Our First Christmas: Gifting

I wanted to give our Del Rio/Laughlin friends a gift for the holiday season without having to buy something and make them feel like they "owed" us something in return. So I figured I'd make cookies! I decided to make my grandma's recipe for Butter Riches.

Butter Riches by Helen Bauer

1. Cream

• 3/4 cup butter gradually adding
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar and
• 1 tbs. regular white sugar

2. Add to the mix

• 1 unbeaten egg yolk
• 1 tsp. vanilla and beat well

3. Blend in

• 1 3/4 - 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour to form a stiff dough

4. Shape into balls about the size of a marble, place on greased or non-stick cookie sheet
5. Flatten to the size of a .50cent piece with the bottom of a sugared glass
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 7 -9 minutes until the edges are light brown. Cool and frost.
Optional: garnish with slivered almonds

Frosting:
1. Brown 1/4 cup butter
2. Blend in 2 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar and i tsp vanilla.
3. Gradually add 3 - 4 tbs cream (you can use milk, but why skimp now?) until it becomes spreading consistency

I doubled the batch and made a ton. I also ended up using more than a few tbs of heavy whipping cream to make the frosting but it is sooo good and creamy.

Now, since presentation is everything and we don't have any holiday tins or red plastic wrap and ribbon I decided to do the next best thing. Make a box.

Having done this kind of thing in my past professional life I was quite excited to design my very own package. I found a free download of package dielines on the web so I sifted through until I found a fairly simple one that would fit a decent amount of cookies (about ten) and I adjusted it a bit so it would fit an 8.5"x11" piece of paper and close properly (after all, free isn't always accurate).

I added my own little holiday pattern from my printable recipe cards (on Etsy), some text and printed them on the eco-white cardstock from Paper-Source.com.
Then I made a nice little round snowflake sticker to punch out with my 2" circle punch (bought for wedding invitations) for sealing the box.

I put an empty sandwich bag inside the boxes, filled with cookies, closed the bag, tucked it in and sealed it all up with the sticker. I'll be including a copy of the recipe with the boxes because you can't have just one, umm ... box.

Viola! I am pretty impressed with myself right now, why, I'm not sure as this is my skill-set, but I think these look damn good and are great personalized, cheap and tasty holiday gifts.

(While product photography is also part of my skill set, I chose not to utilize it tonight. Pardon the bad pictures!)