Holly Lane (33 page)
Dear Reader,
While writing the Destiny series, I often find myself pulling small bits of inspiration from memories of my own life growing up in a rural small town area. Some of these things make their way into the story, while others just stay in the back of my mind. And when I was writing
Holly Lane
, I knew without even thinking about it that Sue Ann’s Christmas cookies were
my
family’s traditional Christmas cookies, made from a recipe passed down through my Appalachian grandmother’s family.
Some of my earliest memories include standing on a step stool in my grandma’s kitchen helping her roll out the dough for these cookies, which we called Grandpa Cookies because my grandfather liked them so much. Later, I helped my mother make them, as well, rolling out the dough and cutting out the shapes of trees, stars, bells, stockings, snowmen, and reindeer every Christmas. (Although be warned: The reindeer shapes were often difficult to maneuver onto the cookie sheet.) Throughout my school years and then into my work years, everyone I knew looked forward to my mom’s cookies—she’s gifted at rolling out the dough very thin, making them light and airy but still very tasty. Now I sometimes make Grandpa Cookies myself, but so far I haven’t achieved quite the perfection with them that my mother has.
These cookies have been a memorable part of my life and are definitely a long family tradition—and I’m happy to pass the recipe on to you with hopes that your family will enjoy them as much as mine does.
Wishing you and yours every joy this holiday season!
Toni
P.S. And for more recipes from Destiny, visit
www.ToniBlake.com
.
(also called Butter Cookies)
2 sticks butter or margarine
1½ cups confectioners sugar
1 egg
1 tsp cream of tartar
1½ tsp vanilla
2½ cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
Cream together first five ingredients. Combine salt, soda, and flour in separate bowl, then mix gradually into creamed mixture. When well-blended, cover and chill for eight hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll dough to approximately ¼ inch or less, if possible. Cut into desired shapes and place on a nonstick cookie sheet. (Or the dough can also be shaped into a log for chilling, then sliced for simple round cookies.)
Bake on lower oven shelf until cookies are slightly puffed, then move onto upper shelf and bake until edges begin to turn lightly golden. Entire baking time is approximately four to six minutes, depending upon cookie thickness. Do not overbake. Cool on rack.
Eat cookies plain or cover with glaze:
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
dash of salt
1 tsp vanilla
add milk to desired consistency (but be careful not to add too much)
Stir ingredients together, then add food color if desired. Apply to cooled cookies with pastry brush.
A
s always, I am indebted to Lindsey Faber, for so patiently brainstorming this story with me, and to Renee Norris, for tirelessly reading and critiquing version after version of it on short notice, and also for coming up with brilliant ways to solve plot problems! How blessed am I to have close friends who just happen to be gifted at this stuff? You guys are the best!
I also want to thank my New York team of professionals for all they do—May Chen, Meg Ruley, Christina Hogrebe, Pam Jaffee, Jessie Edwards, and Amanda Bergeron. You all rock the publishing world and I’m thankful to have you in my corner!
TONI BLAKE’s lifelong love of writing began when she won an essay contest in the fifth grade. Soon after, she penned her first novel—nineteen notebook pages long. Since then, Toni has become a multipublished, RITA®-nominated author of contemporary romance novels that are both sexy and heartwarming. Toni lives with her husband in the Midwest and when not writing, she enjoys traveling, quilting, and scrapbooking.
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Holly Lane
Whisper Falls
Sugar Creek
One Reckless Summer
Letters to a Secret Lover
Tempt Me Tonight
Swept Away
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
HOLLY LANE
. Copyright © 2011 by Toni Herzog. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062096142
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062024602
FIRST EDITION
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