Belgian Christmas Cookies Recipes

Steps:

• Cream butter and brown sugar. Add eggs, vanilla, salt, and liquor (if desired). Blend in.
• Now it gets to be fun. You have to work in all five pounds of flour little by little by hand. It will work in but it takes a while. You'll wind up with a BIG mixing bowl of dough.
• Refrigerate dough overnight.
• Have plenty of people to help with the cooking. Lightly grease and heat the empty cookie iron over a gas burner. Start with a tablespoon and a half of dough rolled into a little "cigar" shape and vary amount to fit the size of your cookie iron. It takes from one to one and a half minutes to cook each cookie - it's a trial and error process at first till you get a handle on the temperature of the gas burner and the heat retaining capabilities of your iron. A properly cooked cookie will be golden and after cooled, crisp.
• This a family holiday tradition for us and we spend a whole day cooking cookies with lots of testing to make sure they're as good as last year's. The cast iron cookie irons work best, but I have seen people make them with the aluminum pizelle "irons". Ask for a krumkokie (croom cockie) iron at a gourmet cooking shop. We put them in tins and store till next Christmas, eating last year's cookies.

Steps:

• Cream butter with extract; add brown sugar gradually, creaming until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.
• Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together; add in thirds to creamed mixture, mixing until blended after each addition. Turn into a greased 15 x 10 x 1 inch jelly roll pan and spread evenly to edges.
• Sprinkle a mixture of almonds and cinnamon over batter, then sprinkle with a mixture of red and green sugar.
• Bake at 375°F 10 to 12 minutes.
• Cut into bars while still warm. About 5 dozen cookies.
• Canadian Family Cookbook.

Steps:

• In a large bowl, stir together the brown sugar and butter until smooth and creamy; then add eggs and vanilla, and beat well. Gradually stir in flour. Set bowl over a hot water bath, and stir to blend ingredients. Cover, and refrigerate overnight.
• Preheat the galette iron.
• Shape dough into 1 inch balls, and place in the galette iron. Close the iron, and cook the cookies. This should take about 30 seconds in an electric galette iron, or 2 to 4 minutes in a handheld iron over a medium flame. Carefully remove cookies and cool on wire racks.