Christmas Cookie Crumbs

I enjoy baking, I love baking, but I am tired of Christmas cookies, I was thrilled when I was able to give the last of the cookies away to a friend last night. Please, just get them out of my house!! I have other baking to do, but how can I do it when my counter is filled with Tupperware containers of varying sizes holding month old cookies in them! I love Tupperware as much as I love baking, but even after a month Tupperware can’t keep my cookies from drying out.

Now that my containers are washed and stored and my mixer is put away I can start thinking about what I’m going to bake for this month’s cookie delivery and my son’s school bake sale. Maybe next time I’ll share a recipe with you, but first I have to look back and see if I’ve already shared a story and recipe for the cookie lover’s cupcake with you.

But, first I will run tomorrow.

What the Spritz was I Thinking?

I love holiday baking! I gift plates full of a variety of cookies at this time of the year to several people. My mom did not bake often, but at the holidays I have fond memories of her making spritz cookies and of me decorating them; adding a cherry, chocolate chip, or nut. So when I make my spritz cookies and my kids do the decorating with m&ms and sugar crystals I smile and think about the traditions that started a generation before.

My mom knew I enjoyed baking, so, many years before she died she gave me her (now 50 year old!) Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer. I remember her saying to me that I would use it much more than she does and so I happily hauled it from Florida to Wisconsin. I love my mixer and the history it represents. It was a wedding gift from my great-grandmother to my mother.

My kids love me banana bread, which is my mom’s recipe, another thing I remember her baking and me eating with enjoyment. So, in the week after she died I found her recipe cards and took one of each (she had several copies of each?) There were a total of six recipes, including one for play clay, two for ruggelach and one for “basic spritz”.

This weekend as I excitedly began my holiday baking my heart got the best of me and I decided, after making two batches of spritz cookies, that I would use her recipe for the last batch and have a taste test in the end. I compared my trusted Pampered Chef spritz cookie recipe with that of her aged typewritten recipe card. The only thing I noticed at a glance that differed other than the quantities was that hers called for baking powder. OK, I thought. Since hers was a smaller recipe I decided to double the recipe. My first mistake. I touched my mixer and said, “Here we go, you’ve made this recipe many times, let’s go.” Four sticks of butter and five cups of flour later I loaded my spritz maker/cookie press, what my mom and I always called her cookie or spritz gun; I would never call it that to my kids.

The consistency was a bit drier, but the dough packed together fine, I thought, and I began pressing out my wreaths as my children played outside in the first snowfall of the season awaiting me to call them in to add the sugar crystals and m&ms. Big problem! The dough was not coming out, not at all. So frustrating, as I decided to take a closer look at the recipe I realized my recipe calls for an egg. Ok, so that would make it moister, but the baking powder must act as the leavening agent. There was no way I was going to go back and add the egg that late in the game, so I took the “log” out of the cookie press and cut it thinking I could use the dough for just plain, round cookies and make the wreaths out of my recipe. I did not want to waste four sticks of butter and five cups of flour! Admittedly the dough didn’t even taste that good raw, and after baking three cookies the dough ended up in the garbage and then I realized something…an epiphany if you will. My mom was not what I would describe as a baker! She was a great cook, when she cooked, she could grill delicious chicken, London broil, lamb chops and steaks, but it was I who was the baker! I laughed as my heart had taken control over my common sense. If you have a recipe that works, that is the recipe that you should stick with when making many, many, many dozens of cookies, especially when gifting them.

So, I started over, my kids happily played in the snow longer and I recalled the day she gave me her Kitchen Aid stand mixer saying I would use it more. How true that has become.

One day though I will try her recipe for Jewish Coffee Cake.

Baking and Blogging

I’ve been in a blogging funk lately. I continue to blog in my head daily, but few end up being typed and shared. I’m attempting to spend less time on my computer now that summer has arrived (read: school is out!). 

I’ve thought about sharing recipes with you that I’ve found on other blogs (a new hobby of mine) and have baked. As a result I’ve gotten into the habit of photographing my baking. Today I will share with you not a recipe I found, but one I was given years ago that has become a constant in my kitchen, especially during my annual Christmas/Hanukkah baking.

This was the first delivery of my cookies to the person who won a year of my cookies at the Blue Ribbon Ball. There’s got to be a shorter way to describe that experience and the year of baking and delivery in my future. Any ideas?

Michele’s Cream Cheese Spritz Cookies

2 ½ cups flour

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 oz. packed cream cheese

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

½ teaspoon salt

1. Cream butter and cream cheese.

2. Add egg, sugar and vanilla until well blended.

3. Slowly add flour and salt. Mix well.

4. Add food coloring if desired.

Using a cookie press, place cookie son your cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Do not brown. Cookies should be soft and look creamy in color. 

Two dozen cookies for the lucky Parenting Place supporter.

“Should” Kind of Day

I should be baking something for the couple who won my auctioned cookies, the first of six. I guess I’ll be baking them tonight, no worries. Either way they will be delivered tomorrow at the agreed upon time. I just have to plan out the presentation of them.

I should be gardening. I bought a beautiful pot full of Johnny jump ups that is unusually tall. Johnny jump ups (a member of the pansy family) remind me of my mom. I try to buy them every year, or some form of pansies. I have memories of living with her in Connecticut and her excitement when they would spread and “jump up” around the garden. I bought them Friday night at the first farmer’s market of the season. There’s a single flower that is a hybrid of a pansy and Johnny jump up and is light purple, rather than dark purple and yellow. It made me want that pot more! I’ve decided I’ll just transplant them into another pot opposed to the garden, they’ll get the sun they need to grow even if they won’t have room to jump around.

I should be blogging more. It’s most definitely not from a lack of ideas. I mentally write blogs daily, often multiple times a day. I hope to make more time to get them out of my head and onto the computer. I suppose I am accomplishing this right now. I should be writing about how well the half-marathon went yesterday (2:09:39). I should be writing about how referring to some friends as family is meant as a compliment, but I’ve decided the better compliment is telling them they’re better than family. In some family member’s cases this doesn’t take much though, but I mean it as the utmost compliment.

I will go rest in hopes it turns into a catnap.

Do I hear $25? $50? $75? Do I hear $100? $125…going once, going twice, SOLD for $125!

Sampler Platter of Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Raisinet Cookies along with Blue Ribbon chocolates.

My cookies for a year sold at auction at The Parenting Place’s Blue Ribbon Ball for $125?! The most ego lifting fact is that it was the cookies the winning bidder wanted, not the passes to the Children’s Museum or other items that were paired with it!

The next day I happened to cross paths with the winner and he was eating a cookie. I love that I will be baking for a true cookie lover!

Blue Ribbon Cookies

On Saturday, I will be attending the Blue Ribbon Ball. My prince charming will be on a business trip so I plan to laugh the night away with some girlfriends while hovering over the silent auction items, more precisely my baking skills that are up for bid. If you don’t already know, I am donating two dozen homemade cookies to be delivered every other month for a year. I’ve never wanted to be my own boss, but the idea of this donation makes me feel like I am a professional baker. Silly maybe, but it’s an incredibly fun and happy feeling for me. Above everything I am excited to be able to make this donation to help The Parenting Place. So, naturally I’m nervous that my cookies won’t generate a lot of money. I did find out today that it will be packaged with 4 passes to Children’s Museum, a handmade afghan, and a hat from the Children’s Museum. Hmm, so will it be my cookies they want or the passes?

 I’m baking chocolate chip and oatmeal Raisinet cookies to have as samples that evening in hopes of enticing people to place a bid. I feel like I’m entering a lottery. Who is going to win? Will it be someone I know who has already tasted my delectable desserts or will it be someone new to impress? In the end I hope it is someone easy to work with and whose bid is not only higher than the others, but also generous, because The Parenting Place is a great resource for families in my community. One that I utilize on a weekly basis, if not more, when I transitioned to a stay-at-a-home (that rarely stayed home.) To find out more go to www.theparentingplace.net. 

Chocolate + Caramel Goodness = Rolos, the candy full of memories

It took me a long time to learn how to swallow pills and I’m not talking about bad news. My freshman year of college my mom actually sent me Flintstone vitamins because they were chewables. You can just imagine how awful it was to have to drink amoxicillin or whatever antibiotic was commonly prescribed a few decades back. But, every time I had to take medicine my mom would give me a Rolo “to take away the taste”. Yep, there’s a positive side of everything!

You might think that Rolos were associated with medicine to me, but not in an adverse way. I love Rolos and Rolos ice cream; which I have only found in Canada. And believe me when I say I buy a cup of it every time I’m in Canada and am faced with the opportunity, regardless of how full my stomach may be at the time. When I was in Australia I found and bought a bag of small, four Rolos to a pack, deliciousness.

Up until this evening I had three bags of Rolos in my kitchen cupboard. This really isn’t common in my house and truth be told I’ve been looking for a way to get rid of them because they weren’t suppose to be there in the first place. Here’s the short version on how they got there. When I was subbing for an elementary school counselor they were part of a lesson plan I had for fifth graders, then I was told that the fifth graders weren’t having guidance. Oh well, there went my chance to impress them with my “candy with a purpose”.

Stay with me as I take a side road that I promise will come back to Rolos. The PTO at my son’s elementary school provides dinner for the teachers on parent-teacher-student conference nights; all three nights. Amazing, right?! When I was a kid students weren’t invited, now it’s practically a must, which really is awesome for my kids to hear how great they’re doing and for them to hear words of encouragement from their teachers in front of us, their super proud, amazing, loving parents. Can you guess what I always volunteer to make? That’s right, the PTO president knows that I’m always good for dessert. (Or at least she should by now).

Today it was time for me to go to the Internet and search Rolo cookies. The first recipe I found online boasted that it had only four ingredients, one of which being a box of Devil’s Food Cake mix. After what happened last time I was going to bring something to the school that was not made from scratch I kept searching. If you didn’t catch that blog you can read it here: http://darialeith.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-cookies-from-me-this-time.html

Then I found it! Rolo Cookies from scratch

On Tuesday night, if I don’t eat them all before then, the teachers will be enjoying Rolo cookies from me, brought in my new Tupperware.

No Cookies From Me This Time

My son’s school is hosting a Family Valentine’s dance this Friday. They’re asking for donations of a dozen non-frosted treats to share at the dance. Of course I jump right into baking mode thinking what cute heart treats can I bring? That’s when I see http://www.stoplookingetcookin.com/2012/02/easy-valentines-day-cookies/ and I say, hey those are easy and cute. After stops to two different stores I find the small heart sprinkles I want to use. Then I made the rare decision to buy a bag of sugar cookie mix. Cake mixes and brownie mixes I don’t usually think twice about, but I don’t think I’ve bought a cookie mix ever. But I’m not a sugar cookie baker and it is a somewhat busy week (excuses, excuses).

Yesterday I baked the cookies and although they looked nice after taste testing two cookies I decided I didn’t really enjoy them so much. After school my son had one and he said they were good so to the dance they will go.

Well that was until this morning that is. Picture it: My kitchen, 7:45 am. (I’m channeling my inner Sophia, and if you don’t get this reference try singing Thank you for being a friend. No, you still don’t get it? That makes me sad for you). The kids were ready a little early for school so I sat down at the kitchen table to read my morning’s blogs. As I’m reading about making homemade chocolates (http://www.littlebittybakes.com/) I begin to smell something awful, looking back now I’d say it smelled like…….burning plastic, Tupperware to be exact, my favorite Tupperware to be even more precise. There it was on the kitchen stove holding the Valentine sugar cookies inside.

Before I sat down to my computer I was cleaning up after breakfast and moved the Tupperware, along with a large bowl on top to the smooth stovetop. I love how my stove gives me small kitchen just a bit more counter space. I glance over to the stove and see smoke all around the Tupperware! My instinct quickly had me moving the Tupperware only to have the cookies fall out the bottom and for melted plastic to stretch all the way to the sink.

Notice the melted plastic blob in the middle of the not so cute cookies.

So now picture me telling my kids to open the front door so the smoke alarm doesn’t go off, while I’m opening kitchen windows and turning on the ceiling fan all while trying to move melting plastic and burnt cookies off my stove. Wow, is melting plastic ever stringy AND hot?!

Melted Tupperware upside down in the sink.

This entire time my mind is completely boggled as to why the stove was even on. My first thought was my husband must have turned it on this morning before I got up. But that made absolutely no sense and we ate out last night so I couldn’t possibly have turned it on last night and kept it on (not to mention it is totally irrational to think I wouldn’t have known if the stove was on all night.) So, even though I knew my husband had an incredibly busy morning at work I had to know how the stove was turned on before I could leave the house to bring the kids to school. As I was waiting for him to pick up the phone it came to me and I quickly hung up. The Tupperware bowl must have bumped and turned the knob on.

In the end I got it mostly cleaned up, I only have a small blister on my thumb and I waited until the stove cooled completely before taking the kids to school. Oh and I got pictures! Before the birth of this blog I don’t think I would have even considered taking pictures, but this way when the kids tell Daddy that Mommy almost burned the house down I can show him the pictures.

I am a true believer that there is something to be learned from everything that happens in my life. This morning I learned that I should always bake my cookies from scratch.

Hmmm now added to my To Do list is to find a Tupperware consultant so I can replace my favorite cookie holding Tupperware.

How I was Volunteered through Compliments to Donate Fresh Baked Cookies

I’d rather be baking right now. Hmm, that would make the perfect bumper sticker for me. I have a coffee cake “started” and waiting for me in my kitchen, but I don’t have enough time to mix it up and bake it before picking my son up from school. So, the dry ingredients and the dry filling sit in bowls while the butter softens in the mixer awaiting my arrival back from the school in an hour.

Aaahhhhh baking. If you haven’t read my post “The Story Behind DDD” that I posted in October 2011, now might be a good time to read about my therapeutic passion for baking. I was at a Parent Advisory meeting yesterday morning at The Parenting Place, one of my favorite places and one of my favorite meetings. I have taken many things away from The Parenting Place over the years; friends, support, toys (from the lending library), a college student who began as a babysitter and grew into family and an hour or so of sanity for several years while my kids were very young during their wonderfully run Friday playgroup just to name a few. The Parenting Place is one of the wonderful resources my community offers that if I were to come into a lot of money I would write a big check with a smile on my face and a thank you on the memo line.

We were discussing their big semi-formal fundraiser that coincides with Child Abuse Prevention Month, the Blue Ribbon Ball (April 21 – mark your calendars now!). My husband and I reluctantly (me, more than him) decided not to attend last year in part because of the $50/person ticket price. I had already decided that this year I would be RSVPing with a resounding yes! The topic of silent auction items came up and Fran (love Fran!) looked directly at me when she asked us all to think about any talents we could donate to the silent auction. “Fran, why are you looking right at me?” “Your baking.”

I never before knew the answer to the question What talent would you perform in a talent show or the Miss America pageant? Oh, Fran! Baking! I have a talent, and what makes it more flattering is that someone other than myself has named my talent.

 

So that is the story behind the tray of cookies you will find at The Parenting Place’s Blue Ribbon Ball silent auction, and why I will be stalking it in a spy-like manner. The highest bidder will win two-dozen cookies baked by me to be delivered within La Crosse city limits every other month for one year. In the end I will have shared my six favorites cookie recipes, one of which is bound to be my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Cookie Traditions

When I think back to my childhood Christmas memories there are just a few traditions that stand out. While my parents were still married and for a few years after they were divorced we would set up our Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. Now, before you form an opinion on this particular tradition I want to note that both of my parents are Jewish and if it weren’t for this tradition my dad passed on from his childhood we wouldn’t have even “celebrated” (the commercial) Christmas.

The tradition that stood out in my mind this past Sunday though was baking cookies. It was the one time of year I remember my mom pulling out her KitchenAid stand mixer and making spritz cookies. She made a few other cookies as well such as the date nut cookies that she said my paternal grandfather particularly enjoyed, but it’s the spritz cookies that are filled with memories for me. It was my job to decorate them, and I loved it. My favorite was the ones that looked like flowers to me and I would put a chocolate chip in the center.

This memory stood out particularly on Sunday because the morning was filled with me pulling out that very same Kitchen Aid stand up mixer (that comes out a lot in my house) that my mom used and making spritz cookies, smiling while I watched my children carefully and proudly sprinkle sugar and place m & ms on the trees and wreaths. As you know from earlier posts I thoroughly enjoy baking and sharing.

Today I gave plates full of cookies to my neighbors and to my son’s teacher. I love the expressions of happiness that a plate full of cookies receive. Tomorrow morning I will prepare more plates and share more smiles.

The Story Behind DDD

If the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach then the way to my heart is through my baking. I don’t even need someone to bake for me, I love baking. Compliment me on my baking and you have entered my heart. This has been quite a week for baking for me. I baked two apple pies, one choco-dot pumpkin cake, and chocolate covered pretzel rods (not truly baking, but it gives me the same high), and now pumpkin-shaped spritz cookies are in the oven. One pie was shared with my son’s school’s teachers and the cake was shared during a meeting. The choco-dot pumpkin cake recipe was shared soon after. It’s one thing to ask for a recipe because someone likes the sound of the recipe. It’s another, entirely to be asked for a recipe after watching people thoroughly enjoy the finished product. Thank you, Tracy for enthusiastically accepting to keep the leftover pieces. 

When I stopped working 5 years ago to stay home with my kids I was excited to have more baking time. What I quickly discovered was I was baking more, but I no longer had coworkers to share the finished products with. I jump at the chance to bake for others, especially if I get to choose what it is. So, it should come as no surprise that the pretzel rods and spritz cookies are for a bake sale at my daughter’s preschool/daycare. A school that I have been proud to hold a place on the Board of Directors for nearly seven years now. I served one year as the secretary. At the end of that year when offices came up for a vote I anticipated others taking the easy way out and nominating all the same officers again; as was the case with the president, vice president and treasurer. I quickly and politely interrupted with a counter offer. Please don’t nominate me for secretary and I will bring a treat to our monthly board meetings for as long as I’m on the board. Years later I continue to hold the treat position, an office I am much more passionate about than secretary.

 

During the creation of a book club, I shared that because I have two small kids and a smaller house I wouldn’t want to host, but I’d bring a treat to our meetings no matter whose house it was at. Those ladies warm my heart each month with their companionship and their stomachs.

During grad school I coined (in my head anyway) the term therapy baking. I even had a few classes that were small and intimate enough during those three and half years that I would share my cookies in.

Watching my daughter concentrate on sprinkling the Halloween sprinkles first on the pretzel rods and now on the spritz cookies is included in those rare moments when I know that memories are in the making.

I have and never have had a desire to open my own business, but if I do, it will be a small bakery named Daria’s Delectable Desserts. For Christmas last year I received a personalized 9 x 13 pan with the name on it. I love using it, but it’s not my “potluck pan”. I typically keep that one at home and smile when I use it.

Last Monday, while my son and husband were at a cub scout meeting my daughter and I were happily baking in the kitchen when the doorbell rang. I assumed that it was my son having a little fun so I called out, “Daria’s Delectable Desserts, come on in!” To my surprise I found an unknown boy scout in my entryway asking me if I’d like to buy some popcorn. After explaining that my son was a cub scout meeting I sent him away, probably with a confused brain, and I laughed outloud until tears fell. Poor kid.

On tomorrow’s agenda is making some cereal bars for our impending trip. My son and husband love them and I’d never dream of letting their stomaches down, they’re the only men’s hearts I intend on staying in forever. Chocolate chip cookies for my brother may also be baked by Wednesday. After all, he appreciates and enjoys my cookies more than any other family member.

As for now, it’s time to go, the cookies are cooled and my stomach is full of dough.