My seven-year-old granddaughter, Emily, drew a sunshiny picture when she was visiting us at Thanksgiving. I just couldn’t resist placing a holiday cookie on each little flower that she so carefully created.

In a recent All About Food newspaper column, I shared a recipe that was an adaptation of a cookie my mom used to make every Christmas that she called Brown-Eyed Susans. They were almond-flavored tender cookies that she topped with chocolate glaze and an almond. The cookies I made for the column are flavored with vanilla and topped with a miniature peanut butter cup to resemble a flower. You can find the recipe by clicking here.

The cookies that I used to decorate Emily’s artwork are made with the same dough that I had in the newspaper. In some, I pushed pastel-colored mints that I had first turned upside down. They add a nice touch to Christmas cookie platters, but they would also be perfect to serve at baby or wedding showers or any springtime celebration.

In some of the cookies, I pushed chocolate mint meltaways that I had recently purchased from Emily, who was selling them for Girl Scouts. I crushed a few candy canes to sprinkle on the top.

So, with just one dough, you can get several flowers — I mean, flavors. If you need a plate of cookies to take to a holiday gathering, just make one batch of dough and top some with peanut butter cups, some with pastel mints and some with chocolate mints. One batch of dough will yield a little more than three dozen cookies. You’ll probably have some topping ideas of your own. Feel free to share you ideas with me by clicking on "comments" at the bottom of this entry.