Season's Bakings

Yes, I know its been ages since I posted, but well, life intervenes and the blog took a back seat. I did, however, remember to photograph just about every interesting thing I cooked over the holiday season. Some I will post/blog about, some you will just have to use your imagination.

It was a pretty bizarre holiday season, mostly because everybody got sick, one after the other. And everybody had slightly different symptoms. Unfortunately, some of it happened while we were out of town on a mini vacation.

And also unfortunately, we have now coined a new illness symptom. It's called SLEEP LINDA*BLAIRING. Which sounds exactly like what it is, only ten times as disgusting. Don't worry though. While we did take pictures of the damange (well, my husband did) I won't subject you to the actual photos.

Back to the food.

Holiday cooking started just before the break. I decided to make cookies for all my kids teachers. Something tasty and easy, that I could make in large batches. I decided on Organic Whole Wheat Shortbread with a hint of Chocolate. For each teacher, I would make about 20 cookies, give or take, and put them in these cute little cups that I had picked up at Ganz. Every year, Ganz has a sale where they clear out all kinds of stuff. I managed to find these cups for an unbelievabley cheap sum. I then personalized each cup by drawing on them with Sharpies, leaving them to set overnight and then baking them for half an hour at 350.

This one I kept for myself. But you get the idea.

In my stand mixer I put:
3 cups butter
3/4 cups superfine sugar
6 TBS sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup rice flour
3/4 tsp salt
a huge wodge of vanilla extract
a couple small handfuls of minced up chocolate (an 80% Lindt bar)
5 cups of whole wheat flour

I very carefully turned the stand mixer on, and promptly covered myself and the island with flour. I then covered the whole thing with a towel, and again, very carefully turned on the mixer in short little bursts until the flour stopped flying around, at which point I turned it on and kept it on a low speed until everything was sufficiently mixed.

Once it was all mixed, I rolled out logs of it like play-doh, wrapped it in saran wrap, and put it in the fridge to get cold and hard.

I left them overnight, until I would have time to bake them all. Luckily, I have this big ass cookie sheet, where I can bake a bazillion cookies at once. I managed to make all the cookies needed in only 3 batches.

Once they are hard and cold, they basically become slice and bake cookies. I heated the oven to 350, and laid parchment on my big ass cookie sheet, and sliced up the cookie logs until the sheet was full. These cookies don't spread much, so you can put them fairly close together. Bake for about 28-30 minutes. I like them a bit well done, personally. Once baked, lay them out to cool.

Once they are cool, you can put a dozen or two in each cup, and pretty them up with a cello bag and some ribbons. I also put out a plate of cookies for the caretakers and for the office staff.

I even had a couple dozen cookies left that came with us on our mini vacation. They did not make the return trip, except sadly, on my ass.