Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Christmas baking & why I'm leaving it up to the bakery or my mother next time

We spent a good part of last Friday, baking some cookies for Christmas. I thought I'd mix up all the dough on Thursday night, envisioning a fun filled afternoon of rolling, cutting, sprinkling and baking with the boy. It all started out well...especially when sparkly sprinkles came out (and fell all over the floor), and the icing and candies were a big hit too. I kind of even liked the Picasso cookie people- a bit freakish but what the heck, we were filled with the Christmas spirit.

The button cookies were good, except buttonholes and sprinkles don't really mix (you had to be there)....which was a minor point of disagreement with the three year old, who was armed with a skewer and ready to poke the holes- I won. No holes.

Then we moved on to the stained glass cookies- which were way too much effort for a pretty bad cookie. I didn't even bother taking a picture. This involved unwrapping and sorting a bunch of Lifesaver candies, crushing them, rolling out dough, punching a hole in said dough, painstakingly filling the hole with a mound of candy dust (some of which had also joined the sprinkles on the floor), being careful not to get any dust on the cookie lest it should discolor them. Then you bake the cookie and watch the candy melt back to its original solid candy-like state, making a 'stained glass' window in the middle of the cookie. End result- mediocre cookie with a filling removing centre. So not worth it.

The shortbread cookies were good, just like last year, and they are being consumed at a pace that will result in no cookies by Christmas Day. Oh well, there are always the stained glass ones....

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