I realized yesterday to my dismay that I HAVE NOT BEEN WEARING MY CHRISTMASSY EARRINGS. Normally I start wearing them on December 1st! And I just somehow completely forgot until December 20th! I am not going to panic or freak out or mourn those lost days, I am just going to REALLY ENJOY wearing Christmas earrings every day from now through Christmas. And also I am going to wear glitter eyeshadow each day, to make up for the lost festivity.
It turned out, to my complete surprise, that I DID suddenly want to do a bunch of holiday baking, so it’s a good thing I bought those four pounds of sale butter on my last shopping trip! I always THINK I like and miss baking, until I am actually at the point of baking, at which point I feel uninterested and overwhelmed, so it seemed unlikely that that would change—but it DID. What happened was, I remembered how extremely happy and festive it felt last year to drop off a little plate of mixed cookies at the house of our neighbor, an older woman who lives alone. It was after I went to a cookie swap, and I ended up with kind of a lot of cookies, and I thought it would be fun to give her one each of the eight or nine kinds, and it WAS fun.
No cookie swap this year, but I still wanted to give her some cookies. And once I had that motivating seed of an idea, I built it up to myself encouragingly: I don’t have to make LOTS of kinds of cookies! Even ONE kind of cookie would be fine if it was a nice festive one like gingersnaps! And I don’t have to make tray after tray: I can make ONE tray and freeze the rest as cookie-dough balls to bake another time! And if, after making the gingersnaps, I feel like making one other kind of cookie or bar, well then how nice! But no pressure!
So I made the gingersnaps, and then I thought it was a good moment to try a recipe I got from a friend for Double Delicious cookie bars: it looked pretty quick and easy, and I’d already bought the ingredients, so why not? And then when those were in the oven, I was thinking that really MY favorite cookie was oatmeal scotchies, and if I were going to spend a lot of time baking, wouldn’t it be nice to end up with a bunch of my favorite cookies and/or cookie dough balls in the freezer for a future day? And oatmeal scotchies aren’t particularly festive-looking, but they’d look nice/assorted on a plate with ginger snaps and cookie bars. So I made oatmeal scotchies.
Well, and that was apparently the tipping point: seeing that second large ziploc bag of frozen dough-balls in the freezer on top of a large ziploc bag of cookie bars must have set off some sort of canning/preserving-related instinct. So then I made mint brownies (Paul: “Oh, when you said mint brownies I was hoping you meant the ones with the crackly mint topping“—so I’ve booted him into the sun). And then I tried to go play Candy Crush or browse Twitter, but I was restless and felt like doing something else, and I realized what I felt like doing was ADDING MORE BAGS OF TREATS TO THE FREEZER, so I made Homemade Nutter Butters, which are one of the best cookies I have EVER eaten and I don’t even think of myself as particularly liking peanut butter cookies. (I don’t make them in peanut shapes, because that’s a giant pain that adds a lot of time/fuss to a recipe that is already a little time-consuming and fussy; I just make them round. And if you have a #70 disher ((the small Oxo cookie scoop is a #70 disher)) you can use that to make the cookie balls and also to measure the filling, and it’ll come out just about perfect if you have eaten the right amount of dough, which is about five cookies’ worth.)
And after I made those, I didn’t have time to make anything else before bed, so instead I made a list of all the things I might choose from to make today: fudge! penuche! some sort of bark! those pretzel/Kiss/M&M things, which add such a nice little spot of color and interest! Christmas Crack, which I’ve never made but have heard people rave about! those little round cookies that have a Hershey Kiss or mini Reese’s pushed into the center! No-Bakes! Flourless Fudge Cookies! I am having a lot of unexpected fun with this.
Wow. Beth, North, and I, in various combinations, made gingerbread, pizzelles, peanut butter cookies with Hershey’s kisses in them, and buckeyes but it took us almost a week. We still have some frozen gingerbread dough we’re going to bake on Christmas Eve and North wants to make chocolate-peppermint cookies, so we’re not finished.
I came across a recipe for “stained glass cookies” this year, and that was fun to make! You get to crush up hard candies to make the stained glass windows…. And that involves pounding the hard candies repeatedly with a meat mallet. Very soothing, indeed.
I made these with my daughter one year! They are fun to make and beautiful but not really fun to eat – the candy part is chewy all out of proportion to the cookie part.
I AM VERY IMPRESSED.
Yesterday I made chocolate-chocolate chip banana muffins (because people keep asking me to BUY bananas and yet nobody EATS bananas) (I hate bananas, so do not even eat the muffins) and then I made zimtsterne, which was a huge pain because I forgot to leave out the two tablespoons of egg white/powdered sugar mixture for the topping, which meant that a) I had to REMAKE the mixture and b) the dough of the original batch was too sticky and I had to keep adding more almond flour for what seemed like HOURS. And then it took me four batches of cookies to get the icing to look nice and clean and white. ARGH. But no matter! They are now boxed up for our neighbors. All I have to do now is get up the nerve to take the boxes of cookies TO the neighbors. In any event, I think my husband will be the one in charge of making the cookies for Santa.
Sometimes Swistle, just making a list brings me unexpected EXTREME joy!
OMG I made cookies for the neighbors yesterday! Synchronously!
Spontaneously!
And at each house the kids had a cookie out of their mouth before I’d waved goodbye!
Would love to know if anyone has a tried and true chocolate peppermint bark recipe. One year our neighbour gave us some and it was delicious. But having never made anything like it before I felt intimidated looking it up. She also was away a lot and I didn’t get a chance to ask her before she moved. Anyways, I have only made one batch of Christmas cookies but during quarantine I did decide to try my hand at making cinnamon buns which I absolutely love. And they turned out so great! https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/best-cinnamon-rolls/
I have not ever made peppermint bark – but I imagine it would be very similar to the almond bark I make. Very, very easy. If I were to try it, I’d just substitute crushed peppermint for the almonds.
Almond Bark
6 squares (1 pkg) semi-sweet chocolate
6 squares (1 pkg) white chocolate
1 cup toasted almonds
Microwave chocolates in separate bowls on high for 2 minutes or until almost melted, be sure to check often – you don’t want to burn the chocolate! Be sure to keep checking and stirring until completely melted. Stir half the almonds into the semi-sweet and half into the white. Alternately spoons melted chocolates onto a wax paper-lined cookie sheet. Swirl chocolates together with a knife to marbelize. Refrigerate one hour or until firm. Break into pieces. Share. Everyone will think you are a genius…I promise.
I am all HEART EYES about this. SUPER DUPER HEART EYES.
The one thing I ALWAYS make this time of year is Church Window Candy. It’s super easy and my favorite of the Christmas goodies we made when I was a kid. I have yet to make it. Hopefully tonight. I want molasses cookies but I haven’t had the time to make molasses cookies. That may be next week. I should ask my daughter is there is any baking she wants to do. So I can get the supplies on hand.
I like your idea of only making 1 or 2 sheet pans of cookies and then putting the rest of the dough in the freezer.
This year, I’ve only made gingerbread cookies and an associated gingerbread house. But it was done with a 4-year-old. It was all done in stages– some baking one day, some decorating the next, more baking another day, more decorating another. Most of the pacing was due to assessing when I was starting to feel impatient/stressed and my own ability to keep letting things go in the interest of its not being a negative experience for her. The gingerbread house is standing but looks INSANE. As do most of the people.
And it was a good time for her. She got to roll, she got to cookie-cut, she got to randomly start making up shapes. She got to decorate with her favorite colors and eat the frosting and do it all happily.
I may make one more kind of cookie before Christmas or peppermint fudge. We’ll see. Doing any holiday cookie with the right sort of interaction was the part I really cared about, and I feel like I can be good with what we did–I don’t need to do more. I might choose to, but I might choose not.
Nice work! I just read a humor piece (I think in McSweeneys?) that was something like, “Are You Baking With Children or Conducting a Crime Scene Investigation?” White powder everywhere. Fraying tempers. A lot of cleanup afterward. You get the idea. I have a six year old and an almost three year old, we made gingerbread one day and peanut blossoms (the ones with Hersey Kisses) another day. My gingerbread recipe makes a lot, so we frosted on two different days. Whew! It was fun, right? RIGHT?
Let’s just say that pre-kid, I don’t ever recall scrubbing the backs of the kitchen chairs. This month: four times.
Oh McSweeneys! That one was fantastic! Second only to “It’s Decorative Gourd Season, MFers!”
Yes! I read that the day I’d met iced sugar cookies from scratch with my 5 year old, complete with homemade royal icing. Meanwhile my toddler stripped the Christmas tree and threw baubles like Molotov cocktails into the kitchen… no McSweeneys article has ever spoken more truth.
I love this. I have also had that thought that “hey, I am a grown woman, I do not HAVE to do x (make several different trays of cookies, example)” and it really helps me. I usually end up doing what I say I don’t HAVE to do but it feels different. I meant to make that Christmas crack stuff everyone makes this year but haven’t – there is still time! My mom makes this stuff that is basically caramel over popcorn twists, and it is the most addicting thing ever.
Hooray! It is so lovely when we cut ourselves a break on things that are indeed *optional* like this, and so, so lovely when we actually enjoy things.
My son is allergic to eggs so finding good cookie/brownie recipes can be a challenge but we do cookie baking on Christmas Eve: usually either chocolate chip or Smitten Kitchen’s World Peace Cookies. That latter always turns out but the dough is always unnervingly dry until it’s fully mixed and I’m always convinced I’ve done something wrong until they end up okay in the end. This year I’ve seen a good looking recipe for Chocolate Crinkle Cookies on the Nora Cooks vegan website, but I’m not sure if my ground flax is too old to pull it off. This is a good reminder for me to go and give it a sniff…
Would fudge work? 3 cups chocolate chips, 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 1 tsp vanilla, pinch of salt. Line a pan with foil. Zap all ingredients in the microwave in short bursts (15-30 seconds), stirring well with a heatproof spatula in between, until almost melted, then stir to melt the rest of the way. Either turn it out onto the foil and nudge it into a rectangle shape about the thickness you want your fudge, or split it out into separate bowls for All The Different Flavors, stir those in, and turn each partial-batch out onto the foil once it’s mixed [zapping slightly to re-warm if things get hard to stir in]. Chill; cut into squares; store in fridge if it’s going to be more than a week or two until it’s eaten. It’s my favorite fudge to eat (esp. if you use Good Chocolate Chips), and it’s *also* dirt easy. :-) Christmassy nonpareils or crushed candy canes on top can make it look more festive on a cookie plate, but I have never had any problems with it being neglected once spotted by household members or potluck participants. :-)
I’m vegan so only bake vegan and I love to bake. Any recipe by Isa Chandra Moskowitz is a winner in my book! She even has a vegan cookie cookbook 😋
Apparently, we are all on the same page. Sunday, I made almond bark and peanut butter fudge. Today I made chocolate chip cookies and double chocolate chip peppermint cookies. Tomorrow the plan is to make spitz (butter) cookies and some more almond bark (because “someone” [The Husband!] has been getting into the bark). I made the full batches – I probably should have frozen some of the dough though. Oh well, just gives me the nudge I need to send these goodies out into the neighborhood.
Oh I used to LOVE to bake like this! Whole days or weekends reserved just for fun baking projects! Making a gingerbread house from scratch, or a Yule log, or 4 kinds of cookies or 3 types of cake or pie.
And now I have a 5 year old and a 1 year old and they both want every ounce of me every second they’re awake. And I do a lot of baking with the 5 year old… but come on we all know that’s a very different proposition. When they’re older and a bit less dependent on me I will be sad, and I will mourn these times. But I will also regain my baking mojo and the idea of that is very exciting .
In the Christmas crack category, I make several pans of this every year to have here and give away: https://www.google.com/search?q=salted+toffee+pretzel+bark&rlz=1CAZJXP_enCA882&oq=salted&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j69i59j0i131i433i457j0i131i433l3j69i65j69i60.2813j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8. It’s amazing.
It’s SO NICE when you expect to feel meh about something and then suddenly feel like rocking it. So happy for you. I have made several batches and types of gingerbread and molasses cookies for various reasons, and I am so done with both right now, I have to make something I actually feel like eating.
I chuckled at “so I booted him into the sun.” Ha ha. I love how you went into overdrive shortly after being resigned to making one kind of cookie. I’m going to make a bunch of loaves of pumpkin bread to drop off at friends’ houses. My mailman loves my chocolate chip cookies, so I still need to make those to give to him. The rest I will freeze to take out as needed. Curly made a bunch of sugar cookies and decorated them with a few friends on Saturday to celebrate her birthday. This is the first year I made peppermint bark. So easy! One of the few desserts I can eat because of dumb celiac, and knowing how to make it is dangerous.