Fun Stuff
Tis the Season for.... cookies!
And fruitcake, cranberry bars, etc.
But especially for cookies. I saved an issue of a popular ladies' magazine - from longer ago than I care to admit - that has 100 cookie recipes in it. If you add up all the recipes from various classic cookbooks, specific holiday cookbooks, your mother's recipe box, and toss in other generational favorites that are handed down through the years from specific cultural backgrounds, there must be hundreds of them.
Have you ever attended a Christmas cookie swap? We did this for a few years among my fellow employees. Everyone was to bring a couple of dozen of their favorite Christmas cookies, which meant you got to take home a variety of sweet delights you haven't made yourself. It was a fun part of the season's festivities, although some of us ended up with more cookies than we knew what to do with. That's what happens when you don't have to provide cookies for your children to take to their school and club parties anymore.Growing up I had several siblings, and many extended family members who lived nearby. In order to provide cookies for all of the events we attended you needed ALOT of cookies.
By my teens I took over some of the cookie baking responsibility - to my mother's delight. By then I had two pre-school brothers. After I baked a few dozen sugar cookies, my younger sister and I would make several colors of frosting out of powdered sugar. Then we would lay out several types and colors of etable decorations to choose from for our stars, bells, trees, gingerbread people, wreaths.
Now we were set. With me supervising and the little ones eager to join the fray, we'd frost and decorate all of those cookies. They were carefully laid out side by side until the frosting hardened, then carefully placed in tins to stay fresh until they were needed.
In two hours or so the task was complete - except for the need to clean up ourselves and almost the entire kitchen.
I made cookies of various sorts for my own boys, and for awhile that included the sugar cookies. Trouble is, they weren't as hung-ho for the decorating so I'd end up doing most of it myself. It wasn't
too long before I cut back drastically on the amount of cookies that required so much time.
In conversations with friends on the subject of holiday baking, it's interesting that over the decades many confessed to leaving complicated recipes behind, and the delicate creations their grandmother made have become just a memory, lost to modern lifestyles.
Speaking of lost, when I was about sixteen and helping my mother do some spring cupboard cleaning, way in the back of a bottom shelf we came across a large container. Inside were about three dozen forgotten Christmas cutout cookies! Mom made me throw them away, but I snuck a bite first; they still tasted pretty good.
That magazine with 100 cookie recipes? It's looking a little frayed and worn, and the only recipe I still use - sometimes - is for candy cane cookies. If you want that recipe or any other ideas, let me know.
Haven't been to a cookie exchange in years. That must have gone out of style out along with being a full-time housewife. 🎄 Cookie exchanges were popular and so much fun when I was younger.
ReplyDeleteOut of style like the Christmas Eve Sunday School Christmas programs....
DeleteWhen we were in grade school those were a tradition, and when the program
was over each child got a paperbag with an orange, peanuts, and hard candy in it.
We ate alot of sweets at holiday time when we were kids!
I've never been to a cookie exchange. I have read about them in food magazines.
ReplyDeleteI love to bake, period, but I especially love holiday baking and treat-making. I do bake cookies, but not just cookies. I have always made my great-grandmother's fruitcake, though I've taken to calling it "Carole's Christmas Cake" instead because it's so different from what most people expect. Essentially, it is a pound cake with a pound of chopped nuts, dried fruits, and shredded coconut stirred into the batter before baking. She sometimes used candied fruits, but they were a better quality than you typically see today.
I also make several kinds of fudge, peanut brittle, pralines, and a few varieties of toffee. My father was famous for the bourbon balls he presented to his best customers. He started the tradition the first Christmas after he went into business for himself, back in the day when purchasing agents expected to be wined and dined and gifted. He was overwhelmed with blatant hints for extravagantly expensive whiskies -- and nowhere near successful enough to provide them. Year after year, we all pitched in, chopping nuts and vanilla wafers, measuring sugar and cocoa, mixing the ingredients, rolling the mixture into balls, and finally rolling the balls in powdered sugar and packing them in metal coffee cans, which we had covered in foil. Often, one or two of his suppliers would pitch in because keeping his customers happy kept them in business, too.
I've been watching the weather forecast for the candy-making, because the pralines and the toffees just won't set properly on rainy or heavily humid days. It looks like Wednesday and Thursday will be my best bet this week.
You are amazing! All of these goodies make my mouth water. Thanks for including
ReplyDeleteChristmas candy which has it's own memories and traditions. We actually did
taffy pulling a couple of times when I was a kid, courtesy of my dad and his memories.
I sure would love to get a taste of that fruitcake.... a gourmet fruitcake if I ever
heard of one.
I probably make more candy now, since I was diagnosed with celiac disease and don't use "regular" flours anymore.
DeleteAlso, I made a mistake this morning -- I hadn't looked at the recipe since last Christmas -- and that cake uses THREE pounds of dried fruit, not one. I often use 4 ounces of crystallized ginger and 3.5 pounds of dried cranberries. But, this year, I happen to have some high quality dried pineapple, tart cherries and Angelina plums (red, tart plums, not the sticky, sweet prune), as well as dried apricots. So, I'm thinking of trying another batch of cakes with those.
Times and seasons.... all of the treats that come from my kitchen at holiday time
Deletethese days is strictly for giveaway. Of course we sneak a taste for ourselves too,
but a household of two expecting minumal guests does not need several varieties
of the sweet stuff hanging around.
And after investing all of the ingredients - such as the high quality dried fruits you
mention Carole - there better be a special event or a family that can appreciate it.