Celebration Cookies for OBG!

I am terribly behind. I'd like to say it's not entirely my fault. But really I'm behind because I have been poor at time management. See, I put off baking the Christmas cookies until I finished with school (last Thursday). But the teacher who I'm long term subbing for just had her baby on Tuesday so my Christmas cookies had to be baked around teaching math to about 60 or so 7th graders.

So while I've been off enjoying myself with 7th graders, I've had this package sitting here to send off to Kevin for Operation Baking Gals. My team this month is hosted by my bloggerganger the every so lovely Calamity Shazaam in the Kitchen. She's awesome. I have filled his package with Celebration Cookies from my mother-in-law's excellent recipe, candy canes, red and green m&m's, and a loaf of home-made stollen. I'll post on the stollen later, because you really want my mother-in-law's cookie recipe. Trust me on this one, it's like a peanut butter cookie wrapped around a Snickers bar. It's at the bottom of the post. But, before you go look at the recipe, let me show you my week in the kitchen in random photos.



Thank God I'm done baking the cookies because I'm so sick of eating cookies right now. Who knew that could happen? I'm also sick of having spaghetti for dinner. But don't you love my 6 tiers of stackable cooling racks? They would make an excellent Christmas present for a cookie baker on your list. Another very nice Christmas present is my lovely salt box that I purchased here. If you live in Minneapolis you might be able to get one by Christmas. Sorry, I meant to post about it MUCH sooner. The box was made by the lovely Marti the Potter who blogs over here.

Megan pointed me in the direction of my happy smiley faced spoons that I got at TJ Maxx for about $3 each. They would make an excellent stocking stuffer if you can find them at TJ Maxx, or a present for yourself because you can order them here and yeah, probably not in time for Christmas.

So I apologize for posting on these so late, but I really wanted to show them to you. Because I love them. Both the box and the spoons make me smile every time I see them. Well, the spoons make me smile because they're so silly, and the box makes me feel like I'm some jazzy classy chef type person as I grab a large pinch of salt to stir into my spaghetti water. I really need to start cooking again...

Celebration Cookies

from Peggy my mother-in-law

2 sticks butter

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

3 1/2 cups flour

2 bags mini Snickers bars

Cream butter and sugars, add peanut butter, eggs, vanilla, soda and flour. Mix together well. Chill 2 hours. Roll into balls a little bigger than a walnut. Make an indentation in the center the size of the candy, place the candy in the indent and wrap the dough completely around the candy bar. Bake 350 degrees 10-12 minutes. Cool 2 minutes on the cookie sheet and transfer to a cooling rack. Yield: about 4 dozen.

Tradition, Quilts, and Flaming Desserts

Christmas this year was a big occasion. Christmas every year is big. When you have 3 brothers, 2 sisters, 3 stepbrothers, and 1 stepsister, every occasion is a big occasion. Christmas fortunately is split into 2 days for my side of the family. My dad and my stepmom always have the Brain and I over to celebrate Christmas and my stepbrothers and their wives are terrific people and we all get along great. This year was a little different than usual and I'll post on that later.

Christmas at my mom and my stepdad's house happens every Christmas Eve. My mom is big on tradition, and just like when I was a little girl at my grandmother's house, we celebrate with a big fancy dinner on Christmas Eve. We have pickled herring as a starter and it is always my job to cut the pickled herring into bite sized pieces. I LOVE pickled herring and frequently feast on it while cutting it into pieces. Then we have a delicious meal with green bean casserole and twice baked potatoes. Last year we had a crown roast of pork. This year we had chicken cordon blue. My stepdad is a really really good cook.

After we've eaten dinner on the fine china and we are all stuffed to the gills, the adults all help clean up all the dishes, put away one of the extra dinner tables (12 adults and 4 children need two tables), and get things ready. One adult gets the job of working the DVD player and keeping the kids occupied with a Christmas video and somehow Santa always comes to our house first on Christmas Eve. After the dishes are done and the adults are finished cleaning up from dinner, Santa yells "HO HO HO!" and slams the front door. By the time the kids get to the door he's all gone, but he's left a mammoth pile of presents under the tree. It's really cute.

Then we draw presents from youngest to oldest where you can't pick a present for yourself, it has to be for someone else. This way we all get to see what everyone else got. Opening presents can get a little tedious and has lasted well into the wee hours of the night. Not so much now that the adults all draw names so we have far less presents under the tree.

This year, my favorite present is a quilt my mom made the Brain and I. It is a quilt that I started with her and I put 4 squares together. Now that I have a sewing machine and I have successfully put together my apron I was ready to finally come up to Michigan and collect the quilt pieces and do it myself and maybe sometime this century I'd have it finished. Apparently when Mom made our wedding quilt, we had asked for king sized, she felt bad because it is much bigger than our bed. So over the summer she finished the melon ball quilt I had started. Quilts are really hard work and I was teasing my sisters that Mom likes me best because I got 2 quilts in one year. The wedding quilt is the picture here and the Christmas quilt is the one above this paragraph.

After all the presents were unwrapped, we had dessert. Dessert, as tradition dictates, is Rice Bavarian. Rice Bavarian is a delicious dessert of whipped cream and rice and gelatin. it's really really tasty. Then on top we pour brandied cherries and light them on fire. My grandpa would always put loads of brandy in it so it would really flame high. Grandpa was quite the character. As our family has grown bigger we now also accommodate the vegan and lactose intolerant members of our family with a pineapple upside down cake made without milk or eggs. But really it's all about the flaming Rice Bavarian.

Rice Bavarian
Dorothy Hunter

1 1/2 pints whole milk
lemon peel*
1/2 cup rice
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 oz granulated (unflavored) gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
1 cup heavy cream whipped

Put milk and lemon peel in double boiler, when hot, stir in well washed rice and salt. Cook until rice is perfectly tender. Add to hot cooked rice; flavoring, sugar, and gelatin which has been dissolved in water. Mix carefully.
When mixture is beginning to set, fold in cream, whipped stiff. Pour into mold and chill.

"Grandma like to use canned cherries mixed with Cherry Kiafa and set aflame."

* What can I say, it's another family recipe. I asked my mom how much lemon peel and she pulled out of jar and added a couple shakes.

Cherry Kiafa is some kind of cherry liquor. Something with a high proof burns the best.

My Log

So I joined this super group of Daring Bakers. The whole reason I started a blog was because I wanted to join this really cool group of bakers who stretch themselves with exciting and difficult pursuits. They have secret rituals too. And a really cool logo. Its like a cross between two of my favorite things. Baking and James Bond. It is entirely possible that I may have been humming dum da da dum da da da dum da da dum, (the James Bond theme song) while I read our super secret instructions. To make a Yule Log.

Of course making a yule log has never been high on my list of things to do while trying to get everything else done before Christmas. I mean, really, I make a ton of Christmas cookies to send to my friends, and now apparently to the Brain's good referral sources, and then I try to make a gingerbread house. And we can't forget the sauerkraut balls. And frankly, rolling up a cake sort of scared me. After watching Tyler Florence screw up rolling a cake on Iron Chef America (love that show) I was more than nervous that the cake would crack up and die.

So I soaked it brandy. OK maybe soaking isn't right. I brushed the outside of the cake with brandy and then I flipped it over and brushed the other side. Then I rolled it up around a dishtowel on one side and parchment paper on the other and left it for the night because I completely forgot to take the butter out of the fridge and let it get super soft and squishy so the frosting/filling would turn out OK. Cold butter = ruined frosting. There's a lot of Daring Bakers who could tell you that. The next day, the butter was soft, the frosting came together beautifully. The cake unrolled and rolled back up again. I was SO relieved!

Then came the hard part. The meringue mushrooms. Perhaps I've mentioned the effects of humidity in my cozy little house. It makes things squishy. Meringue mushrooms are not supposed to be squishy. I made the tops and the bottoms and they were great. I put a couple together with melted chocolate and satisfied everything would be OK, I went to bed. The next morning I went to take a shower and brushed my robe against the tray of mushroom bottoms and realized I had half a dozen mushroom parts stuck to my robe. They were tasty, but they were squishy. I reread the recipe and realized I was supposed to store them in an airtight container. So I stuck them back in the oven for a while and then popped them into a Ziploc. Problem solved.

I happily decorated the log with snowflake sprinkles and some cacoa nibs (like little wood chips) and my meringue mushrooms. I like to think its like a log in winter.

And now came the SUPER challenge. Today was my grandmother's 90th birthday party. In Michigan. We live in Ohio. 2 hours away. (well the way we drive). So now I had to transport this log. And not kill it. I stuck toothpicks in it so the cling wrap wouldn't mess up the frosting. I packed spare mushroom parts and the leftover frosting.

I held it carefully in my lap the whole drive up. I may be stretching the truth here, I did fall asleep after Toledo for a couple of snores. Once here I unwrapped, fixed a couple mushrooms and tidied it up. After cracking several jokes with my sister G about wanting to see my log, we declared it done. I'm pretty darn pleased with myself. I thought that there was the distinct possibility that I would completely bomb this challenge. Whew!

You can get the recipe for the Yule log here. The only changes I made is that I stuck the mushroom parts together with chocolate and later frosting, and I added 2 oz. of melted bittersweet 62% chocolate to the buttercream because my sister M was annoyed at the lack of chocolate in the yule log.

Check out the rest of the Daring Bakers here. There's something like 300 people posting about Yule Logs between today and tomorrow.

It must be an Ohio thing

I have to admit, in preparing to move to Ohio. I could come up with a whole lot for the minus column. No job for me. Ohio State fans. Shopping at Walmart. I prepared for things I've never before up close experienced. Small town life. Farmers. I knew there were regional foods here. Biscuits and gravy (ew). Buckeyes (yum). But I in no way could have prepared myself for sauerkraut balls.

After we went to a party last year where sauerkraut balls were served, I asked my mother in law about them. In case you haven't noticed she's an EXCELLENT reference for me. It turns out she has a recipe for them from a very old Joy of Cooking. We made them last year for Christmas and this year we made a double batch to share with my family when I go up to Michigan for Christmas. They've never heard of them either.

What are sauerkraut balls? They are sauerkraut, pork, ham, corned beef, cream sauce, and dry mustard. The cream sauce is made with milk and flour- my mother in law says it's way better than the cream cheese variety. Who am I to argue? Then they're chilled overnight and the next day we roll them into balls. The balls then get rolled in flour, egg wash and bread crumbs. Then my mother in law deep fries them and they're done. And yummy to boot.

Even though I love them, I think it would be physically impossible to eat an entire batch in one sitting. Fortunately, they freeze well and then can be reheated in the oven. This makes them the perfect party snack because you can make them ahead of time.

I realize by now your mouth is watering and you are ready to try these tasty delights and are just reading this to get to the recipe. Well. I don't have it. Sorry. I don't really want it. I like making them with my mother in law and as long as she has the recipe I'm OK with that.

Finished!

After falling down the stairs at church on Sunday and deciding to reward myself with a Spin class tonight, I'm ever so grateful that my mother-in-law decided to send over leftovers from a luncheon she had today so I didn't have to cook. As much as I want to spend the rest of the night in a hot bath, I still have Christmas cards to write and cookie packages to pack up. I wonder if I can do it all standing up. I have a bruise on my hiney.

But the cookies at least are finished and I can share my little round up with you...

I'll list them off top to bottom, left to right:

Top Row: spritz, double chocolate walnut biscotti, 7-layer bars (aka Hello Dolly bars), Aunt Nicky's butter cookies, snickerdoodles.

Second Row: gingerbread man, rumball, chocolate mint cookie, shortbread cookie, Laura Bush's cowboy cookie (ok I'm totally embarrassed about it, but I really like these cookies).

Third Row: peanut butter cookie, Hershey macaroon kiss, oatmeal craisin, lemon coconut pixie, chocolate chip cookie.

Fourth Row: Mexican wedding cookie, pumpkin cookie, Mrs. Eder's toffee bars, golden biscotti, billy goat.

Now I just have to box them up and send them out. Yay! The cookies will be out of my house in less than a week. Be prepared for a January full of vegetables.

The Gingerbread House that Wasn't

I don't quit easily. But I think the time has come to admit that the gingerbread house has gotten the better of me. First there seems to be something like 4 billion pieces to this thing. Then it's been raining for a week. Well, now there's snow. And a lot more on the way. And there's that whole powdered sugar shortage going on. But I digress. Once the pieces were baked, I noticed they were getting squishier by the day. This is not a new gingerbread recipe for me and the house I built last year was happily destroyed by a bunch of little kids.

I bravely attempted to put the roof together. That didn't work.

OH the crumbling. the horror.

And then I started putting in candy cane reinforcements and plastering the walls with royal icing. But the walls started breaking.

I patched some together.

But you know how I can sometimes take things as signs from God...

I have decided this is the house just isn't meant to be. This time of year can be so stressful and there's no need to stress myself out over some silly house that nobody's pressuring me to make. It's supposed to be a fun season and there's some fun fun stuff coming up in the next week or so. There's the very challenging Daring Baker's challenge (I'm not telling what it is. It's a secret.) There's something very exciting for tomorrow based on a story about a sharpshooting lion. And there's also going to be a yummy goody that I've never had before moving to Ohio. So who needs this silly little house anyway?

Gingerbread men

I had made my gingerbread earlier this week and was planning to decorate them yesterday after dinner. SO I'm in the middle of making the royal icing and realize that I am one cup of powdered sugar short. I thought I had another bag in the cupboard, but sadly, I was mistaken. I then decided to hop in the car and run over to Walmart. Although I really don't like to support Walmart, at 9:30 at night my choices are limited. To my surprise, Walmart was out of powdered sugar!

I took it as a sign from God after a long long long day that I should just go home and go to bed. I wasn't going to drive to the next county for powdered sugar.

SO today, I go to my normal grocery after work to buy powdered sugar. And they were out too! I don't understand rural life that there is a run on powdered sugar 2 weeks before Christmas. it's just unreal that there is no powdered sugar in town.

I did manage to find 3 half pound boxes that were hidden behind some sugar cubes at the grocery. Of course, I was so flustered by the powdered sugar shortage that I forgot to buy the flour to rebake the gingerbread house. The gingerbread house is in bad shape. Interestingly, Walmart still has no powdered sugar. I wasn't going to go right back to the same grocery I came from to get the flour and I was curious to see if Walmart had restocked.

But this is my favorite gingerbread recipe and I could sit here and eat these little tiny ones I cut out all afternoon. It's from Rose Levy Beranbaum's cookbook, Rose's Christmas Cookies. When I moved here in January, about 10 pages were lost from the cookbook. Unfortunately the gingerbread recipe was on them. I went into complete panic mode. Fortunately, the local library had a copy and I was able to copy it down and go on with my life. I found the pages the day before yesterday. After I made the cookies.

Gingerbread Men

Rose Levy Beranbaum

3 cups all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp ground cloves

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

12 Tbsp unsalted butter

1/2 cup unsulfered molasses

1 large egg

Soften the butter. In a small bowl, sift together the flour salt baking soda and spices, then whisk together to mix evenly. In a mixing bowl cream the brown sugar and butter until fluffy. Add the molasses and the egg and beat in the flour mixture until incorporated.

Scrape the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and use the wrap to press the dough together to form a thick flat disk. Wrap it well and refrigerate it for at least 2 hours.

Place 2 oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 350°F.

Roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thickness and place on greased cookie sheets 1 inch apart. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until firm to the touch and just beginning to color around the edges. Cool on the sheets for 1 minutes and then transfer to cooling racks.

Yes more cookies...

Most biscotti, although I love it, is bland and crumbly and needs to be eaten with coffee. This biscotti is different. It's decadently rich and chocolaty. There's a generous amount of cocoa in the cookie and it's studded with chocolate chips. This is no subtle cookie. It screams out chocolate. The walnuts deliciously cut through the chocolate so they aren't too sweet or overbearing. These biscotti are rich enough that just one or two will do so you don't have to worry about eating the entire batch and then having to bake more before Christmas. And really although they don't need it, they're great with a cup of coffee..

Oh yeah, and we got the tree up!

Double Chocolate Walnut Biscotti

from Bon Appetit

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

3/4 stick (6 Tbsp) unsalted butter

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup walnuts

3/4 semisweet chocolate chips

1Tbsp confectioners sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. and butter and flour a large baking sheet.

In a bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl with an electric mixer beat together butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until combined well. Stir in flour mixture to form a stiff dough. Stir in walnuts and chocolate chips.

On prepared baking sheet with floured hands form dough into two slightly flattened logs, each 12 inches long and 2 inches wide, and sprinkle with confectioners sugar. Bake logs 35 minutes, or until slightly firm to the touch. Cool biscotti on baking sheet 5 minutes.

On a cutting board cut biscotti diagonally into 3/4-inch slices. Arrange biscotti, cut sides down, on baking sheet and bake until crisp, about 10 minutes. Cool biscotti on a rack.

Armed and Delicious!

As its December, I spend most of my time in the beginning of the month baking Christmas cookies. I make around 20 different kinds and I try to have them all done by the 15th so that I can mail them off to various friends that have become dear to me over the years and the places I've travelled. A lot of my Christmas cookie recipes are standard. So, I've decided to only blog about the "special" ones. And oh yeah, the yummy ones.

These lovely crisp, yet melt in your mouth, buttery spritz cookies came to me in a doctor's office waiting room in Indiana. I was the first appointment of the day and the doctor was already running half an hour late. I later decided he was a quack. But as I was sitting there that December morning, annoyed at the doctor, I leafed through a current-ish issue of Good Housekeeping. Kelly Ripa was on the cover and I figured as long as I was annoyed, I might as well learn about how this overly perky woman, who seems to have her life all put together, celebrates the holidays.

There at the end of the article was her grandmother's Spritz cookie recipe. Holy Crap! The woman is a twig. I find it hard to believe she snacks on cookies. Cookies with a whole cup of butter in them none the less. I had already gotten my cookie baking done and was making a highly successful gingerbread house (not like this year's model) and I decided I'd give them a shot. Wooo Yay! yummy!

My mom had given me the Super Shooter cookie press several years before, but I didn't really have a good recipe. But now, thanks to Kelly Ripa, I have a delicious recipe. And Spritz cookies always come out so cute.

Grandma Esther's Spritz Cookies

courtesy of Kelly Ripa through Good Housekeeping magazine

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1 tsp almond extract

Heat oven to 375° F.

Combine butter and sugar, then add remaining ingredients. Mix thoroughly.

Load into cookie press. Place dough 1/2 inch apart on cookie sheet.

Bake about 8 minutes or until edges are golden.

Mint Chocolate Cookies

I have to admit these aren't my favorite of the Christmas cookies. My favorite are the plain old peanut butter cookies. But I don't really have a special recipe for peanut butter cookies. Really I just use the Betty Crocker recipe out of that ubiquitous red cookbook. It's the same cookie recipe everyone else has. It's the cookie I'm most likely to sneak out and snack on. The cookie that will most likely run short when I make the cookie packages to send out. But I can make peanut butter cookies any time I want. There's really nothing special or Christmassy about them.

Now these Chocolate Mint cookies are only brought out at Christmas and I really don't have a clue where the recipe came from. As I said before, the Brain and I aren't huge mint fans, but I can tell you that I almost discontinued these cookies in the past and it was met with an outcry. These are a couple of my friends' favorite Christmas cookie. And really, in a plate of sweet and golden buttery cookies the mint holds its own and the entirely chocolate cookie stands out.

Other than the 4 hour chilling time these cookies are ridiculously easy. I don't even use a mixer to make them. They're festive and a couple of them on a cookie plate really round out a collection. In spite of themselves, these cookies really spell Christmas to me and so I'm sending them in to Food Blogga as my entry for Eat Christmas Cookies.

Mint Chocolate Cookies

2oz unsweetened chocolate, melted

1/4 cup canola oil

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp mint extract

2 eggs

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

powdered sugar

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in small bowl. In separate bowl, mix together melted chocolate, oil, sugar and mint. Add eggs one at a time stirring until blended. Add flour mixture into chocolate mixture. Cover dough and chill for at least 4 hours (no more than 2 days). Scoop out 1 tsp at a time into small balls and roll in powdered sugar. Place balls about 2 inches apart on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350° for 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool on the pan for a minute before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

A family recipe (and effort)

Billy Goat cookies are synonymous with Christmas in our family. They're a cinnamon spiced, almond and candied citron cookie. Unfortunately, as the recipe is from my great great grandmother it leaves a little bit of figuring out. I spent some serious time on the phone with my sister G, and my sister M, and my mom, trying to figure out the best way to make these cookies.

See, if you cook them wrong, they turn out like beautiful little rocks. Something like the everlasting gobstopers on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I get very nervous about German cookies that turn into rocks. I broke a tooth on a Springerle and I'm never making them again. Teeth are expensive.

So the recipe for these cookies is at best vague. There's a German name for them, but I don't know it. My sister M does, but my mom says that she thinks the spelling is wrong. To top it off, the directions I have are:

"Try 350° and a greased cookie sheet."

That's it.

What the hell?

My mom said she wrote it down, but she didn't really have any directions. My sister G, who has a super blog here, says that she always weighs the sugar and the ingredients listed in weights. She also pointed out that a hotter oven is better. She said that if the oven is too cold then they have to cook longer at the lower temperature and it basically dries them into hard little rocks. Her oven runs cold and she said to make sure that the cookies only take about 10 to 12 minutes. Good. Didn't have a time before.

My sister M and my mom contributed that cooking the cookies on parchment paper works better than anything else, because they don't stick to parchment paper. M also added that it's better to start off too hot. You can tell that the oven is too hot because they start to spread and the edges get dark, but the center is undercooked and then when they're cold they turn into rocks. My mom also pointed out not to use the Kitchenaid to mix in the citron or it would turn to brightly colored mush. The citron has to be folded in.

I was not to be intimidated. I am joining the Daring Bakers after all. I can do this.

They turned out lovely. I didn't overcook them, I didn't undercook them. I watched them constantly. I kept my oven at 350°. I bumped it up to 375° to be on the safer side. I bumped it back down to 350°. And then when it was all said and done, I worried. They were a little crunchy last night. And then I became brilliant! I remembered the bread trick. I stuck a piece of bread in the tin with the cookies last night. Today they are nice and soft and chewy and delicious.

I am bringing these cookies to Peabody's virtual housewarming party. Peabody is this really cool food blogger who makes unbelievably delicious things. Her pumpkin butterscotch cake is seriously delicious. I really wasn't planning to bring these, or any baked good really. That's like playing tennis with Martina Navratilova. But I figured, baked goods are something that Peabody would appreciate. And this is a special old family recipe.

And I just caught my oven on fire. Something I seem to have a talent for. This is the 4th state I've caught either the stove or the oven on fire in. Michigan. Kansas. Indiana. Ohio. It's not something I advertise to landlords. No damage done. I calmly put the fire out with salt, but now I have to wait for the oven to get cold to scrub it out. By the way, If you end up using a fire extinguisher on an oven you render it permanently useless. Try salt first.

Good thing the rumballs are done. They're nice and potent. yummmmmmm.

Billy Goats

Amelia Kern (my great great grandmother)

1 pound sugar

2 eggs

1/4 pound butter

1/4 pound almonds*

3/4 pound lemon peel, citron, orange **

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

Try 350° and a greased cookie sheet.***

*I used slivered almonds. G uses chopped almonds. Mom and M use whatever almonds they have on hand. They've even used walnuts, but M says that they taste better with almonds.

** This means the candied citron fruitcake mix you find in the grocery store. Yes. The bright yellow, green, and red stuff that's obviously not naturally colored.

*** I TOLD you the directions were funky. Use a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake around 350° watching them closely. Only cook for 10 to 12 minutes. If it takes more or less time than that adjust the oven temperature.

Oh and mix the wet ingredients, then add in the dry ingredients (which have already been mixed together). Then fold in the nuts and citron.

Lemon Pixies

The annual baking of Christmas cookies continues on. Not quite as usual. For the first time I am baking the Christmas cookies in our cozy little house. The house is very very old, has a creepy basement and an oven that doesn't like to stay closed. Other than that, things usually run along mighty smoothly.

Today's funkiness of the oven yielded spectacular results on a cookie that almost didn't make the list this year. These Lemon Pixies last year were just okay and the only reason I picked the recipe in the first place was because a friend of mine didn't like chocolate. She was a friend at the time, later she betrayed me and my life spiraled into something out of a Danielle Steele novel. She's no longer part of my life. I'm all right now, and I digress.

So, I made them today and decided that I needed to double the recipe because I ship the cookies out to my friends and last year I didn't have enough of these to go around. Wheeee! These were tasty! I'm not sure if it's my new drying racks, my new microplane, my temperamental oven, or what, but they turned out really really good. They are now hidden form the Brain, Mr. "I don't like lemon", who wanted more than his already agreed on 4 cookies.

Lemon Coconut Pixies

adapted from Hershey's

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 cup sugar

4 eggs

zest of 2 lemons

3 cups all purpose flour

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 cups sweetened coconut flakes

Beat butter, sugar, eggs, and lemon peel in large bowl until well blended. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until blended. Stir in coconut. Cover; refrigerate dough about 1 hour or until firm enough to handle. Shape into 1-inch balls; roll in powdered sugar. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 15 to 18 minutes in 300° oven until edges are set. Immediately remove from cookie sheet to wire rack*. Cool completely.

* These seriously need to go immediately onto the wire rack. I accidentally let some sit for maybe a minute and they were sticking to my silpat.

Mrs. Eder's Toffee Bars

Once upon a time, when I was just a little girl, my mother taught piano. OK, I was not a little girl, I was a fat obnoxious teenager, but that's not really important. My mother was a piano teacher of little children and at Christmastime she would get all sorts of interesting presents. Actually her most interesting present happened at Easter, one of her students gave her one of those elaborately decorated Eastern European Easter eggs. It was beautiful. It also was a real egg. It exploded with a loud pop after a little more than a week. Very exciting.

Anyhow, she would get lots of presents and plates of cookies and stuff like that. Scarves with piano keyboards on them and so on. It was one of those Christmases that we became aware of the most delicious and easy to make bar cookie ever. I mean it. EVER. Mrs. Eder sent over a plate of them with her kid and they were quickly inhaled by all of us kids. Mrs. Eder was kind enough to share the recipe with my mom and they have been a staple at Christmastime ever since.

It should be mentioned that there is one small trick. The cookies must be cut while warm. Otherwise they make a lovely ice cream topping. They don't have to be hot, just don't let them cool all the way down.

This recipe is so easy because the chocolate chips melt on their own after you sprinkle them on top. There's no need to pull out the double boiler or risk the microwave to melt them. Also, the original recipe calls for pecans and that's how I usually make them, but I've made them with walnuts before and they were still delicious. I'm pretty sure they'd be great with almonds too. Peanuts might be icky though.

I don't know what ever happened to Mrs. Eder. My mom switched careers and became an electrical engineer next. I don't think they kept in touch. But wherever she is, my family loves her. And these cookies!

Mrs. Eder's Toffee Bars

2 sticks butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg yolk

2 cups flour

1 bag chocolate chips (12 oz.)

3/4 cup chopped pecans

Mix sugar and butter. Add egg yolk and vanilla. Beat well. Mix in flour. Grease pan (cookie sheet with sides). Pat in dough.

bake at 325° 1/2 hour

Spread chocolate chips on cookie, let melt. Smooth and sprinkle with nuts. Cut while warm.

These freeze well.