Eggnog Sandwich Cookies for Christmas

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I’m super excited about these Eggnog Sandwich Cookies I created with Land O’ Lakes Butter. I am also thrilled with the opportunity I had to do a cookie baking party with a youth center in the area. First of all, I love this new recipe. The Eggnog buttercream within these cookies is absolutely addicting. The slight chewiness of these cookies with a nutmeg flavor completes the flavor profile. You will literally believe you are having as close as you can get to Eggnog in a cookie form. I had a few people taste these who aren’t a big fan of Eggnog, and they loved them. I seriously could not stop eating the buttercream. I kept coming in with another spoon. The second part of this post was the experience of making these (and a number of other) Christmas cookies. There is a neighborhood super close to me that is very low income and has a lot of at risk youth.

I quickly snapped a couple pictures I took as I was driving into the neighborhood. There are houses with junk in the yard, broken out windows, no heat and kids that come home to struggling families or absentee parents. Crime, alcohol use, drug use and abuse is high. My father-in-law was driving through this neighborhood some years back and his heart began to break for the kids walking around in the freezing cold with no jackets. He saw the setting in which our neighbors lived and began a campaign that would build a wonderful youth center in the middle of town. His thought was that there would be a place kids could come to be safe, have fun, build relationships, learn about God, and learn basic life skills. Through a lot of hard work, the youth center did come to be, and it has been a resource for this community since.

As I was considering how to best partner with a Land O’ Lakes campaign, I proposed the idea of having a cookie decorating and baking party with the youth at the center. Land O’ Lakes was excited to sponsor such an event. I was delighted to bring a passion of mine into the lives of kids. While making the cookies, I worked with high school age kids. The middle schoolers who are normally there had an after school program going on, so I was able to focus with the high schoolers. I asked these kids about their experience with baking, and all but 1 had no experience at all. The one that had experience, took a cooking class in high school. None of them had baked with their parents at home. It is such a passion of mine to have my kids in the kitchen with me. I wanted to bring this experience and Christmas tradition into the lives of kids that don’t get that experience. It was a lot of fun, and they did well. It took them out of their comfort zone and gave them a new taste of something different. Another interesting thing in terms of the cookie I created for this opportunity is that I think only one of them had tried Eggnog before, so that was a whole new experience. When one of the volunteers talked about what we were doing today, she said they were able to try cookies “not from a bag.”

I was able to head to Walmart to buy my Land O’ Lakes butter and other ingredients I would need.

 The first thing I did was a little preparation with my own kids. I wanted to take sugar cookies with me so that the kids at the center could decorate whenever they weren’t in the kitchen.My kids had a lot of fun dumping ingredients, rolling out dough, and cutting out the shapes. I also made a batch of cookies for a new recipe, which I will bring to you soon after I tweak it a bit.

I packed up, what felt like, my whole baking section of my kitchen. I wasn’t sure what the youth center would have, so I wanted to be prepared.

Land O’ Lakes was generous enough to sponsor all the ingredients to make this recipe and experience happen, so I brought in the grocery bags full of food and set everything up in their kitchen. I was able to donate anything we didn’t use to the center. They can always use it as they do meals for families there. They also have connections with food banks that provide food boxes to some of the families in the area.

Here I am all unpacked at the center.

Here is the inside of the facility. It’s such a great space for kids. It has computer rooms, lockers, pool tables, ping pong tables, foos ball tables and TV’s. They also have interns and staff to build relationships with them.

The kids were all able to get into the kitchen and contribute to the baking process. We made these new Eggnog cookies with the recipe I get to bring to you today, but we made a number of other cookies as well.

As I stated, I am really excited to bring you this new cookie recipe. It is definitely in my repertoire as a Christmas favorite now. I want to use the buttercream in other ways as well. Thank you, Land O’ Lakes for providing me with the butter and inspiration for these cookies. This is a great butter product, and I believe that good ingredients are at the heart of any delicious recipe.

Eggnog Buttercream Sandwich Cookies (Makes about 15)

Cookie:

1 ¾ cups Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

½ tsp Salt

1 tsp Nutmeg

½ tsp Cinnamon

1 ¼ sticks (10 Tablespoons) Land  O’ Lake’s Butter

1 ½ cups Sugar

1 large Egg

2 ½ tsp Vanilla Extract

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon.
3. In a separate bowl mix butter and 1 ½ cups sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes). Add eggs and vanilla extract, and mix until smooth.
4. Gradually add flour mixture to butter and sugar mixture.
5. Use a 1 inch ice cream scoop batter onto lined baking sheets, spaced two inches apart as it will spread during cookies.
6. Cook for 8-10 minutes.
7. Cool completely.

Eggnog Buttercream:

½ cup butter, room temperature

½ cup butter flavored shortening

1 lb or 4 cups powdered sugar

¼ tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla

3-4 oz Eggnog

Make Buttercream:

1. Beat butter and shortening on med-high until combined and smooth.

2. Add powdered sugar, salt, nutmeg and vanilla. Continue beating until combined. It will look lumpy at this point, which is fine.

3. Add the 3 oz of Eggnog and combine until smooth.

Spread one heaping Tablespoon of Eggnog on one of the cookies. Sandwich the first cookie with the another cookie. Continue until all cookies have been made into sandwiches. This buttercream I adapted from my favorite buttercream recipe. I simply substituted the cream for Eggnog.

The kids were able to go home with a variety of cookies. This picture doesn’t even capture them all.

Other Cookies we made with Land O’ Lakes Butter:

Sugar Cookie Recipe

Snickerdoodles

We ran out of time to make:

Peanut Butter Blossoms

We also made:

Peppermint Bark

For more Great Recipes with Land O’ Lakes Butter: https://www.landolakes.com

I Encourage You to Follow Land O’ Lakes on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LandOLakes

Check out their Holiday Gift Giving Brochure: https://www.landolakes.com/recipe/collection/364/2013-holiday-recipes

You also have a chance to win a $250 gift card from Walmart. All you have to do is:

1. Follow Land O’ Lakes on Pinterest; username: LandoLakesKtchn

2. Enter your email in the form below and click “submit & pin.”

3. Pin my feature image to any of your Pinterest boards.

4. Visit the Holiday Treats Board (https://www.pinterest.com/cbsocially/land-olakes-holiday-treats/) and pin your favorites.

One winner will be chosen at random. You can only enter once. Contest run 11/25/2013-1/14/2014

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