Shrewsbury Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Crisco + 2 tsp water
1 egg
1 can sweetened condensed milk (12 oz)
1/2 tbsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg powder
3 cups all purpose
1/2  cup semolina

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 F and line the cookie trays with parchment paper. Combine flour, semolina, baking powder, baking soda, and nutmeg powder. In a bowl, combine sugar and Crisco and beat till light and fluffy. Add condensed milk, eggs, vanilla, and lemon juice. Beat at medium speed for 1 minute. Add flour mixture and beat on slow speed until combined till you get dough consistency. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour or until it is ready to handle. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness (Keep the dough which you are not using refrigerated). Cut out the cookies with various cookie cutters. Place one inch apart on cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until very lightly browned around the edges. After cooling on the rack, decorate as you wish. I had mine decorated for Christmas. I made around 4 dozen cookies of various shapes from this mixture.

White Chocolate-Chip Brownies

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup Crisco (vegetable shortening) + 2 tsp water
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup white chocolate morsels

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare the brownie pan or an 8x8 inch pan by spraying PAM. In a bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar till light and fluffy. Then add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Combine the flour, cocoa, and baking powder and stir into the wet mixture. Now stir in the chocolate morsels. Pour into the prepared brownie pan or 8x8 inch pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until edges are firm. Cool on the wire rack before cutting into squares. Drizzle some melted white chocolate on the brownies. I made around 10 big brownies out of the above recipe.

Christmas Pinwheel Cookies

I just thought of giving out a short tutorial on how to make these cookies as it is slightly tricky to get that pinwheel look on the cookies. So I have given step-by-step instructions along with the images to make it more clear. Hope you enjoy doing these as much as I did!! Let's begin...

INGREDIENTS:

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup Crisco shortening + 2 tbsp water
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tbsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
Red and green food or icing color

DIRECTIONS:
Step 1:
Preheat the oven to 350F. Line the cookie tray with parchment or wax paper. First beat the shortening, water, and granulated sugar till it becomes light and fluffy. Then add vanilla and baking powder to this. Then gradually start adding the flour, little at a time, and bring the mixture to the consistency of the dough. Knead the dough well (add little more flour if the dough is too sticky).

Step 2:
Once the dough is kneaded well make four equal parts. Out of the four equal parts, two should remain uncolored (white). Take the other two dough balls and add the green and red color to each of it. To color the dough uniformly, break the dough ball into equal parts and add the color to each part and then knead all the parts together to form a single ball.

Step 3:
On a parchment paper sprinkled lightly with flour, place one uncolored cookie dough ball and pat it gently with the palms to form a circle. On top of this place the red dough ball and repeat the action. Once both the dough balls are equal sized, start rolling out the cookie dough until about 1/4 inch thick. Repeat the same process for the green dough ball. Then put the flattened rolled out cookie dough into the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to let it firm up a little bit. This will make it more easy to form the logs out of  it.

Step 4:
After refrigerating it for 30 minutes, start to form a log of the flattened cookie dough from one end. Just start rolling the dough from one end with the parchment paper and then slightly pull the parchment paper off so that it won't get rolled up with the dough. Continue rolling till you reach to the end. Wrap this log in the same parchment paper and let both the logs freeze for at least 1 hour.

Step 5:

After taking them out of the freezer, with a sharp knife trim the edges of the logs and cut out round cookies about 1/4 inch thick. Place them on the lined cookie sheet. Let them bake for around 12-15 minutes on 350F or until the edges are slightly golden brown (time for baking may vary with the oven).

And the final product!!!