For the last couple years I have made holiday gift bags for friends and family filled with homemade cookies and candies. I really enjoy making them, and its a good excuse to try a bunch of new recipes. Last year with all the snow and ice we had, I couldn't get out of the house to deliver all the treats I had baked, which was a frustrating. I think we ended up giving a bunch of cookies away to the neighbors in the cul de sac, so at least they didn't go to waste.
This year, we have no snow or ice in the forecast, so I choose Tuesday for my baking day and got started. I was in the kitchen from 930am until the last batch was pulled out of the oven at 5pm. It was a long day, made even longer by a couple of failed recipes. I wanted to try a new cookie, called a coconut snowball. I don't know what went wrong, but the greasy dough didn't hold its shape, and ended up baking flat instead of in a ball. I threw the whole mess away, and got started on some Orange Cranberry Nut Cookies. Everything went smoothly until I got the dough out of the fridge after the 30 minutes the recipe called for. The directions said to take the dough, roll it into a ball with my hands (that were to be covered in flour) and then roll it in sugar before placing it on the cookie sheet. I tried, and it was awful! The dough was extremely wet, and very sticky, which made rolling it into a ball not only very messy but darn near impossible. I tried a few, but gave up and decided to just use my cookie scooper and skip rolling the dough in the sugar. It was much less frustrating and the cookies still turned out great. We didn't have any more problems, as we (Rowan and I) baked the rest of the day. We made coconut macaroons, snickerdoodle cookies, and peppermint meringues.
At the end of the day, the kitchen was covered with plates and bowls full of treats. It was hard not to eat them all up! We had so many people to make things for this year that we split the list up into groups and I am going to do two different baking days. This week I baked for Sarah, Linda, Shirley and Merri. I also made up plates of treats for two of our neighbors. I put a jar of strawberry jam that we had made , along with peaches and apple butter for Linda. We didn't have enough peaches to give to everyone....I am going to have to can more next year! Despite the snags at the beginning of the day, I was happy to have had a productive day, and to have yummy treats to share with our friends!
This year, we have no snow or ice in the forecast, so I choose Tuesday for my baking day and got started. I was in the kitchen from 930am until the last batch was pulled out of the oven at 5pm. It was a long day, made even longer by a couple of failed recipes. I wanted to try a new cookie, called a coconut snowball. I don't know what went wrong, but the greasy dough didn't hold its shape, and ended up baking flat instead of in a ball. I threw the whole mess away, and got started on some Orange Cranberry Nut Cookies. Everything went smoothly until I got the dough out of the fridge after the 30 minutes the recipe called for. The directions said to take the dough, roll it into a ball with my hands (that were to be covered in flour) and then roll it in sugar before placing it on the cookie sheet. I tried, and it was awful! The dough was extremely wet, and very sticky, which made rolling it into a ball not only very messy but darn near impossible. I tried a few, but gave up and decided to just use my cookie scooper and skip rolling the dough in the sugar. It was much less frustrating and the cookies still turned out great. We didn't have any more problems, as we (Rowan and I) baked the rest of the day. We made coconut macaroons, snickerdoodle cookies, and peppermint meringues.
At the end of the day, the kitchen was covered with plates and bowls full of treats. It was hard not to eat them all up! We had so many people to make things for this year that we split the list up into groups and I am going to do two different baking days. This week I baked for Sarah, Linda, Shirley and Merri. I also made up plates of treats for two of our neighbors. I put a jar of strawberry jam that we had made , along with peaches and apple butter for Linda. We didn't have enough peaches to give to everyone....I am going to have to can more next year! Despite the snags at the beginning of the day, I was happy to have had a productive day, and to have yummy treats to share with our friends!
