My house is gonna smell soooooo good tomorrow !

This is half of the result of my afternoon today. There are 6 of these Ribbon Cookie logs in my fridge chillin'...to be sliced & baked tomorrow.

These are my absolute FAVORITE Christmas cookies ! My Mom made 'em every year and both my sister and I make them now. If I don't make any others, I always make these without fail.



And can I just say I LOVE my KitchenAids (yes 2, my DH is a great one for tools, for him and for me, he bought me an Artisan a few years ago for Christmas (yes I like appliances for gifts!) and then once he saw the Pro600, he figure I needed one and that was last year's present - more power dontcha know, LOL!

So today, I had them both going. I tripled my recipe and put 2 batches in the large mixer and 1 in the smaller mixer. Divided all of it into 3 pieces for the colors, and even let the mixers do the red coloring/cherries and the chocolate.

OMG ! up til this year 1 batch from beginning to end by hand took 1 hour to get to the fridge. Today, I did 3 batches, making 6 logs in 1hr 10min...Bonuses, my hands are not red from the food coloring and the arthritic finger joints are not bothering me from all that mixing. It's all good.

If anyone is interested in the recipe:

Christmas Ribbon Cookies

2½ cups flour
1/8 tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
1 cup margarine (it works with margarine but Christmas baking in my house is Butter!)
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
¼ cup chopped candied cherries, red
1 sq. unsweetened chocolate
¼ cup chopped nuts (I don't use the nuts, but they're better with them)
red food coloring

Method:
Sift flour, salt & baking powder.
Cream margarine & sugar, add egg & vanilla.
Stir in flour, mix well.

Divide into 3 parts:
1 part – mix with chocolate & nuts
1 part – mix with cherries & red food coloring
1 part – leave as is

Cut each color into 2 pieces - this will give you 2 nice sized blocks
I roll my logs the width of a piece of waxed paper

On an approximately square piece of waxed paper...
Shape each color into a log and flatten it out a bit.
Layer each color on top of each other to form a block.

Roll the waxed paper around the block and refrigerate.
Chill til firm (or overnight)
Slice into ¼ inch slices.

Bake on ungreased sheets, 10 minutes, 350° oven