All the Holiday Cookies I'll Be Baking This Weekend
Welcome to the Land of Stress Baking! The holiday season is peak stress baking time for a couple of reasons. First, baking is a completely natural and fundamental part of the holidays. It seems like the second the school bell rang and winter break started, my sister and I were decorating cookies with mounts of frosting. They weren’t the most beautiful or likely edible of cookies, but it became almost second nature. Just something we were used to doing in addition to the mountains of homemade pasta we made for Christmas Eve dinner. You know, because little arms can turn the pasta roller better than anyone. Second, people love when you have treats readily available. Even one of the traditional Christmas songs mentions people stopping by, uninvited, and asking for figgy pudding. It’s an age old favorite pastime which hopefully doesn’t find you stopping by people’s houses and asking for treats. That said, it’s always good to have SOMETHING on hand or to bring around to parties and gatherings. Finally, baking really allows me to take my brain off the million things going on in there during the end of the year. Baking requires my brain to pay attention to a very organized activity where steps are meant to be followed. There is barely any room for the mind to wander. Especially not to things like presents or trying to remember that one thing I forgot last week but would really like to remember.
So far I have not made a single thing which feels incredibly weird. But I am ready to start baking. All of my stress has piled on and I am ready to use this weekend for hours and hours of baking. Something I’m sure everyone I know is excited about because they will all reap the rewards. There are THREE staples when it comes to my cookie tins and trays. I always make sure to include the classic sugar cut out cookie with improved icing technique. No more globby frosting and sprinkles of my childhood. The classic cut out sugar cookie is a holiday staple. No holiday is complete without it no matter how messy flour may be. Another cookie I always try to include is a chocolate chip. Chocolate chip brings back memories of being a child and they are warm and cozy feeling. I always try to change up the recipe up a little bit. The third is one of my mom’s absolute favorite holiday cookies: snowballs. We have always made ours with a few alterations in an attempt to bring my grandmother’s recipe back to life after it was lost some time ago. Nevertheless they are a crowd pleaser.
There may be a 4th addition this year. The famous salted butter and chocolate chunk shortbread cookies by Alison Roman. I have been really wanting to try them and sharing them might just be the best opportunity to do so. Below you’ll find my chosen recipes for this year’s cookie baking festivities. All the baking I’ll be doing this weekend.
