Grandmom's Italian Easter Cookies

By ldijoe

My grandmom taught me to make these Easter cookies at Easter time. You can use different color non perils to make the cookies more festive.Recipe is doubled. You must mix by hand, no mixer. I use a wire whisk until I have to add the flour.

Ingredients

• ICING:
• 12 eggs
• 1 cup corn oil
• 1/2 pound margarine, melted
• 1 (2-ounce) bottle lemon extract
• 3 cups sugar
• 14 teaspoons baking powder
• 11 cups all purpose flour
• 1 bag confectioner's sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 packages round non-perils candies

Details

Servings 72
Preparation time 15mins
Cooking time 25mins

Preparation

Step 1

Melt margarine in saucepan and set aside.

In a large bowl beat eggs and sugar together. Add lemon extract, mix. Mix in oil. Then add margarine, mix until well blended. Add baking powder 1 teaspoon at a time mixing real well.

Begin adding flour one cup at a time and mix with spoon. Keep adding flour until you think you can handle mixture with hands. Turn the mixture out onto a floured surface and knead to form a soft dough. You will have to add flour until the dough is not sticky. Be careful not to add too much flour because cookies will be hard. The 11 cups of flour is an estimate. Keep adding until the cookie dough is not sticky, but not too thick.

After you are finishing kneading dough set aside and cover with towel so the dough can rest.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Flour cookie sheets.

Cut dough into a strip and cut pieces from strip. Roll out with hand and shape into a wreath or braid. Do not play with dough too much when shaping.

Bake for 10 minutes. Time will depend on oven. The bottom of the cookie should be light in color.

Let cookies cool.

ICING:
Place confectioner's sugar in bowl and mix with milk. Start with about 3-4 tablespoons of milk, and add until you get the consistency you would like. You will need to judge how much milk to make a nice white icing.

Put icing on cookies with pastry brush and sprinkle candies on cookies.

I put pieces of wax paper on my kitchen table and ice cookies on the wax paper. Let dry overnight before you put away. If they are not dried completely when you put away in tin can the round candies will run.

Cookies are best keep in a tin can. I line the tin can with wax paper.