I've been thinking lately that I have this great cookie jar that 99.9% of the time stays empty. So while going through my December issue of Southern Living last week I decided Anna Grace and I were pulling out our aprons and making the Shortbread cookies from that issue. Today we set out while Dean was napping to fulfill our cooking making quest. How hard could it be; the recipe said it only made 16 4.5 inch Christmas tree shaped cookies?
Well we were off to a good start. We had our 4 ingredients out and starting dumping things into the mixer - by far Anna Grace's favorite part of cooking. Soon into the process though I realized I was exactly 1 cup of flour short. (Should have measured out my ingredients before the dumping began and we could have made half the cookies. Oh well.) Neal saved the day and went to the grocery store.
After the mixing was complete and Anna Grace realized there was not an immediate cookie for her to eat she decided to go play with Dean for a while. I began rolling out the dough. Anna Grace showed back up on the scene to select the cookie cutters she thought would be appropriate - gingerbread man, flower, leaf, star and some other shape that I am not sure what to call it, a flower maybe. She stayed long enough to watch me cut out the gingerbread men (once mind you) and then was off to play with Dean some more.
After completing the first batch, I let the children split one since it was only minutes before eating dinner - the dinner I had forgotten to get together since I was rolling and cutting cookie dough. So while Neal was at church we loaded up the car and picked up a hot and ready pizza. After dinner everyone got to eat one more cookie. Then it was back to the rolling and cutting for me while the children played with Neal (a much appreciated and necessary task by him to insure my sanity).
I'm almost done with the cookies by now but it was time to get the children in the bed. So Neal and I set off to tuck them in for the night. By the time I got back down from putting them in bed, I just wanted the cookies finished but I decided they really looked a little plain and I should make some icing to drizzle over them. After all they needed to be cute cookies if they were going to be on display in my cool cookie jar. So after putting the last batch in the oven and cleaning up the counter and cookie dishes I pulled out the glaze stuff. At this point, I was willing to admit the cookies were a little more time consuming than expected but this should be quick and easy.
Yet again off to a good start, glaze was made and the wax paper was covering the counter with the cookies all spread out. Oh one little note, when using regular size cookie cutters you end up with about 50 cookies - not 16. I got the glaze into the ziplock bag and snipped the tiniest hole in the end. Wow! By the time I got the glaze drizzled over all the cookies I was moaning in pain - my back was killing me from leaning over so long, my feet hurt from standing on the hard kitchen tile and my hands were cramping up from squeezing the icing hard enough to get it through the hole.
Six hours later I was done.
So how do the cookies look in my fun cookie jar? Beats me after all that work I decided I was not going to just throw them in there so they could all broken up! Maybe tomorrow I will think more clearly about Anna Grace's cookies - we all know if asked she will say that she made them since she picked the cutters and dumped the ingredients and most importantly she wore her apron - and be willing to actually put them in the jar.
Good night!
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