Holiday

Hey y'all, I'm Paula Deen, and during the holidays, you know whether you're the host of the party or the party hopper, you can never go wrong by having extra cookies on hand

So this holiday season, I want to make sure you're not dipping your hand into an empty cookie jar, because I want to share with you a monster cookie recipe that's just packed full of, you know, almost every yummy morsel you can imagine

And after that, I want to show you a simple, last-minute hidden mint cookie recipe that you're not going to believe

And then to finish everything off, I'm going to make the most delectable gingerbread girls and boys

I can smell them already, and the kids are going to love them. So you guys, preheat those ovens and get your cookie cutters out

It's time to get those holiday cookies in the oven. I had to go to the pantry and get ginger and the kids

because I'm going to need them since today's show is all about holiday cookies

I had to go get them out of the pantry so that they can help me make this next batch of cookies

Look how cute Ginger is. And her children, aren't they precious? And the first cookie recipe I'm going to share with y'all is called Monster Cookies

All right, now we're going to mix our three eggs with one cup of sugar

And then we're going to add a half of a box of light brown sugar

I think this is called a monster cookie probably because it's got just about everything that you would put in a cookie

whether it be a chocolate chip or an oatmeal or a peanut butter. This cookie recipe has it all in one

And now we're going to add peanut butter. And this is a 12-ounce jar of peanut butter

And you can use your choice. You can use either creamy or peanut

I'm using creamy, though, today. So next we're going to add a stick of butter

You know, I told you this recipe has some of it all in there. And you need to make sure that your butter is softened to room temperature

Otherwise, it would be way, way too hard for you or the kids to mix this by hand

All right, so we've got our butter mixed up in there real good

So the next thing we're going to add is our quick cooking oats

Now, this is not an instant, and it's not the one that takes like 30 minutes to cook

This is your five-minute quick cooking. So we're just going to dump that in there and fold that in

And you see how stiff this is getting? It's going to be a real, real thick batter

Y'all, I've got a confession to make. Then I forgot to add the vanilla, the salt, and the baking soda

So I don't think it'll mess up the recipe. So we're going to quickly do that

A half a teaspoon of vanilla, a half a teaspoon of salt

and two teaspoons of baking soda. Nothing like doing a little recipe backwards, is it

But it'll still work. But we had to make sure we got our soda in so they would rise up for us

All right, so now we're going to add a half a cup of chocolate chips

You can use the semi-sweet, the milk chocolate, any kind of chip you want. And we're going to add a fourth of a cup of raisins

And then Ginger and I are real excited now because we're fixing to add multicolored chocolate candies

Oh, Ginger is just too stinking cute, isn't she? Alright, now we're going to stir all these in to our batter

Now, I'm going to place these by the rounded tablespoon onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet

You can use a spray or anything that you really want to use

The important thing is, though, when we're dropping our cookies, that we want to make sure that we have them all the same size

so that you won't have some getting done before the others because you don't want a cookie that's tiny and burned

by the time the bigger ones on your sheet are done. Now, our oven has been preheated to 350 degrees

and you'll want to make sure that you don't overbake these. We're going to bake this sheet for about 8 to 10 minutes

but you'll want to keep an eye on it, like I said, and make sure you don't over bake them

All right And in the other oven I got a sheet ready

All right, we've got a batch ready here. Ooh, don't those look good

They remind me of cookies that my grandmother Paul used to make

Oh, I can't wait to taste. And, of course, you can't have cookies without milk, can you

It's my favorite time, kiddies. It's taste time. Look at this cookie

Mmm. I love raisins. Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm. They're so good

I promise your family and friends are gonna love this one. And when we come back, I'm gonna show y'all a trick

with a refrigerated store-bought cookie dough, how to make that cookie real, real special

And I'll tell you about when I made it for Jamie and Bobby. and y'all don't want to go anywhere, girls and boys

because I'm going to show you how to make your own gingerbread

and that's going to be coming up next. So I'll see y'all back in a minute

Today is all about holiday cookies

And I'm fixing to share with y'all a recipe that makes you look like you're really putting

in a lot of time and effort on a cookie when you really haven't

And I call it hidden mint cookies. And the first time I made it for Jamie and Bobby

they had a fit over them, and they said, Mama, this is just one of the best cookies

How did you get that stuff in the center? And I said, Well, guys, y'all won't believe

just how simple this cookie is. Now, this is just a regular sugar cookie dough

that you get in your dairy case at the grocery store. And we're going to slice these real thin

and you'll want to make sure that you put these a good ways apart on your sheet

because these are going to rise, and we're cutting those, gosh, probably about a fourth of an inch thick

Now, on this cookie dough, I'm going to lay a chocolate wafer cookie

and you can find these in your grocery store too, or if you've got some of those chocolate mint Girl Scout cookies

maybe in the freezer, you can use those and it'll be delicious. Now we're just going to lay a cookie on top of our dough

Just like that. And then we're going to come back in here

and put another slice of dough on top of it. Now you could put anything in the inside of this cookie

You know, all the little bite-sized candy bars. You could put one of those in there

Now I've gotten an egg, just one whole egg, and I've beaten it up

And I'm just going to brush those because now we're fixing to put some chopped pecans on top of these

And that egg will just help the pecans stick. and you could use any kind of nut

So now we're going to put this cookie in a preheated 375 degree oven

and we're going to let it cook for about 10 minutes. All right

Let's get that in the oven. And while these are baking, we're going to start on our gingerbread people

and these are really really easy to make uh not quite as easy as those but they're really easy

to make the only thing that's going to take time is your dough's going to have to sit in the

refrigerator all right today i've mixed up an all-purpose flour bacon soda fresh ground nutmeg

ground cinnamon, ginger, salt, butter, dark brown sugar, eggs, and last but not least

a rich molasses. And after I get all these properly folded in together, I'm going to get

in there, y'all, and use my hands to form my dough into a ball. And next, I'm going to wrap

him in plastic wrap and throw him in the fridge for about an hour or so so he can set up. That'll

making much, much easier for us to roll out. Might as well go ahead and get my milk out

while I in there And this dough is nice and chilled And I just going to break off a little piece of it

And work a little bit at the time. Now you'll need some extra flour

You want to make sure that you dust your rolling pin real good

so that your dough won't stick to your pen. Now I've got a tray

of gingerbread men already started. So we're just gonna take our cookie cutter

and you'll wanna make sure that you run that through the flour so your dough won't stick to it as well

And look at that, the perfect little gingerbread. Now you can put these cookies closer together

because they're not gonna rise much because we've used an all-purpose flour

All right, so we're gonna put these in the oven, and we're going to bake these for about 10 minutes on 350 degrees

Now your leftover dough, you can take it and just re-roll it

so we won't have almost any waste at all. So in we go

Hey, Rennie. And I've got a pan ready here. And you can see how they've hardly risen at all

They're still about the same size that they were. And when we come back, I'm going to show you

how we're going to bring these little gingerbread people to life. We're going to decorate them, and then we're going to taste them

and we're going to taste one of Bobby Dean's favorite cookies, the hidden mint cookies that's in the oven

So don't go anywhere, because we're coming to life. Now, our cookies are ready

Oh, yum. And see how I told you they were going to spread

These are big cookies. So we're going to let these cool a minute, and while those are cooling, we're going to come over here and decorate our gingerbread men and women

So I'm going to start with some powdered sugar, and you'll want to be very, very careful that you don't add too much milk

Oops, I'm making a mess, because a little milk and confectionate sugar goes a long way

So be very, very careful during this step. And just add a little bit at a time until you get it right

because you can always add two, but you can't take it out

All right. Now we're going to separate this into three different batches

All right, we're going to color one of them green. Now you can use your favorite color for your gingerbread cookies

All right, and in our next bowl, we're going to give him some red food coloring

And we don't need a whole bunch. All right, just gonna spoon him into the bottom of the bag

And then I'm gonna come over here to the corner, and I'm gonna put the tiniest, tiniest hole

In fact, I'm probably gonna need my eyeballs for this one, because we don't want to make

that hole very big at all. One more time. It's just that simple

All right, one more little snip. All right, we're ready to decorate

And the reason I left some white, y'all, is because I'm going to come over here and I'm

going to make a gingerbread Paula with white hair. And then I'm going to make a gingerbread Michael with just a tougher hair

Because, you know, Michael's losing his hair. So... Oh I love it Okay now we going to give Michael a t

Well, right now he's naked from the waist down. But we're going to fix that

I think I'll give him some white shorts. He loves his shorts

All right, let's give him... He's real hairy, so let's give him some hair coming out of his shirt

And there's his eyes. And he's got a big old smile, but you can't see it for his mustache. Perfect

All right, let's make him green-eyed. I love it! All right, now I'm gonna make me a pretty pink dress

So how fun is that

I can't get over how much it looks just like Michael. It kind of resembles me too

Y'all are going to have so much fun doing family portraits. But the main thing is you're going to be in the kitchen with your family having fun

because that's what it's all about. And I want to show y'all this hidden mint cookie

Look at that surprise center. But no one would ever guess that this was a refrigerated dough

bought from your grocery store. Gertie, come on in. I'll give you a cookie

Come here. You ready for your cookie? Come here, Rennie. Oh! There you go

Aren't those yummy? You know, I'm always telling Michael that I just love him to pieces

and I could just eat his head off. And I was finally able to do it

Love you, Mikey. Y'all stick around because when we come back, I'm going to show you the easiest recipe for chocolate candy that you have ever seen

But come back. You're going to love it. So today's tip for y'all is all about how to make a delicious homemade candy

Now in this pot, I had two and a half cups of sugar, six ounces of evaporated milk, and a half a stick of butter

And I've cooked that for eight minutes. And in this bowl, I'm going to add about three-fourths of a pound of chocolate candy

about two cups of pecans, and a half of a seven-ounce jar of marshmallow cream

Now we're just gonna pour this hot, sweetened, buttery milk over all those ingredients

And that bubbling, hot, sweet milk is gonna melt the chocolate and the marshmallow

Look, it looks all caramelly because the sugar has kind of darkened

And you can see we've got a wonderful homemade candy in less than 60 seconds

So all I'm going to do is spoon these morsels of candy up on parchment paper

You're going to want to drop these quickly because they cool quickly. Mmm. Doesn't that look good

You're going to love this one. Mmm. You know, my time that I've had with y'all today

has kind of just put visions of sugar plums dancing through my head

Look at this cookie buffet right here. You know, whether you choose to do the gingerbread cookies with the children

and everybody make their own portrait, or the hidden mint cookies that are so good

or the monster cookies, who can refuse that? and I hope that you'll try the tip that I gave you today on the homemade chocolate candy

The pecan clusters are so yummy. So until next time, y'all, I want to send you love, best dishes

and happy holidays from my kitchen to yours