Bake Crisco Cookies!

What You Do:

1. Cream the shortening and sugar together with an electric mixer on medium speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl several times, until smooth and creamy, for about 1 minute.
2. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating each one into the mixture until thoroughly combined. Then add the vanilla. Scrape the bowl and beat just to combine.
3. Sift the flour into a separate bowl and add the salt to the bowl. Add the flour mixture a little bit at a time into the wet ingredients, and mix using a wooden spoon. (If you try to beat it in, you’ll most likely end up wearing it!) Beat on medium-low speed with your electric mixture just to combine.
4. Roll the dough out between two pieces of waxed or parchment paper until it is 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick, making sure that the rolled dough is about the size of the parchment paper. There will be lots of dough, so it's best to do this in stages and make several sheets of dough. Make as many sheets as you are able to accommodate for. Each sheet will have its own parchment paper "sandwich."
5. Without removing the paper, stack the sheets of dough on top of one another onto a baking sheet and freeze them until firm, for about 30 minutes.
6. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.
7. Remove a sheet of dough from the freezer, remove the top layer of parchment paper from the dough, and then cut the dough into shapes with cookie cutters. You can use any kind of cookie cutters you like!
8. Re-roll the scraps to utilize the rest of the dough, cutting out as many cookies as will fit on two baking sheets.
9. Note: You may need to bake your cookies in stages, depending on how many cookies you end up getting out of all of your dough and how many baking pans you have.
10. Bake your cookies, two sheet pans at a time, on the middle racks, switching the sheets' positions halfway through, until the cookies begin to brown at the edges - about 10 to 15 minutes. Be careful not to overcook them!
11. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets set on wire racks.
12. Repeat with the remaining dough if necessary until you've baked all of your cookies.
13. Enjoy!

Variation: You can add 1 cup of chopped walnuts and/or 2 cups (12 ounces) chocolate chips to the recipe if you like.

Cookie Puzzle

If your cable service provides the Fine Living channel (and if you didn’t sneeze), you might have caught me demonstrating this cookie puzzle in a 1-minute spot during the last several Hanukkah seasons. This is a great project for kids for holidays, birthday parties, rainy days, or any time. Makes two puzzles.

1. Prepare the Crisco Cookies dough as described in steps 1 through 3.
2. Line two 13 x 9-inch baking pans with parchment or waxed paper, leaving a few inches overhanging on opposite sides for easy removal later.
3. Pat half the dough evenly into each pan, spreading it into all of the corners so that the dough covers the pan completely. Cover with another sheet of parchment or waxed paper, cover the pan with aluminum foil, and freeze for several hours or overnight, until the dough is quite firm.
4. Remove the baking pans from the freezer and release the dough by pulling away the paper on the bottom of the dough. Smooth out the dough with a rolling pin, and using a ruler and a sharp knife, trim the uneven edges of the dough, cutting each piece of dough into a large rectangle. (You can use the scraps to make cut-out cookies.)
5. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
6. Transfer each rectangle of dough to a prepared baking sheet. Using a sharp knife, score the rectangles making outlines of puzzle shapes, using a curving motion, being careful not to separate the pieces. (If you bake the pieces separate from one another, they will spread, and you won’t be able to put the puzzle back together.) You can look at real puzzle pieces to get some inspiration if you like.
7. Bake, one pan at a time, on the center oven rack, until the cookies begin to brown along the edges - about 16 to 20 minutes per pan.
8. While the cookies are still warm, cut the cookies along the scored puzzle lines with a sharp knife, and separate the pieces. (If some of the puzzle pieces look a little underbaked, pop them back in the oven for another minute or two.)
9. Let the puzzle pieces cool on a wire rack.
10. When the pieces are cool, put the mini puzzles back together on a baking sheet and decorate them with any sort of frostings and decorations you like (sprinkles, icing, colored sugar, etc).
11. Note: Royal icing dries hard and is perfect for decorating cookies. You can make royal icing easily by preparing it with meringue powder (available at cake decorating stores or hobby shops) rather than fresh egg whites. Follow the directions on the meringue powder package. Use an assortment of colors to make several different icings and transfer the colored icing to 12-inch disposable pastry bags fitted with a tip (or ziptop bags with the very tip of one bottom corner cut off) and turn your junior Picasso loose!

These puzzle cookies are a great way to give your child practice with shapes and measurements. Not to mention they are tons of fun to make and play with any time of year!