My Christmas would not be the same without my Grandma’s German Wine Cookies. I’ve never met anyone who has either had them or even heard of them, so apparently they are pretty rare. But I adore them, and I honestly can’t remember a Christmas without them. When I was little, I’d make them with my Grandma, and as we got older, we’d make them with my mom or just by ourselves.
But you always gotta have Wine Cookies.
German Wine Cookies
makes about 3 dozen
- 1 cup butter
- 2 cups sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup Port, Sweet Marsala, or Cream Sherry
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 5 – 5 1/2 cups flour
Preheat oven to 375º. Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well-combine. Beat in wine and vanilla (be careful, it can get sloppy here). Slowly beat in flour until dough is stiff enough to roll out. Roll dough out to 1/4″ thick on a lightly floured board. Cut out cookies with cookie cutters. Bake about 10 minutes, until the edges are barely light brown (the bottoms will be slightly golden). Cool on wire racks.
German Wine Cookies
These cookies keep really well, too– my Grandma always said they would keep for a year in an airtight container. Not sure about that, but they do last without getting all dried out.
It’s a pretty simple recipe, but the cookies are really quite unique. With my Grandma, we almost always used Marsala, but nowadays I usually can find Cream Sherry more easily.
What’s your favorite holiday cookie? Is it something unusual, or something more traditional?
Mmmm. Probably frosted sugar cookies remind me of the holidays the most. They aren’t my favorite cookie of all time, but they seem sort of special because you have a few extra steps (as opposed to regular drop cookies). This year I mostly ate chocolate, coffee cake, and chocolate.