It was a fun, busy, chaotic weekend. This is the weekend BEFORE this current one. I'm late in posting.
On Friday I baked off the rest of the short dough I'd made, in a variety of kid-pleasing shapes: snowmen, trees, reindeer, bells, angels, cats, birds, and squirrels. Yes, squirrels.
But because I never think there will be enough, I had to make more. Plus it's nice to have a variety of flavors. Originally I was going to make gingerbread cookies, but then, in my email, I got a link from Epicurious to "25 Days of Christmas Cookies." So I clicked through the slide show, and came right back to the very first one in the group:
I skimmed through the recipe, thought it sounded like what I wanted, and printed it out. And that's when I noticed it. The name in the top left-hand corner. The recipe was published in Gourmet Magazine in December 2007. And guess who wrote it? Yep. The Ubiquitous Dorie Greenspan. I had to laugh.
And then I had to make the cookies. I doubled the recipe, because, you know, that whole "might not be enough" thing. And the dough - the dough smelled fabulous. Good enough to eat right then and there, but I thought of the kids who were coming, and I refrained.
But really. Cocoa powder AND melted bittersweet chocolate in the dough. You can't go wrong there. Oh, and a bit of cinnamon, too. This recipe is a keeper.
With this dough, I cut out teddy bears, lions, more angels, bunnies, guitars, snowflakes, dogs, and cows. Yes, cows. In two sizes. I love cows, and my cow cutters are actually stored with my December holiday cutters, not the animal cutters.
All the kids present had a great time decorating (and eating) the cookies, both on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning before it was time for them all to go home.
Oddly enough, I didn't take any pictures of the kids' finished cookies, which was rather stupid of me, because those are way more entertaining than the stuff I did. Ah well. Here are a few pictures from Saturday's decorating party...
This is my nephew, Calvin. Despite his advanced years (he's 16), he seems to really enjoy doing stuff like this with the kids. Later on, he taught them to play Guitar Hero. He's great with children.
And, of course, we all know Julia and Alex.
And this, this is Natalie, my niece. She is an AWESOME cookie-decorator. I mean, they all do/did a great job, but Natalie just really has a knack for it. She made a teddy bear with a little sweater on him that LOOKED like a real sweater.
Saturday night, Bill made paella for dinner. It was phenomenal.
The next morning we awoke to snowfall. Alex and his friend Jack, who slept over, were the first ones awake, and the first ones to look outside. They came in and told me, and I sent them downstairs to tell Calvin and Natalie.
After breakfast, everyone went outside to play in the snow. There wasn't a lot of it, but there was enough for a mild snowball fight and the construction of three snowmen.
All in all, a pretty near-perfect weekend.
Oh, and just to keep things on a baking theme, here are a few pictures of the cookies I decorated. Because, you know, it's all about me.
Oh, and in case you're wondering about that not-decorated little cow in the front...look closely. He's got an eye. A little tiny clump of cocoa powder, probably. Anyway, I felt he didn't require any further embellishment.
And then I ate him.
All in all, a great weekend.
Cookies...cookies...cookies.
You did a great job decorating them
Posted by: chocolatechic | December 14, 2008 at 12:22 PM
Those are some beautifully decorated cookies - especially the cows. I hope mine come out that pretty!
Posted by: Karen @ Mignardise | December 14, 2008 at 03:11 PM
Your blog is super. So are your photographies. They make me hungry. I have spent a nice moment when seeing them. Thanks a lot.
Posted by: eleonora | December 14, 2008 at 05:11 PM
Wow your cows are so adorable, and the rest of the cookies too. You sure do have a knack of decorating!
Posted by: Amanda | December 14, 2008 at 06:00 PM
Wow, these Christmas cows are SO awesome! I'm giving you the YOU INSPIRE ME award, which I just created for this ocassion! :-)
Posted by: SMS Bradley | December 14, 2008 at 07:20 PM