Recipe: Chocolate & Candy Cane Christmas Tree Cookies

I know it is almost a full month after Christmas and I'm finally finishing up my posts about the cookies I made but I've been super lazy for the past 3ish weeks and why shouldn't I be?  I don't have a job so I can sleep in and never get dressed in real cloths and watch tv and movies all day and no one really cares.  (For the record, I'm trying to start to get up a little earlier and I don't watch tv and movies all day.)

Anyway, I think it was Christmas 2010 that I made these cookies for the first time, except I didn't do them in Christmas Tree shapes, just rectangles.  I got the cookie recipe from the box my cookie press came in and I just kind of winged the rest.  I doubled the cookie recipe because the box said the recipe only made 7 - 8 dozen cookies and 14 - 16 dozen sounded about right.  I think I ended up with something like 26 dozen cookies but since I didn't plan on that many I didn't have enough chocolate or candy canes to cover them all so I ended up with a bunch of naked Christmas Tree cookies.  Which were good.  Turns out I didn't even need the 14 - 16 dozen I originally planned for and since CJ doesn't like minty stuff much, I finally got around to finishing the last one (well, three) yesterday.

The steps to make these are pretty simple:
1. Bake the cookies (recipe at the end).
2. Crush some candy canes (I put them in a freezer ziplock bag, wrap the bag in a dish towel and go to town on them with a rolling pin).
3. Dip all the cookies in melted semi-sweet chocolate.
4. Let them cool in the refrigerator or garage or wherever it is cold.
5. When the chocolate is completely cooled, dip in melted white chocolate.
6. Immediately dip in crushed candy canes.
7. Let them cool in the refrigerator or other cool place.

I melted my chocolate in the microwave (instructions can be found with the cookie bark recipe I posted earlier) using a Pyrex measuring cup.  I kept the chocolate in the measuring cup as I dipped the cookie.  When dipping into the white chocolate then the candy canes, I just had the bowl with the candy canes sitting between the melted white chocolate and the "finished" cookie sheet to make everything really accessible.

My fridge isn't wide enough to put a cookie sheet in side ways so I'm really glad I had some lids for a few of my cookie sheets so I could stack cookie sheets in the refrigerator when the cookies needed cooling.

Classic Spritz Cookies

1 1/2 cups butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Thoroughly cream butter and sugar. Add egg, milk, vanilla and almond extract; beat well.

Stir together flour and baking powder; gradually add to creamed mixture, mixing to make a smooth dough.

Do not chill.  Place dough into Cookie Press and press cookies onto a cooled ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake 10 - 12 minutes or until lightly browned around edges.  Remove cookies from sheet; cool on rack.

Makes 7 - 8 dozen cookies.