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Aoife Ryan from Babaduck came up with this recipe and kindly sent it on to me as part of the Irish Food Bloggers christmas recipe exchange. Yummy crispy,spicy, honey flavoured cookies. Athene and Belle spent all evening producing these lovelies. Spiced Christmas Cookies
50g Butter In a pot, heat the butter, sugar & honey together, stirring until melted & smooth. Remove from the heat. Put all the dry ingredients into a bowl, add the melted butter, honey & sugar & mix for a minute with a wooden spoon . Add in the half egg and mix until the mixture has turned into a smooth & shiny dough. If you have a good mixer use that instead of the spoon as mixing the dough is hard work. Wrap the cookie dough in clingfilm & chill in the fridge for at least a few hours until cold. When you’re ready to use the dough, heat your oven to 160c and line two large cookie sheets with baking parchment. On a floured surface, roll out the dough until it’s about 1/4 inch thick and cut out shapes with your cookie cutters. (Flour it well as its awfully sticky)
Place the shapes on the sheets & bake for 8-10 minutes until golden.
Remove from the tray and allow to cool completely before icing. My girls used premade fondant icing on these and some of their stash of American gel icings which our friend Emer (and her american in-laws )keep us supplied with. Icing makes the cookies a bit softer but still yum and we used a bit of warm jelly to stick the fondant cutouts to the cookies
If you are very lazy like me mould the dough into sausages before chilling and when cold slice rounds of cookie dough instead of bothering rolling the dough out and bake as above. Aoife says they’ll keep for about a month un-iced in an airtight tin -if you can resist them that long. We made a double batch and they are almost all gone already.
For Food Gifts I often make up a wee hamper of non perishables. Applejuice from Adam of Killowen Orchard which we give with our “Spices for mulled wine” -spices work for applejuice as well. Chocolates from Chocolate Trish at Wildes Irish Chocolate Chorizo from Olivier -”On The Wild Side”
And of course Amazing preserves from Us at The Green Apron. I usually give our Christmas Chutneys and Mustards. Partridge in a Pear Tree Chutney, Apple and Walnut Chutney,Sugar Plum fairy Chutney and our Crunchy Honey Mustard. Aruns puddings from Green Saffron look fantastic don’t they. For Immediate Gratification Gifts Brid has delicious awardwinning pies Vi makes the yummiest sourdough Rye Bread and a range of organic cakes and breads There are lots of craftspeople selling their pieces in the market. Local and Handmade Crafts Here is some of Ruth at Nice Day Designs fabulous pieces. Aileen with her beautiful jewellry
For Body and Bath Gifts Tobias from Nonin Herbal has a range of essential oils and a fantastic Rose Avocado Cream for problem skin It smells divine and works brilliantly -I bough some for mom for her birthday Last year I gave the sisters each a chicklit book, a bar of Wildes Chocolate and Bath Melts from Sunvale . Ingredients for a perfect evening. There are plenty of Plants here for a lovely living present and lots of spring bulbs (get them in fast though) Heres some of the other fabulous things available at the market Couldnt take enough pictures and get everything in . Now you can see why almost all my presents come from the Market. Oops – One last thing . I bought these for everyone last year and am wearing a pair now-invaluable |
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Christmas is the time of year cookies really come in to their own at our house especially since I inherited such a great range of christmas cookies cutters from my Grandma. My girls are happy to spend hours rolling baking and decorating cookies and peace reigns.
I finally remembered to bring my camera in with me to the market last weekend and took a quick run around to get some pictures of what I buy as presents for my family and friends so this post will be heavy on pictures and light on words.
Whole small cheeses from Pete of ” Kilshanny Cheese” .Every April we get him to put away a big Plain cheese in his cheese house for us . By Christmas its fantastic- almost fudgey textured and sharp on the palate. A whole cheese doesn’t last long in our house.
Katrina also has the cutest Finnish Gingerbread Cookies in all shapes and sizes (also a whole range of Gluten free baking)
Locally roasted award-winning Coffee is available from Ponaire s Coffee house and teas are available from “Teas and Grind” and “Tea4You”
Why not pop in a bag of Irish Harvested Seaweed
You can pick up a variety of cheeses from Mairis Cheese shop ,
Pates, preserved fish, and terrines from Olivier, wines from Country Choice (along with about anything else you can think of.
Susan ’s Nativity scene 
and her Crazy camel
Handmade hats to keep you warm and stylish this winter
Handcarved wooden pieces
Jasmine from Sunvale Soaps has a great range of homemade and french soaps, salves and creams. 
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