Day Seven: Candy Cane Cookies

 When I saw these cookies on one of my favorite blogs I squealed!  My mom and I used to make these at Christmastime, and I was so excited to find a recipe and to try them again this year.

Candy Cane Cookies

 I like to soften my butter on the oven that is preheating, but I have to be careful that it doesn't get melty.  The best way to soften butter is really to just let it come to room temperature, but that takes a long time!

 I got to use my fancy almond extract again!  This stuff smells so freaking good!  But - just a warning - don't try to lick it off your hand if some drips on your finger.  Nope, don't try that at home!

 I like to use this method for sifting sugar and flour lately because the sifters all get rusty.  I've read a lot of the bloggers do it this way too, because of the rusty sifters.

 This recipe calls for butter, powdered sugar, almond extract and vanilla extract.

 Oops!  And an egg!  I almost forgot the egg. 

 Weird - adding the egg made it soupy and weird-looking.

 Never fear, the flour and salt made the batter turn into this beautiful mixture.

 I always have a hard time dividing the dough into two batches, because the one left in the mixer never looks like enough.

 I just couldn't tell!  But anyway, I wandered over to my new cupcake cart - isn't it great?

 I opened up my accessory drawer to get some food coloring (all three of those boxes in front there are food gel coloring - long story.)

 I chose my "super red" or whatever, and I also added a bit of brown to darken the red from a "pink."

 What a pain!  I remembered why I haven't made these since I was young with my mom - they do not roll well, they do not twist well, it was a huge pain in the butt!

 I had these little balls and rolled them - it was hard to take a picture because my gloves were all red and sticky.

 Here they are all baked!  They are cute but a lot of them broke, and they really don't taste all that great.  They are okay.  Definitely cute and I'm glad I tried them again!