Edible Pennies

   We had a close call this year with the possibility of not being able to celebrate Christmas properly and traditionally as I was unable to find the recipe for Peppermint Pennies! It quite traumatic and was a very close shave.
   We could not get hold of "Christmas Cookie Master Tradition Keeper" Auntie Em. She has all the traditions safely saved up her sleeve and can whip up an excellent Peppermint Penny and 6 other Christmas Cookie varieties in the time it has taken me to type this post.
    Luckily Grandma saved the day. A quick call, a quick search in the recipe box and we were set with the recipe hastily written on a scrap of paper, no wonder I had lost it in the first place.
   This project took pretty much the whole day and we did not eat dinner till 8 o'clock that night as (for some reason) no one was hungry till then and the cookies were hogging the oven.
Before you take on this project with small children or even on your own be warned you have to mix, chill, cook, cool, ice, cool as well as follow the recipe.
   We had fun, the boys did an excellent job and were very serious about this Christmas Tradition. Which is a very serious business, the making of sweets at Christmas time is of Utmost Importance in our house.        
    The eating of sweets is also very serious and Christmasilly Joyous.

We kept our priorities in order here, Washing Hands, Wearing Aprons and using lots and lots of Butter.

We made sure to lick the beaters, bowls, spoons, icing, spatulas, fingers and counter.

100% Perfection, 100% Focus, 100% Delicious.

Peppermint Pennies

1cup Butter

2cups Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

2tsp Vanilla

2 2/3cups Flour

1/2cup Cocoa

1tsp Baking Powder

1/4tsp Salt 

Beat butter and sugar till creamy and "fluffy". Add eggs and vanilla beat again. Add all the rest of the ingredients and mix till well combined. Chill in the fridge for an hour or two or until you feel inclined to roll the dough into walnut sized balls and place on a greased cookie sheet, flatten slightly with your palm so your pennies don't start rolling around. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. Let Cool before Icing and sandwiching together so that 2 cookies end up equaling one cookie so make lots or eat less, I suggest making lots!

Peppermint Icing

1/4-1/3 cup butter

3-4 TBSP milk

enough Icing Sugar to make frosting 

1/8-1/4 tsp peppermint extract

3-4 drops green food coloring

As you can probably tell I didn't measure any ingredients for the icing, sometimes I leave it white and I think it tastes equally good but according to the boys they taste better with green icing .