These are excellent and quite pretty on a plate. Alexa *********************************************************** Holly Berry Cookies Servings: 12 Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup white sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 3/4 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup butter, chilled 1 egg 1/4 cup milk 2/3 cup seedless raspberry jam 2 cups confectioners' sugar 2 tablespoons milk 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/4 cup cinnamon red hot candies 4 drops green food coloring Directions: 1. In a large bowl combine the flour, white sugar, ground cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In a small bowl beat the egg and 1/4 cup of milk. Add this to the crumb mixture until the dough is moistened. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. 2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). 3. On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thick. Cut with a 2 inch round cookie cutter. Place on ungreased baking sheets. 4. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool on wire racks. Once cool spread jam on half of the cookies then top each with another cookie. 5. To Make Glaze: Combine the confectioners' sugar, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla until smooth. Spread glaze over the cookie and decorate with red cinnamon candy before the glaze is set. Let dry. Using a small new paintbrush and green food coloring, paint holly leaves on cookies.

Have any of you tried Oreo Cookie Balls yet? My husband brought me one home that someone at his office made. It was so good! I plan to make them for our holiday party this year. They sound very easy to make. Only three ingredients and no baking. If any of you are familiar with chocolate wafer ice box cake these work on the same principle. 1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened 36 OREO Cookies, finely crushed (about 3 cups) 4 pkg. (4 oz. each) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, broken into pieces, melted MIX cream cheese and cookie crumbs until blended. SHAPE into 48 (1-inch) balls. Freeze 10 min. Dip balls in melted chocolate; place in single layer in shallow waxed paper-lined pan. REFRIGERATE 1 hour or until firm. Here is a link that might be useful: Oreo cookie balls

AH, the art of cake making... For a tender cake you'll always benefit from choosing a low-protein flour like cake flour, pastry flour or Southern all-purpose. Not only the low-gluten (protein) level, but it's also a much smaller particle. The fine-grind helps produce better texture. Cake flour is typically bleached (something I avoid if at all possible), but King Arthur Flour has unbleached cake flour (see link below). But saying that, there ARE some benefits from using bleached cake flour... (source: CookWise by Shirley O. Corriher) -Bleached flour is slightly acid. -The acidity causes the cake to set slightly sooner in the oven, which produces cakes with a finer texture. -Rose Levy Beranbaum points out that lower-pH (more acid) batters produce a sweeter, more aromatic quality in cakes. -Clorination (bleaching) enhances the starches ability to absorb water. -Fat sticks to chlorinated starch but not to starch from the same wheat that has not been chlorinated. Since all the air bubbles are in the fat, this leads to a more even distribution of the bubbles, which produces a finer texture. Cake flour is milled from soft wheat varieties (low-protein varieties), while all-purpose flour is milled from a mixture of hard and soft wheat. Therefore, "all-purpose" flour is designed for all purposes. Just enough hard wheat flour to make a fairly good loaf of yeast bread, and enough soft flour to use for pastry, quick breads, etc. Unfortunately, it's actually not optimal for most things it's used for. Bread flour is milled from hard wheat varieties which have higher gluten/protein levels needed for high-rising yeast breads. I mill my own flour and use a 3:1 mixture of soft white wheat and oat groats or spelt and mill it very fine for a low gluten, wholegrain cake flour that will work for light cakes like chiffon and angel food. I compensate for using unbleached flour by increasing the sugar slightly. You will also find using a Southern All-Purpose flour like Martha White, White Lily, Gladiola, Red Band, will work better in recipes where you don't want a lot of gluten-development (cakes, pastry, biscuits, quick breads, etc...) than using National brands of all-purpose (Gold Medal, Pillsbury). If you normally use King Arthur or Robin Hood all-purpose, they have even more protein than National Brands of all-purpose and I'd avoid using them for baked goods you don't want a lot of gluten-development. If you MUST use these high-protein flours for things like pastry or biscuits, you can compensate by adding more fat, which coats the flour and prevents it from developing when the liquid is added. It's also beneficial to keep mixing to a minimum when making a cake to avoid over-developing the gluten. Mixing methods produce different kinds of cakes. If lightness is what you are looking for, take extreme care on the creaming. You want your butter to be between 65-70°F (take the temperature with an instant read thermometer). You may even want to chill the bowl and the beaters before starting the creaming to keep the temperature on the cold side. While one "expert" recommends creaming for 4 to 5 minutes, another for 6 to 10 minutes, it's a very important step. If you use a stand mixer it will take less time than if you use a hand-held mixer. Make sure your eggs are room temperature. The volume of the cake can be reduced just by adding cold eggs. It may sound old-fashioned and extra work, but sifting the dry ingredients together several times will help to evenly distribute the ingredients and improve the finished product. Don't forget to add the dry and liquid ingredients alternately. I like to add a lot of the dry ingredients in the first addition to the creamed ingredients because the fat will coat the flour to prevent gluten formation. Add about 1/3 of the liquid and mix, more flour, etc. Keep mixing to a bare minimum to prevent gluten-development. I use a Danish Dough Whisk for mixing batters of any kind to avoid over-developing the gluten. -Grainlady

Barb, I am only partly helping you, I am afraid. But one easy way to make great cookies is to take a brownie mix and leave out the water. Just add the egg and oil. Form into balls and bake at 350 for about 12 minutes. Unfortunately, these are not low cal, especially if you drizzle white chocolate on after they have cooled. Another option, again, not exactly what you are looking for, is to take a cake mix and combine it with a can (15 oz) of pumpkin pack. Mix well and put in cupcake pans. I don't remember the baking time, but I would estimate 25 min at 350, depending on the size of the cupcakes. You could do these as mini muffins, which would give you a cookie-like portion. Jo