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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

You Can Call Me Finished

12 dozen cookies later, here's what I learned, or better yet remembered, about why I don't like to bake:

  • All the washing! I had to wash down the counter tops for the millionth time today, tie back my hair, wash the new cookie sheets, wash out the stand mixer because it hadn't been used since the dark ages, wash out the cookie press and inspect to make sure that it hadn't been used unbeknownst to me for playdough, rewash the cookie press, wash the cookie racks, sterilize my hands, and make sure that I was "defurred" all before even opening the bag of flour.
  • I am a perfectionist, and it drove me batty when my cookies didn't look right. I made the worst ones by leaning on the cookie press too hard, doubling the width of the cookies. The next worst ones were missing a leaf that I had knocked off. Fortunately this didn't happen often. Unfortunately, I am neurotic so I would insist on redoing these cookies.
  • The smell of the cookies is now making me nauseated. Perhaps if I baked more I would get rid of my sweet tooth. Now there's a thought!
  • The cleanup.


I had this big image of cute little Christmas wreaths decorated with rainbow ball sprinkles to look like ornaments. All the better to nibble on when listening to Christmas carols on the radio. They would be the perfect size to dunk in a glass of milk or a cup of hot chocolate. You would look at them and be overwhelmed with the feeling of Christmas. Memories of your best Christmas ever would flood your mind. Maybe I'm getting a little too carried away here. Unfortunately, the wreaths proved to be incredibly fragile and instead of being worthy of a glass of milk, they were worthy of a gourmet baker. Since I'm not quite the gourmet baker, I used the cookie press's flower plate. I still put the sprinkles on them to make them look festive and therefore flood the minds of the consumers with memories of the best Christmas ever. Alright maybe so they would think "Hey I remember using these sprinkles to decorate cookies when I was a kid!"

One really great benefit of these cookies (unlike the recipe I originally chose) was that I was able to fit about 35 cookies on each cookie sheet. No, the official name of the recipe was not "The Lazy Cookie-Swapper's Cookies," but the recipe was clearly designed for the lazy person to make for a cookie swap! Of course I still ended up making 3 batches. I don't know what size cookies the recipe assumed when they said that each batch of dough would make 4 dozen cookies, because even though cookies don't get much smaller than what I made, I had to make three batches to get to eight dozen cookies. Alright that does include the batch that I burned. I was going to give them to the dog, but seeing as he's on special prescription low fat dog food, I decided to save them for the Big Giraffe. I'm kidding!

A Elliot's Lesson Learned: The point of a cookie swap is to swap for cookies that are better than yours.

Christmas Cookies

Labels: , ,

posted by Alex Elliot @ 10:13 PM   9 comments
9 Comments:

  • At 12/19/2007 12:25 AM, Blogger painted maypole said…

    he he

    i do the lazy thing and make my peanut butter cookies, which, fantastically, everyone RAVES over. this is how you do it:
    1 egg
    1 cup PB
    1 cup sugar

    mix up, put on cookie sheet, make fork indents. cook for 8-10 minutes at 350. done.

     

  • At 12/19/2007 8:30 AM, OpenID cablegirl said…

    I love your lesson learned. Yeah, you should be getting the better cookies. lol

    I agree. I love baking. CableDad and I have a yearly tradition of making a ginger bread house form scratch. We fight over who has to clean up. lol

     

  • At 12/19/2007 10:07 AM, Blogger Suzanne said…

    Oh, the cleanup! It is the worst part of baking. I get especially annoyed at how flour gets all over every flat surface in the vicinity.

    Your cookies look delicious, by the way!

     

  • At 12/19/2007 10:47 AM, Blogger Mayberry said…

    Remind me NEVER to get myself invited to a cookie swap...

     

  • At 12/19/2007 11:23 AM, Blogger skiplovey said…

    Those look yummy.
    I noticed the fireplace didn't pop up in the Christmas visions this time, is the dream over?

     

  • At 12/19/2007 12:23 PM, Blogger Heather said…

    I have to agree that the cleanup is the worst part about baking. We don't have a dishwasher so it's even worse since I have to wash them all by hand.

    The cookies look yummy to me!

    That would be the only reason I'd participate in the cookie exchange..to get better cookies than what I make!

     

  • At 12/19/2007 2:02 PM, Blogger Kami said…

    I am laughing out loud here to your lesson learned! Too funny and too true :-)

    But your cookies look yummy and I would be happy to get those in a cookie exchange.

    I just posted the recipe and some pictures of nanaimo bar but I am guessing you won't be up for making that! It's pretty much fool proof though and oh so delicious

    ;-)

     

  • At 12/19/2007 8:53 PM, Blogger slouching mom said…

    i dunno. your cookies look pretty good to me!

     

  • At 12/20/2007 11:21 AM, Blogger Jen of A2eatwrite said…

    You would have called me "done in"! I think your cookies look wonderful. I'm of the - "if they taste good, they're a success" school!

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
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About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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