All day yesterday I was in a Christmas-y mood. We started putting up our decorations…

This was taken on Friday…by yesterday afternoon I had many more decorations up! Pictures to come… 😉

…and even though there isn’t any snow (not complaining!!!) it’s starting to feel like the holidays!

I also had a huge hankering to bake something. Do you ever get like that?

Well, I do, especially when I have 5498 essays to write and about a million projects to complete.

So, I combined my Christmas and baking moods, my love of confetti (in foods), and this recipe from Sweet Pea’s Kitchen, and got some adorable cookies out of it!

Christmas Confetti Cookies (E, N)
makes just under 2 dozen
very slightly adapted from this recipe

Ingredients:
– 2 cup cake flour
– 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
– 3/4 tsp. baking soda*
– 1/2 tsp. salt

– 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
– 1/2 cup shortening
– 3/4 – 1 cup granulated sugar*
– 2 tsp. vanilla extract

– 1.5 tbsp. canola oil
– 1.5 tbsp. warm water
– 1 tsp. baking powder

– 1/2 cup – 2/3 cup Christmas sprinkles

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375*F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, combine flours, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a medium bowl, combine butter, shortening, and sugar. Beat until fluffy, or for about 2 minutes. Mix in the vanilla extract.
4. In a small bowl, combine oil, water, and baking powder. This is the “egg” in the recipe.
5. Add the “egg” to the wet ingredients, and combine.
6. Pour half of the flour mixture into the wet ingredients, and stir until combined. Add the other half and stir.
7. Carefully fold in the sprinkles.
8. Place by rounded tablespoon on the prepared cookie sheet, and bake for about 8 minutes, or until cookies are golden on the edges, and cooked through.
9. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to finish cooling.
10. Enjoy!

Notes:
– For all of you who suffer from egg allergies, please note: store-bought cake flour will sometimes have an egg ingredient in it, or “may contain traces” of egg. If this is your case, simply use only all-purpose flour: 1 cup – 2 tbsp. all purpose flour = 1 cup cake flour. If you have it, use corn starch to replace those 2 tbsp., but if not, it’s ok.
– I actually made half a batch of these cookies last night. It was the perfect amount for the three of us (my dad was out of town), but these would make such good Christmas gifts or stocking stuffers that I’ll definitely make a whole batch next time!
– That being said, in the ingredients, I put an asterisk * next to baking soda. When I halved the batch, I used just under 1/2 tsp. of the baking soda. I figured a little extra would only help the cookies rise, and I’m also horrible at math and didn’t feel like calculating any closer than that. 🙂
– I also put an asterisk * next to the sugar. I often take out some of the sugar in a cookie recipe. Most of the time, all of that sugar is not needed (the cookie comes out exactly the same). In this case, it was a great decision! The cookies were an amazing texture and actually ended up more like a cross between a sugar cookie and shortbread. YUM!
– As I do with all cookies, I used part butter, part shortening. I like that texture much better than all-butter cookies, but go ahead and do what you’re used to!
– A final small change that I made to the original recipe was to use more sprinkles than it called for. After folding in the sprinkles, I noticed the cookies weren’t nearly confetti enough for me, so I ended up adding more than the original recipe states. 🙂

I hope you make these cookies some time soon for a bit of holiday cheer! Have a great day! 🙂