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I rarely bake during the year, but at Christmas, I usually make at least six kinds of cookies. My sisters are similar; my nephew counted the varieties on the table at Christmas and we had 22! This is usually a good start for a cookie...
...grated dark chocolate (Droste). Mmmmm.... These chocolate coconut macaroons (made because I was out of flour!!) were made for one of my favorite yearly events, Cookies & Carols, hosted by
Rain.
As Cookies & Carols is early in December, these did not make it onto the cookie tray for Christmas. =)
As soon as my vacation begins, the cookie-making starts in earnest. The worst part of the process is narrowing down the 20 or so candidate cookies to a manageable list. The drama! The compromise!! Oh, the CONFECTIONARY!! In the end, I always get ingredients for more than one person could possibly manage. Maybe if we get a snow day on Monday I'll make another couple batches.
Complicating my decision each year is the fact that my family will bar the door and refuse me admission on Christmas if I do not show up with Buried Cherry Cookies (which my mom pronounces as "Burr-ied Churr-ies", to my great delight).
That glaze on top? Semi-sweet chocolate and sweetened condensed milk. Yeah, no wonder they're my ticket to festivity.
I'm also nearly required to make Eggnog Thumbprints (and Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread).
On the bottom left were the big jackpot winners for best new cookie of the year, Peppermint Cream Bars. I'm not a huge fan of strong peppermint, and these very nearly did not get made; I think I finished them at 11pm the night before we went to my parents'. However, the sugar cookie base and the oh-so-creamy (read: MOAR SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK!!!) and perfectly subtle pepperminty flavor of the filling made these simply sublime. On Christmas Eve, when everyone came over after the service for a little Kinect, I think we went through half the pan. Above those were Lemon Gingerbread Triangles, where I used too much cloves, and were just OK. After squeezing and zesting four lemons (and losing some knuckle skin in the process), they were too much trouble for the YO!!! WE ARE
LEMONLEMONLEMON COOKIES taste.
The full spread:
On the bottom left, German Biberli cookies, which sounded great, with a spicy dough studded with chopped almonds and candied fruit, sandwiching a layer of marzipan (!!!), but turned out to be yummy but too subtle with the marzipan. Also, "German Biberli" sounded wayyyy too much like "Justin Bieber", so I'm probably not making those cookies again.
| JiffNotes |
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| The Christmas cookies are all gone...alas, the calories have remained. |
6 comments:
I gained 5 pounds just looking at those! They look SO delicious.
I'm glad I'm not the only weirdo who stays up late baking cookies at Christmas. But you are a master chef compared to me, I'm just an amateur. I made 3 kinds this year, stayed up til 12:30AM, then got up at 7AM to dip one type in chocolate so that I could bring some to work that day before people were out for the holidays ...
Ahh food and hubs just asked about lunch! You're making me hungry! I must go now but I hope to come back and look more at your blog. Or at least stare at the Malcolm on your header.
Heather, you're making me drool, that was a hard post to read!
Good Heavens. It's a feast for the eyes...especially after a Christmas season with zero sweets in the house. (Oh, wait. I did make a crustless pumpkin pie for Christmas Eve.)
Once I'm at goal weight, I need to get the recipe for those peppermint ones from you. Jason will kneel at my feet (the man loooves his peppermint)...and I'll probably like them quite a bit, too.
They look seriously yummy!
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