Christmas Cookies!

Yesterday I was able to do something that I haven't done in years.  Make Christmas cookies with my mom!  When I was little, it seemed like mom made these traditional cookies every year, but their production has slowed in the past years.  

The day started with talking ourselves in to actually making the cookies.  It's always easier to say you want to make cookies than to actually start to do it.  But we did, and started with the Almond Lace Wafers.  These are made by melting butter (lots of it) in a sauce pan with sugar, almonds and a tiny bit of milk, cream and flour.  When this is a syrup you spoon it on to very greased cookie sheets and bake for 8 minutes.  Remove and let cool till you can lift the edges with our ripping, turn out on some paper towels and VERY carefully roll up on the handle of a wooden spoon.  They are still very hot at this point.  if you cook them too long (which we did at first) or if you let them cool too long (which we did) or not long enough (which we did) they will crack and shatter.  At that point the only thing you can do is eat the pieces.  Oh well!

In between batches of ALW we mixed up a double batch of sugar cookie dough.  This is the same recipe we have always used, and surprisingly, it is the one from the Cookie Press book.  Don't mess with a classic.  We decided to put these through the press, as opposed to chilling and rolling them out (may not have been easier in the long run).  We used the Christmasy designs and did many variations on them.  I brought mint-chocolate Kisses and mini chocolate chips which we used on the Wreaths and Trees (respectively).  The wreaths look like Thumb Print cookies.  Its pretty cool.  

We stopped at two types of cookies for the day, the sugar cookies took most of the day!  Mom says she wants to make Mexican Wedding Cakes too, but that will be later.  I was sent home with a tupperware of the finished product.  I considered giving them out to my neighbors, but I think I will just eat them myself!  I really wish we had pictures of us making them, and since I don't have my camera yet, I don't have any pictures of the finished ones either.  Oh well.  They taste amazing, so that will have to be enough.  

Thanks mom for letting me help you make cookies this year!  It was so much fun!

Merry Christmas!