Mom asked me to bake some more cookies that she could share with her guests, so yesterday was a baking day. As I was figuring out a good assortment, I also had to consult our collection of cookie cutters to decide which cutouts to use.
Many of our cookie cutters have a distinctive Christmas orientation, but over the years we’ve inherited and acquired an eclectic collection — a grab bag of dogs, hearts, a gingerbread man, stars, a baseball mitt, and even the Statue of Liberty and the space shuttle. They are variously made of tin, sturdy plastic, and a thin, highly bendable metal; some have handles and others don’t. Predictably, I like the older, metal cutters that probably date back at least 50 years.
My favorite is the little Scottish terrier cut-out. It requires a little care and patience to extricate the cookie; you need to gently put a butter knife through the handle and nudge the cookie dough out. It’s worth it. I’m confident that anyone who picks up a cookie in the shape of a little dog will have a smile on their face.
Yesterday the day got off to a bad start when our hand mixer broke after 30 years of faithful service. A quick trip to Meijer for the $10 Sunbeam on display here got us back on track, however, and we successfully made our new Fritos concoction, the always popular cranberry hootycreeks, lemon bars, peanut butter cookies with white chocolate, and gingerbread trees with lemon drizzle. Today we’ve got a full day of baking ahead of us, starting with sugar cookies and Dutch spice cookies. We’ll also be tackling some of the interesting new recipes I’ve found this year.
Christmas carols on the iPod player? Check. A trip to the grocery store yesterday to get all of the ingredients for this year’s cookie mix? Check.
I’ve bought the ingredients and temporarily parked them on the kitchen island. Nuts, flour, sugar, brown sugar, spices, coconut, eggs, butter, and milk, among others — just waiting to be chopped, sifted, beaten, and stirred into something good. I’ve retrieved the familiar Christmas cookie implements from their storage places. The oft-floured wooden rolling pin, seemingly straight from the hands of the angry wife in some 1950s sitcom. The electric mixer, with its variable speeds and whirring efficiency and metal popouts. The motley collection of mixing bowls, each a lone survivor from formerly matched sets. The cookie cutouts that have been gradually accumulated over the years, some of which have been donated by our respective families.
