Cookie season has begun, although it seemed like in fits and starts over the weekend. Because we had Black Friday Thanksgiving, on Thursday, I made the fruitcake gems and Simnel cake.
Friday was devoted to Thanksgiving cooking, although I did bake the turkey cookies and thought the were a really good batch this year.
On Saturday, I made my cookie list and went shopping, which seemed particularly grueling – and expensive – this year. I went to Costco, Woodman’s, Willy West and Sentry, and I still need shelled pistachios, anise extract, more unsweetened chocolate, and vegan shortening. Although, except for the pistachios, I can probably make do with what I have – and considering that I spent close to $700 on all the ingredients, I really should. I made the Joy of Cooking lebkuchen, always one of the first cookie kinds, and we went to a movie (Looper at the cheap theater – and they really did make Joseph Gordon-Hewitt’s eyebrows look weird).
On Sunday, we had lots of kids around for brunch, so I made chocolate chip scones (to use up the whipped cream that went with the Thanksgiving desserts) and turkey hash, and Mark made bacon. We were still in the process of UN-Thanksgiving-izing: putting the extra table back in the basement (kids were handy for that), putting away the good china, etc. It was one of those mornings when I thought, “OK, now everything’s back in its rightful place”, and I’d turn around and some other random item was sitting there laughing at me. Cookie work didn’t begin in earnest until 2:00. I made jam cookie dough, and thought I’d make the biberli – I did some work work while the dough chilled, and then started rolling and baking at about 5:30. I took a break to watch the (bloody) Boardwalk Empire almost-finale, and the Treme finale, and then came back down to stick the cookies together. The number of tops and bottoms just exactly matched – that’s never happened before – and they fit just right on my trays. I have 170 cookies, pretty evenly divided between raspberry & apricot. Made me really happy until I saw that last year I had 20 dozen.
In the midst of putting away Thanksgiving, I did figure out what to do with my 3-lb dark chocolate turkey, that was supposed to be our table centerpiece, but I forgot to put him out – in my defense, he probably would’ve gotten all melt-y anyways. And melt is just what I’m going to do with him – chop him up and melt him to glaze the fruit balls and the rainbow bars, and any other cookie kinds that need chocolate topping.
