Making Spirits Bright

Note: This post was written on Sunday, December 14th, not the 12th as dated.

Logan and I did our first cooking project together a few weeks ago. We attempted to make little peanut butter bear treats from an awesome toddler cookbook R and J gave us. After stirring for about a minute, Logan abandoned me and I finished the project on my own. They were very tasty, basically peanut butter Rice Krispies treats. We, or rather, I, made cats rather than bears.

Despite this unsatisfying first attempt at culinary bonding, today we tried again, this time with the HPs, during what I hope will be a tradition for the next 40 years: Holiday Cookie Day(tm). Our plan was to gather our two families to make holiday cookies. After much discussion, AHamp and I decided it would be best not to produce the entire recipe in one day, but rather pre-make the dough and have cookies at different stages a la a cooking show. One batch already baked and ready to ice, one batch rolled out and ready to cut. TP predicted "Moms in the kitchen making cookies while Larry and I control the chaos."


Well, the event came off better than we could have dreamed. Logan and G thoroughly enjoyed the decorating, cutting and, obviously, eating. Everyone participated in the festivities while Ollie relaxed in his baby swing. The boys spent way more time helping than I thought they would.

We made two recipes: Spice Rollout Cookies and Vanilla Rollout Cookies, both from Bon Appetit. The spice cookies were the fave. They are pleasing to kids but are not crazy sugary, so they are tolerable for the rest of us. Recipe here.



Eat your heart out, Martha! Update: We've had some questions about who should receive "credit" for some of the specific designs. Italian flag gingerbread man: TP. Liberty Bell: Amy. Christmas tree with red outline: Larry. And mad props to AHamp for the candy cane sprinkles, which we all highly recommend. They actually taste like candy canes.