the past, I’ve always felt like my “dream” cookie tray would include beautifully iced sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies.

Well things are changing this year, folks.  Over the weekend, I had a marathon baking session and baked nearly 300 cookies.  Definitely a first for me!  I had even more planned, but I really just ran out of steam on Sunday evening.  I avoided the sugar and gingerbread cookies completely.  I didn’t want to deal with cookie cutters and piping on the frosting.  (I definitely want to practice my piping skills, but not for my cookie gifts!) Without further ado, I proudly present, my Cookie Boxes 2008!!  (One sad note, The Picky Apple and I got so carried away with giving away the cookies that we failed to get pictures of 3 of the individual cookies.  The box shown below doesn’t show the Peppermint Pinwheels or the Oreo Truffles.)

I got these adorable boxes at Michael’s.  In addition to the gingerbread man shown here, some boxes had Santa and others had snowmen.  Again, no picture of those boxes because we gave them all away before the photos!

And check out my cute labels!  I ordered these from Tiny Prints when I ordered our photo cards of The Littlest Apple.  They didn’t exactly coordinate with all of the boxes, but I loved them anyway!

Here’s a rundown of all the goodies, with links to the recipe for each:

World Peace Cookies– I read about this recipe from Dorie Greenspan everywhere this time last year.  I’m only a year late trying them.  They are chocolate cookies with chocolate chunks and fleur de sel.  Any chocolate lover’s dream, and I LOVE the saltiness of the cookie.

Chocolate Turtle Cookies– from Cook’s Country magazine.  These look and taste amazing!

Oreo Truffles– a super easy no bake recipe that even the most novice baker could handle!

Peppermint Pinwheel Cookies– from Southern Living.  Getting the dough assembled for the pinwheel cookies was a little tricky, but I love the combo of the sugar cookies with the peppermint cream cheese frosting.  Yum!

Blissful Cranberry Cookies-I originally had another cranberry cookie recipe picked out, but I loved that this one had crystalized ginger in addition to the cranberries, pecans, and white chocolate.  Crispy and delicious!

Here are my thoughts on the cookies as a group…I used 5 untested recipes, which I suppose was a little bit of a gamble.  They all turned out yummy, so I guess I lucked out.  My cookies were heavy on the chocolate and nuts because well, that’s what I love.  For those that don’t like chocolate and/or nuts, their only choice would be the Peppermint Pinwheels.  If I had to do it over again, I’d probably switch out one of the 3 chocolate cookies or add a 6th cookie.  Additionally, I didn’t take the prep time of each cookie into consideration much….3 of the 5 required refrigeration of the dough before you could bake.  Not a deal breaker, but I should have planned ahead better to maximize my weekend baking time.

My favorites?  It’s a tie between the World Peace Cookies and the Chocolate Turtle Cookies.  Those two are definitely recipes I’ll come back to again and again in the future.

Whether you got to taste these cookies or not, which recipe is your favorite?  I’ve taken an informal poll from some of the recipients of my cookie boxes, and I’ve gotten lots of different answers!