Monday, December 11, 2006

Christmas Cookie Bonanza

On Friday afternoon, I packed up my spatulas and cookie sheets, my measuring cups and colored sprinkles and headed for the home of all homes... my parents' house. It was the big Christmas cookie bake-off day! I arrived around 3 pm and was greeted by the warm, cozy glow of the twinkly lights dancing on the Christmas tree. Soft, cheerful carols drifted through the house. But best of all, I was welcomed with huge smiles and big hugs! I was the first to arrive, and it was just Mom, Anna and me. We went right to work. I melted chocolate and sweetened condensed milk and made four flavors of fabulous truffles, including almond, peppermint, coconut and orange! My mom made tray-fulls of delicious turtles! And Anna ran back and forth helping us both when needed. At about 5 pm, my sister-in-law, Ariel, arrived and began baking her amazing sugar cookies. Nearing 6 o'clock, we were all getting hungry, so we sat down to enjoy the hot Hawaiian chicken and rice that mom had simmering in a crock pot all afternoon. By 7pm, Abby and Shinae had arrived and the kitchen was a bustle of activity. Sweet smells drifted through the air and tickled our noses. Abby and I decided to make a mega batch of Spritz cookies, so we quadrupled the recipe! I am sure most of you know that spritz cookies are basically butter cookies...

That is how much butter you need to quadrupel a spritz recipe! The recipe also called for 10 cups of flour! After finally stirring the last cup of flour in, (it took 3 of us taking turns to get it all mixed together!) we packed the dough into the presses and took off. We had about 7 cookie sheets filled with cute little shapes and colors. When the cookies came out of the oven and were ready for sampling, I tried one. To my utter dismay, they tasted like cute, colorful FLOUR. Poop.
I finally got the hang of the spritz press at least. Good practice.
Around 10pm, we took the last tray out of the oven, washed all the dishes, cleaned off the counters and sat down to devour some of our handiwork! It was a successful, fun, joyous night!

3 comments:

erin said...

Sounds like tons of fun! Or tons of flour.
I'm really sorry about your spritz cookies. What went wrong?

kristi noser said...

Wow, you ladies did a great job! Way to go!
Oh, did you get the pecans at Fleet Farm? My neighbor said they are the best...

Naomi said...

Sure did! My mom only buys nuts at Fleet Farm. They are way cheaper!