The scent of warm shortbread and melted chocolate is drifting up to where I sit at the computer in the loft. Sometimes, having an open loft is a good thing.
Once completely cooled and cut, the toffee bars are destined for the cookie trays we make up for the students who work in our office. We can't pay as much as other departments, but we make sure our students are well fed.
I've spent much of the afternoon browsing through cookie books. We Energies (formerly Wisconsin Energy) publishes an annual "cookie book" that is extremely popular locally. To my delight, they have digitized the books going back to 1932.
While the more recent books show off the cookies in full color pictures, it is the 1960 edition, set in an old typeface with old fashioned line drawings that I grew up with. My mom must have decided to do a bunch of baking for my second Christmas. The Spritz and Mexican Wedding Cakes are favorites, though the Checkerboard Cookies are fun (when the pieces don't fall apart on you).
The motivation for the hunt is a cookie exchange I'm in next weekend. Originally, I'd planned to bring Lethal Layers, but in order to get the quantity needed for the swap, I'd need to make three pans. Since downsizing to a galley kitchen, I've given away the second 9 x 13 pan I once had. Naturally, I'm too lazy to borrow additional pans from friends.
Hence, the hunt.
The winner seems to be Wintermint Wafers. They are from the 2014 book (page 18, if you are interested). Who doesn't like chocolate and mint together? In a strange twist, I do have peppermint extract in the cupboard; what I do not have is enough cocoa. Eh, there is time to get some.
The cookies will most likely need to be mixed up Thursday, for rolling, baking and chocolate-dunking on Saturday. I've a social thing on Friday night or I'd do it then. Since the dough needs to chill, then the cookies cool completely before dunking, it would be rough to get through the entire baking process on Saturday.
What is your favorite Christmas cookie?
2 comments:
Thanks for sharing the link to the archive of cookie recipes! I look forward to trying a few of the recipes.
Aren't they fun? Some recipes repeat every few years - classics like sugar cookies of various kinds and spritz. I love the progression from the early years, when a lot of the cookies are from the homelands of a lot of the people who settled in Wisconsin, to closer to present day, where they solicited cookies from all around the country.
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