My mother always made what she called ‘almond balls’, which are better known as Mexican wedding cakes, but with a candied cherry in the center; also, spritz, butterfingers, etc. My favorite one is called an ‘orange-nut cookie’, which my mother referred to as a ‘tea cookie’. Made with walnuts, lemon rind and orange rind, butter and flour, they are terrific. I make all of the above, as does my sister, every year.
PLEASE share the above recipe. PLEASE.
I’m just like you are, with cookies. And this just sounds incredible. Amazingly wonderful.
I seriously will beg for this.
From one Blue to Another, here ya go:
Mom-Mom Jeannette’s Wine Cookies
3 c. flour
1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
½ t. salt
2 egg yolks
¼ c. red wine
Sift flour, measure. Cream butter until light. Gradually work in sugar til mixture is fluffy. Beat in salt and egg yolks, adding flour alternately with wine. Chill well (6 hours or overnight). Heat oven to 375. Roll out on floured board to 1/8 inch. Cut out with cookie cutters. Sprinkle with colored sugar or nonpareils if desired, or leave plain for icing (below). Bake on ungreased cookie sheet about 12 minutes. Cool on sheet for 2 minutes and then move to wire racks to cool completely.
Vanilla Glaze
(makes 2 cups)
3 cups confectioner’s sugar
5 t. milk
¼ t. salt
½ t. vanilla extract
2 t. butter
Melt butter and add to other ingredients. Mix until creamy. Use offset spatula to glaze cookies and sand with sugar, if desired.
Decrease amount of milk to make frosting suitable for piping on cookies.
They get better the longer you have them (up to a point, of course!) 
Enjoy!
Thanks so much! I cannot wait to try these, possibly today.
My memories of Christmases past included impressive cookies my Grandmother made that looked like little caramel apples. First, you cook a walnut-y filling and let it cool. Then make an outer cookie and enclose a dab of the filling with the cookie dough in little 1 inch balls and bake them. When they come out of the oven, you place a toothpick in the center of each ball and cool. Then you dip them into melted (store-bought) caramel candies - then roll in walnuts, and set on wax (or parchment) paper. The caramel coating is why you need the toothpicks.
Five or six years ago I found the recipe and made them. But, the recipe only made 30, so they were quickly gone. I then made the mistake of mentioning the culinary adventure to my mother and brother, both of whose reaction was, “You made Grandma’s Cookies!?!” Now, every year when I ask what they want for Christmas, they only want Grandma’s Cookies. I developed my own name for them, “Grandma’s Caramel-Coated Dirty-Every-Pot-In-the-House Cookies,” and I did the math so that I now make at least a quadruple batch each time. I’ll share the recipe/instructions if anybody wants - but I caution that you may end up making them for the rest of your life. They impress the heck out of people though. Amoung any who’ve tasted them, I have a reputation as great cook - though it’s really just due to Grandma’s recipe.
Also, my mother and I used to make another of my Grandma’s recipes - Candy Caramels. They involve cooking sugar, butter, Sweetened Condensed Milk, etc, to the “soft hard-ball stage.” Heavenly! I make these for myself every Christmas - and give some out. (By the way, these are way too much work to use in the caramel coating for Grandma’s Cookies.)
I should have started everything this weekend, but then I realized I’m out of vanilla, so I’ll have to cookie my keister off in the next few days…
Thanks to jellyblue for sharing the recipe for “Mom-Mom Jeannette’s Wine Cookies.” For some weird reason I tend to collect cookie cutters - so I’m always on the lookout for good cutout cookie recipes to justify buying more cookie cutters… Thanks!!
My mother was not a baker (except for pecan pie–she still makes the best pecan pie around), so when I was a teenager, I started to make Christmas cookies.
Mocha Nut Butterballs
Cream Cheese Butter Cookies
Buckeye Bars
Heath Bar Cake (ok, not a cookie, but still yummy)
Some cookie made with cardamom that I hope I can find the recipe to again…
Christmas cookies-- that’s what I’ve only ever called them. I suppose they’re really a sugar cookie, but these are the ones we roll out and cut(I also collected cookie cutters) and ice/decorate. I’ll have to post recipes another time. Those wine ones look good. Actually, they all look good…
Great image, daere!
I’d love the recipe for those and the caramels.
We always made spritz, sugar cookies, molasses crackles, hermits and others that are escaping me now.
Here’s the recipe for Grandma’s Caramel-Coated Dirty-Every-Pot-in-the-House Cookies and Grandma’s Caramels…
Grandma’s Caramel-Coated Cookies
One Batch (makes about 36 cookies)
1 1/3 cup walnuts
1/3 cup white (granulated) sugar
1/3 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup powdered (confectioner’s) sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 unbeaten egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
Caramel Coating
1/2 lb. candy caramels
2/3 cup evaporated milk
Combine 1/3 cup walnuts, 1/3 cup white sugar, and 1/3 cup evaporated milk in small pan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thick. Cool.
Cream butter. Add brown sugar, powdered sugar, and salt. Blend in egg and vanilla. Gradually add flour. Grandma would shape into 1 inch balls, make a depression and fill with 1/4 teaspoon walnut filling, and reshape into ball, completely enclosing filling. (I make a disc of cookie dough, add filling, and shape into a ball.) Place on lightly greased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 15 to 18 minutes. Insert a toothpick into center of each cookie (through top, through filling, and just touching bottom). Cool.
For Caramel Coating, heat 1/2 lb. candy caramels and 2/3 cup evaporated milk to combine in a double boiler or microwave, stirring occasionally. If too thick, thin with more evaporated milk, or reheat. Dip cookies into caramel coating, allow excess to drop off. Dip bottom of cookie into remaining nuts, place on cooling rack to set. (If you have the time, it’s good to chop the walnuts yourself, because you want the nuts chopped kinda fine, and a small variety in the size of the nut pieces helps when dipping the cookies.) Recipe is easily doubled, more easily tripled, etc - cause 3 dozen may sound like a lot, but after all of that work, you generally want more than 36 cookies to show for it.
Grandma Schwartz’s Caramels
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 cup butter (or margarine)
2 cups sugar (granulated, white)
1 & 3/4 cup corn syrup
1 cup evaporated milk
1 cup chopped nuts (we use walnuts)
1 teaspoon vanilla
Caution from Grandma - Never stop stirring! Put sweetened condensed milk, butter, sugar, and corn syrup into a sauce pan. Bring to a simmer; simmer until sugar dissolves.
Bring to a boil for a few minutes. Add evaporated milk slowly so that boiling does not stop. Cook to soft hard-ball stage (mixture will thicken and darken).
Add vanilla and nuts and pour into a buttered pan. (A Pyrex 9x13 rectangle work well.) Let cool. Cut into 3/4 to 1 inch squares. (They can be hard to cut.) Wrap each piece in wax paper. (I rip off a piece wax paper about 5 to 7 inches long, then turn lengthwise and cut into halves with scissors.)
My Notes: While the recipe says to never stop stirring, you can stop long enough to test the consistency. Fill a short glass or mug with cold water. Dribble a bit into the cold water and work the candy in the water a bit with your fingers to determine consistency. It actually also helps to pop the piece in your mouth - you want them chewy, but not too chewy and not too hard. I don’t have a temperature to tell you to shoot for, because every time I’ve tried to use a candy thermometer they end up too hard. Be careful, though, Alton Brown doesn’t call boiling sugar “Culinary Napalm” for nothing. (Although the method of making these caramels is completely the opposite of AB’s directions for caramel sauce.)
Merry Christmas Sugar Coma!
Aw, I’m so glad some of you are interested in test-driving the wine cookies! Let me know how you liked them if you do. My grandmother was the sweetest ever and it makes me so happy that her fabulous cookies may live on & on .
Update [caution: bragging]: Guess who won Most Spectacular-Looking Cookie at the cookie exchange? That’s right, fellow Cookie Dopers, it was I, and the 4th year running, too! [/bragging]
Okay! The dough is in the fridge, and raw it tastes amazing. I cannot wait to try the final product.
And congratulations, jellyblue! I cannot wait to learn how to decorate cookies beautifully. And cakes. And all sorts of baked goods.
Thank you so much, daere! I look forward to many years of caramely goodness.
freckafree, I have never even heard of a 7-layer cookie. Can you explain? Have you or your brother found a recipe for them?
My favorite Christmas cookie from childhood was Lemon Coolers. Not a gourmet cookie, but very soft and yummy:
8 oz carton whipped cream
2 boxes lemon cake mix
2 eggs
powdered sugar
mix first three ingredients, mold into balls and roll in powdered sugar, bake at 350 F for about 10 minutes.
Also very yummy made with fudge cake mix (not so yummy made accidently with yellow cake mix)
So far, this holiday season, my wife has burned over 6 dozen cookies. I really cannot understand how she does it.
Do you own Airbake cookie sheets?
You basically can’t burn the bottom of a cookie baked on an Airbake sheet. It is still possible to overcook or burn the tops if they aren’t timed well.
I hereby declare Mom-Mom Jeannette’s Wine Cookies (aka jellyblue’s Wine Cookies) to be very yummy. They’re better cool than hot out of the oven, and I have done no decorating as of yet. I have a whole 'nother 3/4 of the dough to roll out, but that will have to wait for tonight, I think. Unfortunately.
We mostly had plain shortbread, rolled into balls and flattened with a fork, or lovely soft gingersnaps. (We’d usually burn our mouths by not waiting for them to cool. There’s nothing better than a gingersnap hot enough to sag under its own weight!)
This year I’ll probably make my Substitution Oatmeal Cookies. I found the recipe in one of those small-town fund-raising cookbooks. First I decided to make half a batch, because I didn’t need twelve dozen or however many it was for. Then I didn’t have shortening so I used butter (makes softer cookies), it just said ‘sugar’ so I thought brown sugar would taste good, no walnuts so I toasted some slivered almonds, and no raisins so I used a mix of candied peel and crystallized ginger. They turned out great!
Mom always bakes chocolate chip cookies for me. Her recipe is slightly different than traditional tollhouse cookies. I used to love to “lick the bowl.” I still get cookies for Christmas, but since I’m not there when she makes them I don’t get to lick the bowl. 
Oh, so exciting! They’ll be even better tomorrow 
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Thanks to everybody for the great ideas in this thread - I’ve decided to bake myself to death this weekend- good times!