Adventures In Rogue Baking

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In years that my mother opts to make Christmas treats to give out, she makes two items.  She makes her fantastic peanut butter balls, and she makes Christmas butter cookies, from a recipe that I’ve not encountered anywhere else.  Her cookies are soft, with slightly crispy edges, and the addition of cream cheese to the dough adds a richness and depth of flavor that is unparalleled among other butter cookies.

I went to visit my parents over the Thanksgiving holiday, and my mother agreed to make the cookies with me (and be my photographer) for the blog.  I made the dough ahead of time, divided it into four flat discs, and chilled it. The dough is easy to transport this way.  It was not until the camera had been deployed and the rolling out of the dough had begun that I realized something was not right.  The dough was incredibly sticky…I could barely roll it out and when I cut the cookies out, I then could not peel them off the non-stick silicon mat.  In retrospect, it’s clear that I miscounted the number of cups of flour I put into the dough…what a rookie mistake.  I ended up having to hand-work flour into each of the four discs of dough until they could be handled properly.  I’ve been baking for enough years that I should be past these sort of gaffs…but apparently, I am not.

Also, these cookies bake better if you manage to get them all the same thickness, which is always a challenge.  So mom introduced me to her fabulous rolling pin and “dough bands.”  These two items used in combination allow you to make every single cookie exactly the same thickness.  Brilliant.

Once the cookies were baked, we made the frosting, colored some of it green, and started decorating the cookies.  Our normal method of frosting cookies can best be described as “slapdash”, or as my father puts it, “slappety-slap.”  But for the blog, I wanted a few cookies that looked a bit nicer than our usual efforts.  So I put a little of the green frosting into a ziploc bag, sealed it, then cut a tiny corner off the bottom.  I used this as a pastry bag to outline the cookies in green frosting and then filled in.  After that, I put a bit of the un-colored frosting in another ziploc bag and drew a little swag on each tree.  A few decorative sprinkles later, they were looking quite nice, I thought.

Mama Scrooge’s frugal frosting

My mother and I then used our usual slapdash method to spread frosting on the remainder of the cookies.  I thought they looked okay until I looked over at my mother’s pile of recently-frosted cookies.  She had passed right by “slappety-slap” and gone straight to stingy.  So, when I was done with my pile of cookies, I “fixed” hers.  Can’t have miserly frosting on cookies; it impugns the spirit of Christmas.

We then piled the cookies on a plate with the three “fancy” ones on top for a “glamor shot” for the blog.  I don’t know how glamorous it is, but I think they look pretty nice for amateur cookies.  And they taste divine!

If you are planning to make cookies for Christmas, why not give this recipe a try?  They are magnificent and foolproof (unless you decide to go rogue and leave out a bunch of flour, in which case, your results will vary).

Almond Butter Cookies

(click here for printable PDF of recipe)

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 Cups sugar

1 8-oz package cream cheese, softened

1 Cup butter, softened

1 Tsp vanilla

1 egg

1/2 Tsp almond extract

3 1/2 Cups flour

1 Tsp baking powder

DIRECTIONS

Cream together sugar, cream cheese, and butter until fluffy.

Add egg, vanilla, and almond extract.

Sift together flour and baking powder and add to moist ingredients.

Chill the dough, roll it out to 1/8", and cut out.

Bake cookies at 375° on ungreased baking sheet until golden around the edges, 8-12 minutes depending on your oven.

Frost cut out cookies with Powdered Sugar Glaze.

Powdered Sugar Glaze

INGREDIENTS

2 Cups powdered sugar, sifted

2 Tbsp butter, softened

1/8 Tsp almond extract

2 Tbsp milk

DIRECTIONS

Beat together ingredients. Then add more milk as needed for desired consistency.