This morning, I needed to stay at our house to await a FedEx delivery that required a signature. Not knowing when the delivery would arrive, I didn’t want to be sewing or working in my glass studio because the noise may have kept me from hearing the door bell. So, I decided it was a good day to do some holiday cookie baking.

After I was finished baking, I found out that today was actually National Cookie Day. So, I guess I made the right decision as to how to spend my day.

Each year, I try some new recipes as well as bake some favorites from previous years. One of the new recipes I tried this year was Soft Almond Sugar Cookies. This recipe showed up on my Instagram Feed and I since I love almond flavoring in cookies, I decided to give it a try. The recipe can be found on a blog called Broken Oven Baking. I made a slight change to the recipe. As written, the recipe makes 8 large cookies (3-4 Tbs of dough for each cookie). I really did not want cookies that size, so I made smaller ones with 1 Tbs of dough.

These cookies are really good, especially if you enjoy almond flavoring.

The second recipe I tried was Buttery Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies. This was another recipe that showed up on my Instagram feed. The recipe can be found on a blog called Tutti-Dolci. The fresh orange zest really makes the flavors zing. I made a minor change to this recipe as well. Not wanting to hand chop the dried cranberries, I put them in the food processor with the sugar and orange zest. This worked really well and the sugar kept the cranberries from getting stuck the the processor blade.

The flavor is amazing. I think the may be my new favorite cookie!

Lastly, I made a recipe that has become a favorite for the holidays, Red Velvet Cookies. The recipe can be found in a previous posting.

Wednesday, I plan to make my holiday candies. Each year, I make Peanut Brittle and English Toffee, recipe found in a previous post, as well as Pretzel Kiss Candies.