Sugar High

Chocolate peanut butter chip cookies cooling in the late afternoon sunshine.

It was baking day at the ol' homestead today. I know, I know...not many people start their holiday baking on December 22 and I suppose technically, I didn't either. I made cinnamon almonds yesterday and while they were done in the crockpot, I'm counting that as baking too.

There was a time when the Christmas cookies were made much earlier in December. Of course, my main cookie-eaters were teens or younger and still living at home then too. Now the teen cookie monster is a granddaughter who, along with her dad and mom, won't be in town until Christmas Eve. I'm not sure who's the biggest cookie-fan, Kayla or Brad, but there will be plenty of fresh sweets ready and waiting. And when they leave a few days later, they'll take the majority of them with them.

This year's selection isn't much different from previous years: Chocolate chip, chocolate peanut butter chip, gingersnaps and cranberry-white chocolate-oatmeal. Those are family favorites so they repeat year after year. And I always have to try one new one, just in case we find something different that would make it's way onto the family-favorite list. This year it was Lemondoodles...a Snickerdoodle-like cookie only with lemon. It's pretty good; we'll see how popular it is with the rest of the clan.

And how have I managed to make cookies all these years without a cookie scoop? The answer is I didn't know what I was missing. I bought one this year and now I'm in love. It sure made getting the dough onto the cookie sheet faster and easier...and much cleaner than using a spoon too. Cool little tool.

I wasn't alone in the kitchen today...my roomie volunteered to help. We took turns measuring and mixing, putting cookie sheets in the oven and transferring cookies onto the cooling racks. And, of course, we sampled a few along the way. What kind of cooks would we be if we didn't taste our food? Needless to say, we approved of our work. We finished up about 8pm this evening but it would have been much later if I hadn't had a second set of hands helping.

The air in the house is filled with the sugary scent of baked goods and I hope it hangs around. I'm going to need it tomorrow to fuel a kitchen clean-up. One look at the sink and the floors and you'd know...it was baking day at the ol' homestead today.

Comments

[Margot/NZ]

Sounds delicious! Back at the end of November I made the traditional (British) Christmas cake and it's been maturing since then. I've also tried a couple of new recipes - Panforte (with our own hazelnuts of course) and Scarlet Speckled Loaf Cake. Both recipes from Nigella Lawson's "Christmas" cook book. Both yummy. I will definitely be making Panforte in future, so can agree it's a good idea to add in new recipe(s)!