New Christmas Cookie Ball Game

Lemon_Italian_Cookies_Frosted_with_Sprinkles_on_a_Green_Plate

Sugar cookies get plastered at my house this time of year, and I’m tired of it. Not plastered in the sense that they raid the liquor cabinet (though I do usually set them right next to the rum balls, which give off heady fumes). No, they stick to the sides of the clear cookie jar I place them in—and I’ve always thought this was funny. I’ve almost given them a sign to hold that says, “Get me out of here.”

I used to find so much joy in rolling out cookie dough, cutting it into shapes, making several colors of frosting, and then baking/assembling everything, but this year, I just wanted to skip a few steps and still have a festive splattering of color in the cookie jar.

This year, I had a ball making ball-shaped cookies: rum balls, snowballs, and these lemon cookie balls.

I put Alex in charge of looking for a suitable recipe online. He always wants to make something my Grammy would have made because he’s fascinated with her Italian heritage and thinks she had all kinds of Old-World recipes, but the truth is, she mostly copied recipes down from magazines and passed them on like best-kept secrets because they kind of still were when the internet didn’t exist. Sure, we have a few recipes that only Grammy and her family passed down, but mostly, the test kitchens at Good Housekeeping and the Ladies’ Home Journal kept my grandmother’s recipe card box filled to the brim.

She never made an Italian lemon cookie with frosting and sprinkles (that we know of), but I’ll bet she would approve of the recipe Alex found on the Growing Up Gable website. The cookies aren’t too sweet, so the frosting and sprinkles are necessary. We also added a tablespoon of fresh lemon zest, which wasn’t in the recipe.

Results: On the plus side, we could taste the lemon. However, of all the cookies I’ve made this season, these are our least favorite, but they’re not bad—and they are a bit more special than the sugar cookies we usually make. They’re definitely worth a try.

Serve these cookies with…

–A sleigh full of limoncello liquor

–A glossy magazine

–Lined index cards for copying down the recipe and passing it along to future generations

–Hopes and dreams by the fireplace

–Wrapping paper

–Elvis’ Christmas Album

–Any elf that has fallen off the shelf—but that’s still hanging on for dear life.

Your Turn: What’s your favorite cookie shape? (Does not have to be holiday related.)

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Published by ckennedy

Author of the DIY blog: Fixin' Leaks and Leeks. Paper/Rock Writing Consultation, Sole Proprietor.

27 thoughts on “New Christmas Cookie Ball Game”

  6. They look delicious. I wish I’d done more baking this year but with me unable to eat gluten and my daughter, who loves sweets, now diagnosed with Celiac disease, it’s been a challenge! But I did just find a rum ball recipe that’s made with crushed almonds so I’ll be experimenting with round things this week. Merry Christmas to you and the family!

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    1. Thanks! So sorry to hear about Kate’s diagnosis. I’ve been having trouble lately with flour-based products and sugar, so I’ve been limiting my intake–and looking into gluten free breads. I found one I really like, too! Luckily, there are alternatives–though they’re sometimes harder to find.

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    1. Thanks! Yes, they were next to the rum balls, and then the icing started to melt and the colors started running together, and I was wondering if I should keep feeding these to my family, so I got rid of the remaining ones and replaced them with more rum balls!

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  10. Kind of sad to hear the lemon cookies weren’t the best. They sure sound good!
    I have no particular shape preference, but the Christmas tree cookies my daughter brought home from work because the package was broken and they couldn’t be sold, were darn tasty!

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