The Cookie Monster

My wife and I have discovered a new holiday past time. We are baking! We’re making Christmas cookies, short bread, date nut bread, Toll House cookies, we threw in a batch of cream puffs (first set didn’t come out too well, but the second did), and there are still a few more recipes waiting to poke their heads out and make their presence known!

Our first foray into Christmas baking was sugar cookies. You know the ones; we all made them when we were kids. What I didn’t have any concept of as a kid was the time involved to attack this particular recipe. My mother has much more patience than I ever imagined, because she did this with three of us little ones “helping” her. It took my wife and I three hours to make three dozen cookies. Granted, they are a masterpiece in their own rite, but it was a time consuming task. Not only do you need to have your “mis en place” properly executed (if you’re not sure about mis en place, please enroll in Cooking 101 at the Cooking Joynt), but you also need to realize the time needed to roll out dough, chill it, cut the cookies, re-form the left over pieces, re roll and re cut. Don’t forget too that there is icing to be made (2 types), and properly colored. Needles to say we were beat at the end of this one, but we had three dozen marvelous cookies. Had is a key word in that sentence.

Success with these cookies gave us confidence to move onward. I have the 1953 Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book, which graced our kitchen for years, and am moving through it making stuff from the past. Short bread and cream puffs. Cream puffs were a special treat that Mom would make for our neighborhood New Years Eve Party, and when very special company was coming over. Now I know why, it can be a fairly tricky recipe. Our first attempt resulted in some fairly flat cream puffs; they sadly looked more like cream blats. Second try, faithfully following the directions was a success.

Right now the aroma of date nut bread is wafting out of the kitchen, our first winter storm is moving in, and we are getting ready to watch White Christmas. We’ve started a new tradition of our own and in the process we are also reliving Christmas traditions of the past.