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"  Cookies are among the most nostalgic parts of Christmas for me. We always, always made peanut butter blossoms when I was a kid, and it was one of the few times my mom and I would bake together. These candy cane cookies remind me of a holiday season when I was a child and my parents weren&amp;#039;t around; my dad had surgery and my brother and I stayed at Fran and Gene&amp;#039;s house so my mom could be at the hospital with my dad. Fran baked these cookies with us, and I thought the two-colored dough was magical.  When I made these cookies last week for my kids, they reminded me of my friends. First I mixed up a fairly stiff dough, by halving a recipe I found at Joy of Baking: I whisked 1 1/4 cups flour with a pinch of salt. In a bigger bowl, I beat 1/2 cup (1 stick) room-temperature butter with 1/2 cup confectioners&amp;#039; sugar. When that was light and fluffy, I added 1 egg yolk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1/4 teaspoon almond extract and beat to combine. I added the flour, beating slowly until combined, then divided the dough in half. I beat 1/4 teaspoon red gel food color into one half of the dough.  To portion the dough for making candy canes, I formed each color of dough into a disk, then cut each into 12 wedges. You should be able to get 15 out of each.  I rolled 1 red wedge and 1 white wedge into 5-inch logs, then put them side-by-side and twisted. I curved one end to make a candy-cane crook, then put on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Repeated with the rest of the dough, then I baked the cookies at 375F for 9 minutes.  One of my &amp;quot;halves&amp;quot; was bigger than the other, so I ended up with far more red dough than white. I put the extra red dough aside and used it to make letters. This dough was great for making shapes and letters! It didn&amp;#039;t spread at all. SANTA, maybe? Come back next Friday, and every Friday this month, for more holiday cookies. In the meantime: 60 Christmas Cookies What cookies are you making this year? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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