How Many Eggs Yolks?

So after making that delicious birthday cake, I took the leftovers to work and my coworkers happily and speedily took care of it for me. I did have one small problem though. The cake takes 13 egg whites between the Japonais layers and buttercream. Which means that I had 13 egg yolks in the fridge. thirteen? THIRTEEN! What in the hell does a person do with 13 egg yolks? Well, 4 of them went into these cookies. Still working on the rest.

Delicious Drop Butter Cookies

Wait? Who makes cookies after giving away all of the leftover delicious birthday cake? Well... the princess walked up to me and asked for a cookie as we were stuck in the house again (thank you polar vortex). And really, these cookies are a bit addictive. They came together quick and are flying out of the cookie jar. Which might be bad. 

Dammit. More Snow. Bitter cold to follow.

See we've been walloped with alternating weather patterns. We start out with a big clipper system and several inches of snow. Then while we are out with the snow blower and clearing off the driveway we get blasted with the polar vortex. We close school because of the snow. Then the wind starts which causes blowing. (We delay for blowing snow.) Then, with the wind comes the wind chill. brrr. So far in January we've had days with wind chills around -35 (lost 2 days for that polar vertex), and then Friday wind chills went to -23 (and we closed again). We are now at 8 days closed for weather. We are only allowed to have 5 before we have to start making them up.

I'm a little stir crazy. 

And it does not look like there's an end in sight. We're supposed to get another 2 inches tomorrow. Then some winds and blowing snow. Then Tuesday we'll have a nice high of -3. A HIGH of -3. Crap. My students are going to fail the OAAs. Those pesky standardized tests that determine whether I'm a good teacher. And I'll be teaching through June. And this weather is brutal on my arthritis. So very little working out for me. I'm thinking of going into the garage and finding the cane. Depressing.

Cookies work well with the coffee!

So yeah, these cookies. These cookies are super good. A teensy rich, but super good. I might need to make them again soon. Because the princess is running out of them. Mostly because Mommy and Daddy are eating them all. The princess has been far too busy playing with Playdo, finger painting, coloring, playing with tater head, and learning Spanish from watching Sesame Street and Dora.

Painting a picture for Abuela Peggy!

Drop Butter Cookies
an original Shazamer recipe

2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 egg yolks

Preheat oven to 375 F
Combine the flour, soda, and salt in a small bowl and mix together. Set it aside.
Cream the butter and the sugars until it is nice and fluffy. Add the vanilla. Then add the egg yolks one at a time, making sure they are fully incorporated before adding the next one. Drop by teaspoonfull (or small scoop) onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet and let cool on a rack.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Last night Super G and I had an interesting phone conversation. She was complaining that I was anticipating not just one snow day, but two if the full 12 inches of snow hits like it's supposed to. It started at 7am this morning. Right on schedule! (As it turns out, Super G can no longer whine about there being no snow days in New York City. School is cancelled for her tomorrow too!)

To make her feel better Super G and I were discussing the benefits of living in New York City. Not that I really know, because I've only lived in what seems like every major metropolitan area in the Midwest not the East Coast. So I pointed out things like being able to find rice flour, or marscapone cheese and being able to go to places like fancy chocolate shops and Murray's cheese shop, and if she wants Indian food she doesn't have to cook it herself. Super G then started to feel better because, as she pointed out to me, she was able to have some Scharffenberger cocoa powder delivered to her house with her groceries.

I don't think I can find Scharffenberger cocoa out here. Well certainly not in this county anyway. Askinosie isn't available either. I have to admit that I was starting to feel a little blue. The best cocoa I can find is whatever Walmart carries. But then I started to think of the advantages of being out here in the middle of Nowhere, Ohio. For example, all of our meat is raised lovingly by little kids and is pretty near organic. Also, the secretary at the school I'm doing my student teaching at sells farm fresh brown eggs from her very own chickens.

Super G may have access to fancy expensive specialty foods, but I know where mine comes from. I know the 15 year old 4H "farmers". And sometimes you just don't need fancy specialty foods. Some good old fashioned oats will do. And some raisins. And there you have an iconic cookie. The Oatmeal Raisin cookie.

Sometimes when I'm lying awake at night trying to go to sleep I create impossible stories in my head. Nothing that will ever come about, but fun to think about kinds of things. Like owning a bakery. That would be fun. Well except for the whole employees and taxes and inventory and rent and electricity bills and stuff like that. But if I ever did own a bakery, these would be the oatmeal cookies I would sell. They are sturdy and yummy and yet down-home and delicious. I think the oatmeal cookie recipe from the Quaker Oats box has just been bumped from my recipe collection!

The recipe comes from a Christmas present cookbook from my brother and his beautiful wife. The Grand Central Baking Book. The recipes are easy to follow. The photos are drool-worthy. And frankly, if every recipe in the book is as good as the oatmeal cookies, then I may have to make a trip to Portland (or Seattle) and eat at the Grand Central Bakery. As it turns out, they celebrate the same food philosophy I do. They are all about foods that are locally grown, artisan breads, and homemade scratch cooking. Yum! (If you perhaps live out in the Pacific Northwest, you should really check them out. The bread is apparently in grocery stores, and there are bakery locations in both Portland and Seattle.)

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

from The Grand Central Baking Book

1 3/4 cup (8.75 ounces) all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup packed light brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 1/4 cups (11.5 ounces) rolled oats

1 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 5 baking sheets with parchment paper (or if you don't have that many sheets, only line 2, but you will have to wait while cookies cool on the baking sheets.)

Whisk to combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, and sugars on medium speed for 3 to 5 minutes until light and fluffy. Scraping the bowl occasionally. While the mixer is running, crack the eggs into a liquid measuring cup and add the vanilla extract. Reduce the speed to low and pour the eggs, one at a time, into the batter. Allow the first egg to be fully incorporated into the dough before adding the second. Scrape the bowl again.

Add the dry ingredients in 2 or 3 additions with the mixer on low speed. Scrape the bowl again. Mix the oats and raisins in the now empty flour bowl and then add them to the dry ingredients. Mix just until everything is well distributed.

Weigh out scoops of dough that are approximately 1.5 ounces each. Roll these scoops into balls. Place 6 balls on each cookie sheet and then gently flatten them to about 1/2 inch thick. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through cooking time. When they are done they should look a little underdone in the middle, but golden at the edges. Pull the sheets out of the oven and let the cookies cool on the cookie sheets. (The cookies continue to bake on the hot cookie sheets.)

These aren't the quickest batch of cookies to make, but they really are worth the time spent making them!

Daring Bakers' Mallows and Milanos

The July Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Nicole at Sweet Tooth. She chose Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Cookies and Milan Cookies from pastry chef Gale Gand of the Food Network.

I did the challenge with my sister. And I'm glad I did. The Milan cookies were really easy to make and the batter went together in a snap. But apparently, I'm super bad at sticking them together with chocolate. I personally prefer the smaller and crunchier cookies, but I ate the bigger chewier cookies too because they were also delicious.

Then we did the Mallows. The recipe said 10 minutes of prep time, 5 minutes of inactive prep time, and 10 minutes baking time yields 2 dozen. I think that's wrong. We spent the entire day making these cookies. Trying to roll the cookies out was like trying to roll out chocolate chip cookie dough. We solved the problem by splitting the dough in thirds and continuously rotating pieces we weren't using into the freezer. And I think you can see we got a LOT more than 2 dozen. We got 2 gross. Super G and I are math geeks and when we finally counted the cookies we had 200 and we had been sampling cookies all day. So we figured 244 was probably not a bad estimate. I think if the base cookie had been tastier these would have been excellent cookies. But to me, the base cookie just tasted like pie crust. blech.

Photos curtesy of Super G. I forgot my camera.

You can find the recipes here and check out the rest of the Daring Bakers and see what they did!

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.

Operation Baking Gals- October!

Alright, so I'm really slacking on getting these posts up, but I did mail my packages. I also had a lovely long conversation with the mail lady. That would be one of the very nice things about living in a small town. I have long conversations with the ladies at the post office. The teller at the bank notices when I lose a little weight. It's like that old Sesame Street song, "These are the People in Your Neighborhood". SO I went to the post office this morning with my jam, and my two soldier packages.

Yes, it's time for another installment of Operation Baking Gals! This time I have two soldiers. A soldier who is now on his second tour in Iraq and another soldier who has 50 soldiers with him. So I sent one soldier some of Aunt Nicky's Butter cookies cut into leaf shapes.

And then I sent another soldier some Cowboy cookies, delightful oatmeal-pecan-chocolate chip-coconut cookies of unfortunate Republican roots, made over by the lovely Martha Stewart (who has a really neat blog now. Check it out! And yes, neat as in tidy, duh, but also neat as in cool.)

And finally I searched the library book of the month, The Complete Cookie. I also got the Maltese Falcon (ooooh good) and Fahrenheit 451 (yikes scary). I don't just read cookbooks. In The Complete Cookie, I came across a delicious recipe for Caramel Meringue Filled Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies. They were really pretty easy to make and super delicious.

I hope the cookies brighten the soldiers' day.

Caramel Meringue-Filled Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies
from The Complete Cookie

Dough:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups rolled oats
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Filling:
1 large egg white
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp dark molasses
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl. Whisk and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugars with an electric mixer set at medium speed. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until incorporated.

Drop the dough by the heaping tablespoonful onto the prepared cookie sheets, about 2 inches apart. Bake for 8 to 9 minutes, until the cookies turn light golden.

Remove from the oven and cool the cookies on the sheets for 2 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

For the filling, bring water to a simmer over low heat in the bottom of a double boiler.

Meanwhile, combine the egg white, sugars, water, molasses, and cream of tartar in the detached top of the double boiler. Whisk to blend. Fit the top of the double boiler over simmering water, making sure that the water doesn't touch the underside. Cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture reaches a temperature of 140 degrees on an instant-read thermometer.

Remove the top of the double boiler from the heat and begin to beat immediately with an electric mixer at medium speed. Continue to mix for about 8 minutes until stiff peaks form.

Spread about 2 1/2 teaspoons of the filling on the flat bottom of a cooled cookie and top with a second cookie, flat side in, to make a sandwich. Repeat the process until all the cookies have been filled.

Freeze for 2 days and then mail off.

Baking for Christopher

I'm on my way to school, but I wanted to stop and post this first. Let me tell you about a really important thing I've gotten involved in. It's called Operation Baking Gals. Basically, it's a bunch of bloggers (and non-bloggers) who've gotten together and are sending baked goods to soldiers wherever they are stationed. I know that when my friend J. (who just let me know he's engaged to a lovely woman YAY!) was stationed over in Iraq he loved getting food packages and would share the goodies and the morale boost with as many people as he could. J. is back now, so I haven't had anyone to bake for. Then I found out about this terrific group and every month there will be a new soldier to bake for.

This month my soldier is Christopher and he's in charge of a fairly big group of Junior soldiers. I'm not sure what Junior soldiers are. So for Christopher and his gang I made some gingersnaps, because they always make me think of home. I have no idea why they make me think of home because we never had any at my mom's house. Or my grandma's. I also made them some chocolate chip cookie bars. These were most likely found in my home growing up. I figure it's the least I can do to turn my oven on in this silly heat wave when these boys (and girls I'm assuming) are sweating their hineys off far from home.

Gingersnaps

from the Joy of Cooking

1 3/4 cups flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

2 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground cloves

6 Tbsp butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/4 cup dark molasses

1/4 tsp finely grated lemon zest

1 tsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until very fluffy. Add egg, molasses, zest, and lemon juice and beat well until combined. Stir in the flour mixture until blended. Form the dough into 3/4 inch balls and arrange about 1 1/2 inches apart on lined cookie sheets. Bake, 1 sheet at a time, about 12 minutes. The cookies will flatten and develop a crinkled suface as they bake. Let stand briefly, then remove to a rack to cool.

Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Cookies

Do you remember that stupid sappy movie from the '70s "Love Story" where Ali McGraw tells Ryan O'Neal that "Love means never having to say you're sorry"? Well she was wrong. Duh. But love means constantly saying your sorry.

For example you may find yourself one evening reading a book, like We Need to Talk About Kevin, and then you suddenly find yourself saying things like "I'm so sorry my darling husband who never used up a box of bandaids before meeting me, that my streak of athletic ineptness and general accident prone-ness has rubbed off on you. I'm sorry that I pushed you to find outlets for your frustration with starting your own business, and that I encouraged you to go and play raquetball." This sort of thing will then continue as you say, "I'm sorry I can't avoid all the potholes on the 2 mile journey to the ER and I really don't mean to make this such a bumpy drive." And on into the night as you helplessly say, "I'm sorry I don't know how to make you more comfortable, I have experience with all kinds of injuries, but when it comes to shoulders I know squat."

So yes, love means having to say you're sorry. A lot. After a mostly sleepless night, the only good thing was I finished my book. I recommend it. And the Brain is finally just now starting to dose on and off. It was necessary for me to throw my lenten resolution of not eating sweets right out the window. Whoo. I made it almost one whole day. Usually I'm way better at this giving things up for lent thing.

I made these luciously rich and tasty Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Cookies. They're a decadent dark chocolate cookie with just a hint of peanut butter that are studded with semi-sweet chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. The inspiration came after reading Peabody's blog about Peanut Butter World Peace Cookies, but I wanted something chewier. The first time I made them, the next morning I had 7 for breakfast and promptly packed them up and took them over to my friends at Catholic Charities. The lovely ladies at Catholic Charities have become my dumping ground for baked goods. They don't seem to mind. Although rumor has it there was a skirmish when it came to the last cookie in the bag. Fortunately about half of these cookies will go to another friend of the Brain and I who just had his knee replaced. So we'll only have to contend with half of these oh so delicious little addictive morsels. Perhaps they should be called crack cookies...

Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Cookies

an original recipe

2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cups Hershey Special Dark Cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter

1/4 cup peanut butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 bag peanut butter chips

1/2 bag chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Stir together flour, cocoa, soda and salt in medium mixing bowl. Beat butter, peanut butter, and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, beating well. Stir in chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfull (or small cookie scoop) onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake 8 to 9 minutes. Do not overbake. Cookies will be sort. They puff while baking and flatten upon cooling. Cool slightly then remove from cookie sheet to cool completely on wire rack.

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.

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.

Because it's Monday

Because it's Monday. Because the Brain had a rough day. Because it's part of the holiday baking. Because I've already gone through two recipes of gingerbread and created all these pieces to this crazy gingerbread mansion I'm making.

Because I have found myself wearing the girly apron on the chair (that I made myself from this pattern) over my Spin clothes. Because it's a turkey apron, pictured as the background here. Because although I got the material to make a Christmas one, I just haven't sewed it yet.

Because I've only got left to make 2 of the pieces with windows and 1 of the other pieces. Because I only have this many hard candies left, and 2 candies can't fill all the windows on the 2nd piece.

Because of all that, it's RUMBALL NIGHT! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Rumball Night has a special place in the Christmas cookie baking. In college, oh such happy blurry memories, for 10 years, I would make them and get completely blotto. For whatever reason was handy. Or really just because it was Christmastime and I had open liquor in the house. Or I was failing physics, or whatever.

When I was in the corporate greed laced world of energy marketing and dealing with men whose egos were probably compensating for their shortcomings, and I was on rotating shift work so I didn't know if I was coming or going, Rumball Night was the best night of cookie baking.

Now, in the semi-relaxed atmosphere of working for my husband, small town probate lawyer, Rumball Night takes on a whole different tone. I used the rum we got in Puerto Rico from our honeymoon. I made them because he's having a rough day and they might make him feel just a little better. Little alcohol laced packets of love. I just might still have a cocktail though...

The recipe is from a huge ancient yellow cookbook that's out of print, The Mary Margaret McBride Cookbook. It's a frightening beast, but still has some good recipes. If you can get past all the mayonnaise jello salads and other foods from yesteryear that have lost any semblance of appeal.

Rumballs
From Mary Margaret McBride Encyclopedia of Cooking

2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 Tbsp cocoa
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup coconut or finely chopped nuts
2 Tbsp honey
1/3 cup rum

Roll crumbs fine. Add sugar, cocoa, salt, and coconut (or nuts).

Combine liquid ingredients and slowly add to first mixture. Use just enough liquid to hold ingredients together nicely.*

Shape by teaspoonfuls into firm 1-inch balls. Roll balls in confectioners sugar or dry cocoa.

Store in tightly covered box for at least 24 hours before using.

*yeah right. use the whole liquid amount. If the balls get a little soggy continue to roll them in powdered sugar over the next couple days. Eventually they'll firm up.

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.

Baking with Grandma

My grandma, the one who cooked dinner to death, was a fabulous baker. She was also brilliant and scientific and completely unusual for a woman her age. She even had a Master's Degree in Math from Harvard. Technically she went to Radcliffe (the women's school), but from my understanding Radcliffe didn't have a math program, and her diploma says Harvard. Anyhow, Grandma taught me how to bake. Grandma is probably the reason I passed Organic Chemistry lab. She taught me how to measure precisely.

For example, I am simply unable to measure flour now without carefully scooping it into the measuring cup with a spoon and then leveling it off with a knife. I just know if I were to scoop in the measuring cup into the flour container it would pack in and I would get more than exactly the amount needed. And if I don't level it off with a knife then it won't be exact. I may let my OCD tendencies run wild while baking.

Grandma also showed me neat things like measuring butter by displacement. First you fill a 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup about half full with water. It doesn't really matter how full with water as long as there's more than the amount you want to measure. Make sure you know how much water is in the measuring cup and then add the butter, or oleo, or Crisco, until the water in the measuring cup reaches however much butter you want more in the cup. For example if you start with 1 cup of water and you want 1/2 cup of butter then you scoop the butter in until the water level hits 1 1/2 cups. It's pretty easy and an interesting way to teach kids about physical properties of fluid dynamics. (it's the only way I would understand something like that.)

Grandma also let us do something forbidden in my mom's house. She let us lick the beaters. Mom would yell about salmonella, but Grandma licked the beaters. I had no idea about licking beaters or tasting batter before Grandma let me bake cookies at the cottage.

Grandma also taught me to let my cookies cool on cut up paper bags. Call me crazy, but cooling the cookies on paper bags does something special to them. This year, I've been using cloth bags for groceries, so I don't have the overabundance of paper grocery bags I usually have at Christmas. I also have a limited amount of counter space, and these really cool stacking cooling racks. So for the first time since I started, the Christmas cookies will be air cooled on racks.

Grandma died at the ripe old age of 91 the summer before I met my husband. I'm grateful that she showed me how to bake and I think of her every time I pull out my trusty kitchen aid mixer.

Tahini cookies?

So I was leafing through my latest Cooking Light magazine to see what they had, and I had the TV going in the background, and the Brain was going on about something, and I was a little distracted that I haven't started my holiday baking yet and I normally start with a bang right after Thanksgiving and what was wrong with me and so on and so forth. Suddenly these cookies hopped right off the page at me. They sound unassuming just plain old Crunchy Sesame Cookies, the picture is not terribly exciting. Just a crunchy looking cookie. But as I scanned the ingredients I noticed they are made with Tahini! Leaping off the couch I gasped, "I have to make these!" Umm OK, maybe that didn't happen, but the Brain, noticed I wasn't even pretending to pay attention anymore.

I may have mentioned my love of Tahini in my first post here. Tahini isn't really all that low calorie, so I was stunned to find it in Cooking Light of all places. Cooking Light also has some really good dinner recipes, but I find they try so hard to cut the fat on cookies that they typically aren't very good. So to sum up, I had to bake these, but I wasn't expecting much. BOY was I wrong! These were delicious. They weren't all that crunchy. They were soft and chewy even the next day. And they had just the slightest touch of sesame to them, not overpowering at all.

The Brain, who typically categorizes things as, It's good, or It's OK, or Can I have some more, didn't say a lot. I'm not worried though. Those are his fingers in the photo.

Crunchy Sesame Cookies

Cooking Light

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup tahini

2 Tbsp dark sesame oil

1 Tbsp light-colored corn syrup

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg

2 Tbsp granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 375°. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk; set mixture aside.

Place brown sugar, tahini, and oil in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add syrup, vanilla, and egg; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture to sugar mixture, beating at low speed just until combined.

Lightly coat hands with cooking spray. Shape dough into 36 balls (about 1 inch each). Place granulated sugar in shallow bowl. Roll dough balls in granulated sugar; place 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Flatten balls with the bottom of a glass. Bake at 375° for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on pans 2 minutes. Remove cookies from pans; cool completely on a wire rack.