Necessary Chocolate

Cookies as a teaching tool (and as vehicles for frosting)

Last year, my cousin Jen sent me a set of cow, sheep, and rabbit cookie cutters. I'm afraid I immediately thought, "Oooh - we're studying Old Testament in class next year! Sacrifice cookies!"

That's just how my mind works.

We did happen to be in the midst of Deuteronomy and Leviticus on cookie decorating day, so it seemed appropriate. So to speak. But the students just decorated them nicely.

I was reassured that someone got the message, when Julee informed me that her cow and sheep were blemished, and therefore couldn't be sacrificed.

Even more cookies

The roll call of cookies continues.

Wednesday: Office Christmas Party

Gingerbread cookies (and paper gingerbread houses that housed the kinderegg toys) in honor of Frank, the office dog.

More cookies

There was this one week in December that required many, many sugar and gingerbread cookies.

Monday the 12th: Office Cookie Exchange. I had a whole new group of cookie cutters to use this year!

Reindeer and snow kids from ikea; gnome and skating bear cutters are two of this year's indulgences.

In the exchange, I grabbed the reindeer cookies. Because I really like frosting. Can't wait until Valentine's Day, when I can dress the skating bear in pink frosting scarf and sweater.

Maple sugar cookies (aka mapledoodles)

Oh man, are these good (I must get a better photograph...). They started with a recipe from King Arthur Flour that's a variation on their snickerdoodles. That recipe makes a crispy cookie, and I like mine chewy. So I retried them, using Nancy Baggett's snickerdoodle recipe from her All American Cookie Book; it uses corn syrup (that I replaced with maple syrup) so they stay nice and soft. They're now kind of perfect, imho, if expensive - maple sugar is not cheap. I can get it at the farmer's market, and I also order the Coombs Family Farms sugar.

Here's my variation on mapledoodles:

Chewy Mapledoodles

In a small bowl, mix:

2 2/3 cups flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

In your mixer bowl, beat until fluffy:

1 cup butter, slightly softened
1 cup maple sugar
3/4 cup sugar (you can use more maple sugar for part of the white sugar, if you're feeling extravagant)

Add the following ingredients, and beat well:

1-1/2 tablespoons maple syrup
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon maple flavoring  

Add the flour mixture, and beat just until combined.

Form 1-1/2" balls (mine might have been a little bigger - large golf ball size). Put two tablespoons of maple sugar and two tablespoons of white sugar into a plastic bag; place balls in bag and shake to cover them with sugar mixture. Place on cookie sheet (I used parchment paper to keep the sugar from sticking), and bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.

I got 18 cookies out of one batch (probably would have had twenty if I hadn't been eating the dough).

 

 

 

The cookie dough this year

I had so much fun delivering the cookie dough this weekend. While i could easily deliver it at church, all at once, it seems like there hasn't been time to just sit and talk to my friends here for so long. This three-day-weekend turned into one long gab session (with some house repair, laundry, and cleaning in between). Fun.

The labels are by Julia Rothman, via design sponge, and the cookie names are set in Memoir font. As usual, I wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and then in crepe paper. I love crepe paper. It doesn't tear; it puffs out nicely at the edges; and it stretches when I haven't cut it quite wide enough. Unfortunately, labels don't stick to it - I found that out the first year I used it. That's why I print out the wrap-around tags - I can overlap and glue the edges.

New recipe this year - Mapledoodles! I'll share the recipe tomorrow.

 

Christmas dishtowels

Can I just say that I have a rather large pile of dish towel fabric? This is what happens when I can't find the dishtowels I want to embroider, and as a result have to buy fabric/towels whenever I find them. 

Of course, that pile is nothing compared to the other fabric piles that I own.

Anyway, it's nice to use it up every once and a while. These dishtowels were my easy summer-fall project. The project that you can pick up and not have to make any decisions at all. One color of thread, two patterns. The perfect evening or early morning project.

Someday, I'll embroider pillowcases with these patterns. Of course, I'll need to start a pillowcase pile first.

Reaching out

And I'm back. After a wonderful, but busy, holiday season, and two funerals and a hard drive crash (back up files? why would the person IN CHARGE OF THE COMPUTERS AT THE OFFICE have backed up her own files?), this was the weekend to write letters, reach out to friends, deliver cookie dough, and update the blog. It wasn't until this afternoon that I remembered that this is my aunt's birthday. While other family members are providing service for the prison where she taught/volunteered, I'm too far away to do that. But I think that reaching out to friends is perhaps the best gift I could give her.

She was in charge of her community's production of a sing-along Messiah (the neighbors played "He Shall Feed His Flock" at the funeral), so I was really excited when I found these cards. Aren't they beautiful? Kristin was kind enough to put them up on etsy. I framed them for my uncle and cousins; I still need to frame one for me. 

More holiday posts to come! Since most of my decorations are still up, as usual, I have no problem with that...

I've said this before, but the prizes (put on hold over the holidays) are SO close to being done. They'll be revealed in the next week or so.