The Christmas Season is upon us. That means singing carols, sipping hot cocoa, decking the halls, trimming the tree, and attending lots and lots of holiday gatherings, potlucks, and parties.

I have devised a recipe which will allow you to whip up a variety of seven different delicious cookies quickly, while only having to create one simple batter.

First add one and half cups of brown sugar and one and half cups of white sugar to a mixing bowl.

Next you’re going to need some margarine. I know, I know… we are all trying to avoid trans fat. Even though a lot of the margarine on the market says “Zero Trans Fat” on the front of the box, if you look on the back of the box, there is still “hydrogenated” something, in the ingredients. It’s impossible to avoid completely when using margarine… and YES… you must use margarine if you want your cookies soft and chewy. Using butter in place of margarine will make your cookies hard and crispy.

Just a little Trans Fat once in a while, wont hurt ya.

Add three sticks of margarine to the sugar.

Whip margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.

Next add two tsp of vanilla and three large eggs to the mix.

It’s best to crack the eggs into a separate small bowl first, and then pour all three into your batter.

If you crack the eggs directly into the sugar it’s nearly impossible to see if you’ve accidentally gotten any shell into the mix.

Whip sugar, margarine, eggs, and vanilla until well combined.

Fill a large measuring cup with four cups of flour.

Add to the flour, five tsp of baking soda and one half tsp of salt. Mix dry ingredients together with fork.

Next sift or pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients in mixing bowl.

Now here is the moment when most people dump a bag of Chocolate Chips into their batter. That is precisely what we are NOT going to do!

Spoon dollops of batter onto a cookie sheet.

Now, by hand, place candy and nuts onto each cookie.

You see… this is how you get several different kinds of cookies from one simple batter.

Have you seen these? They are peanut butter and jelly M&M’s. Yum! They are good by themselves, but they also make fun and delicious cookies.

So, with this one batter you can make:

1. M&M cookies

2. Peanut Butter and Jelly M&M cookies

3. Chocolate Chip cookies

4. White Chocolate Macadamia Nut cookies (white chocolate chips and chopped macadamia nuts) (Not pictured)

5. Chocolate Chip Walnut cookies (Not pictured)

6. Rocky Road cookies (mini marshmallows, chocolate chips and chopped walnuts) (Not pictured)

7. Snickerdoodles

(My walnuts were old and icky on the day I made these cookies, so I skipped the Walnut ones and I forgot to pick up White Chocolate Chips so I didn’t make the Macadamia nut ones either. Sorry I don’t have pictures for you of those ones, but trust me… they are ALL super, duper, delicious.)

All the cookies are created simply by placing the candy and nuts as desired, into each dollop of batter. All except for the Snickerdoodles. But those are really east to make as well.  Simply place a dollop of batter onto your hand instead of onto the cookie sheet and roll it into a ball.

Next, place the ball of batter into a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

Place coated Snickerdoodle ball onto cookie sheet.

Place your sheet of a variety of cookies into a 375 degree oven for nine minutes.

Check your cookies after nine minutes and make sure they look done. If so, pull ‘em on out and…

Viola!

An easy way to bring a variety of cookies to any get together, with hardly any fuss.

What You Need…

Rachymommy’s Soft-batch Variety Cookies

1 ¼ cup sugar

1 ¼ cup brown sugar

1 ½ cups margarine

2 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

4 cups flour

5 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

Add On Ingredients

Chocolate chips

Mini Marshmallows

White Chocolate chips

M & M’s

Chopped Walnuts

Chopped Macadamia Nuts

Cinnamon and Sugar Mix

Instructions…

Set the oven to 375 degrees

Combine butter, brown sugar, and white sugar in bowl. Mix until light and fluffy.  Mix in eggs and vanilla.

In separate bowl sift together flour, baking soda, salt.

Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture a little bit at a time, while mixing, until completely combined.

Place spoonfuls of batter onto cookie sheets.

Add candies and nuts to each dollop of batter as desired.

Cook for 9 minutes.

Makes 35 Cookies.

If you make all 7 types of Cookie, you will have enough batter for 5 of each kind. For 10 of each kind, double entire recipe.

Enjoy!