Cats, Sheep, & Penguins » Holiday

A better batch

lysa — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 07:24:05 +0000

Little things often make a world of difference. At least they do in the baking world. I changed several things to avoid a repeat of the Best Christmas Cookies debacle of last week. Issue one: the ambient temperature, which was a balmy 70˚F (21.11˚C) at my sister-in-law’s house, was a little chillier at 64˚F (17.77˚C) here at home. Issue two: using a hand mixer v. mixing by hand. I suspected that using a hand mixer made the batter a little too fluid for the cookies to roll out right, and this time, my dough set up nicely when popped in the freezer for thirty minutes. I didn’t need to re-flour the parchment paper on my work surface, nor was it necessary to refreeze the dough halfway through, as it was at my SIL’s. The cookie cutters sliced through the dough quite sharply, and the silicone spatula I used was thin enough to get under the cookies without distorting them. Issue three: no shortening in the icing. All I used was a cup and a half of confectioner’s sugar, three tablespoons of half-and-half, a tablespoon of vanilla, and Wilton Paste Colors. I made up eight ramekins of the sugary stuff (black, brown, violet, rose, red, yellow, leaf green, and white) and used tiny paintbrushes instead of butter knives in order to frost with precision. Check out my results!

Best Christmas Cookies

lysa — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 14:33:04 +0000

Growing up Jewish, you’d think I never had occasion to bake Christmas cookies with an elder. Not so! My mother and I used to bake all sorts of shaped cookies; she had a special recipe and made her own icing, cutting the tips from plastic baggies to frost the cookies. I’m hungry to continue the tradition with my new family. Gary and I picked out some large copper cookie cutters from Chef Central: a sleigh , a gingerbread man , a nutcracker , a train, and a car with a Christmas tree on top (my favorite), as well as a set of twelve copper cutters in a smaller size. I’ve tried several recipes, even fashioning one myself out of two that looked promising, with varying results. The recipe I created rolled out perfectly, but tasted way too floury. I also made them too thick, with the resulting cookies resembling Mongo from Shrek . Going back to an old standby, I tried Cook’s Country’s Best Christmas Cookies. The sour cream adds a discernible delicious tang that wasn’t present in the other cookies. However, you must remember to keep the dough cold, otherwise it gets too darn sticky. When I made these at my sister-in-law’s house on Christmas Eve, I worked with a floured marble work surface and marble rolling pin, even with these however, the dough got too warm too fast (their thermostat is set at 70˚). I did not have access to parchment paper, it’s what I’ll be working with when I try these at home.

My sister-in-law had already made icing, using confectioner’s sugar, milk, and shortening according to a family recipe, coloring it with Wilton Paste Colors . I don’t like the taste of the shortening nor the thickness it imparts; my icing used heavy cream and confectioner’s sugar only, but I just had the regular food coloring bottles you can buy in the supermarket. What a n00b! On Boxing Day I went out to A.C. Moore and procured some Wilton Colors for myself; I found them to be much richer. I’d brought some décoratifs that I’d bought at Crate & Barrel in the shapes of snowflakes, gingerbread men, candy canes, and Christmas trees, and we used some cinnamon dots as well. My niece helped decorate a few, but I slogged through most of them myself, only pausing to eat the broken ones. I’m new at this, so be gentle in your criticism.

Have A Light Emitting Christmas

garrison — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 05:45:13 +0000

Nearing the close of our first year in our new house, we’ve grown a bit wiser in the ways of energy costs, so when the time came to purchase holiday decorations, I didn’t hesitate to get something I’ve been wanting for some time: LED Christmas lights. Whereas the traditional strings of 50 mini lights consume 20-25 watts and last roughly 2,500 hours, our strings of 60 LED lights consume only one watt and should last for 50,000 hours. In fact, because our indoor tree is not near an electric outlet, we will be using only LED lights this year: our white Christmas shall be green. I’d like to eventually add more lights, but so far we have two strings of 60 LED lights along the top of our porch, and two strings of 60 pine cone LED lights around the tree. Lysa has mentioned that she likes those animated deer lights, but I’m not sure that’s the direction we want; I’m finding it tough to fight the urge to string enough lights to blind passing planes. One thing that I hadn’t realized until after stringing up the lights and viewing them from down the street– LED lights produce brighter, more intense color than minis.