It's the most wonderful time of the year...

The Sandies with our festively sprayed conch shells!

Today has been a crazy busy baking day! I baked and frosted 100 cupcakes for a church's carol service on the Island that's happening tonight.  I had some left over frosting and some leftover cake in the freezer so I am in the middle of making a few festive cake pops, and our chocolate peppermint cookies have just come out the oven and are waiting to be dipped with white chocolate.  We also still have a yule log to make too which will be our Christmas day pudding! so we are baking up a storm!

Here's a pic of some Sandies that Mara made yesterday morning while I went out to do some last minute gift shopping! They were taken from Martha Stewart's Holiday Cookies magazine.  The recipe was originally for Pecan Sandies but since Mara knows I'm not a nut fan she omitted them and replaced them with some festive red and green M&M's instead...which was a good move!

I've never had Sandies before...or even heard of them for that matter, apparently they are closely related to shortbread but they have a crumblier texture inside similar to particles of sand hence the name! and I was pleasantly surprised, they were delicious!  Mara topped them with some sanding sugar and little mini Hershey's kissables...in festive colours of course.

If you want to make some here's our altered recipe:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup plain flour (all purpose)

1 cup red and green M&M's

To decorate:

Red and green sanding sugar

Red and green hershey's kissables

1. Preheat oven to 350degrees f.  Beat butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer on medium high speed until fluffy, 3-4 minutes.  Beat in vanilla and salt.  Reduce speed to low, and gradually add flour, beating just until combined.  Fold in M&M's.

2. Roll dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, and place on parchment lined baking sheets, spacing 2 inches apart.  With the dampened bottom of a glass, lightly flatten each ball.

3. Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are golden brown, 15-17 minutes.  Let cookies cool completely on wire racks, they can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.  

Now onto a baking giveaway...my sister Mel's scrapbooking blog is having their blogiversary and two great prizes are up for grabs, there is one scrapbooking prize for those of you crafters out there and for all you bakers there is also an awesome gingerbread man related prize! So head on over to her post to enter. You have until the 28th, and it is open to all bloggers, no matter where you live! Hooray...I love international giveaways!