Edna Mroz’s Christmas cookies

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This article was published 06/12/2010 (5782 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Day 5 of the Free Press’s 21 Days of Holiday Cookies features Edna Mroz’s Christmas Cookies. We will be publishing one cookie recipe every day — Monday to Saturday — till Christmas.

Edna Mroz of Beausejour sent in a recipe for Christmas cookies that cleverly combine the flavours of fruit cake with the ease of a drop cookie.

Christmas cookies

228 g (1 cup) butter or margarine, softened

175 ml (3/4 cup) brown sugar, packed

1 egg

310 ml (1 1/4 cup) all-purpose flour

2 ml (1/2 tsp) salt

2 ml (1/2 tsp) cinnamon

2 ml (1/2 tsp) baking soda

125 g (1/2 cup) chopped dates

125 g (1/2 cup) glace cherries, chopped

2 slices candied pineapple, chopped

250 ml (1 cup) walnuts, chopped

125 ml (1/2 cup) slivered almonds

125 ml (1/2 cup) Brazil nuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 175 C (350 F). Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg. Whisk together flour, salt, cinnamon and baking soda and add to butter mixture. Add fruit and nuts and stir to combine. Drop by small spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets (or cookie sheets lined with parchment paper). Bake for 10-15 minutes.

Tester’s notes: This is a tender, cakey cookie, rich with the Christmassy flavours of the fruits and nuts. My first batch scorched so I turned my oven down to 160 C (325 F). You might want to chill batter in the fridge before baking, to keep cookies from spreading too quickly as they bake.

Alison Gillmor
Writer

Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto’s York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992.

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