Several years ago I bought some old-fashioned tin animal cookie cutters in a local antique store with no real idea in mind of how I’d use them. They were larger than I normally use, but I liked their shapes and the variety of animals. I finally brought them out for my “Christmas Comes to the Zoo” project and they became some of my favorite shapes ever.
Hanukkah, also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day festival that involves food, prayer, dancing, oil, candles...and cookies, of course!
The elaborate designs for el Día de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) has always intrigued me. So I decided to decorate my Halloween cookies to celebrate this age-old Mexican tradition of honoring the dead. The intricate swirls and colorful flowers that make up the designs for el Día de los Muertos are ideal decorations for cookies...the perfect pairing of the symbols for life and death.
The best thing about Halloween is that it means the beginning of the holiday baking season. And although Halloween is not my favorite holiday, making Halloween cookies is a lot of fun. Ghosts and Jack o’Lanterns, cats and ghosts...what great shapes.
Although decorated cutout cookies are my first love, there are other cookies that also lay claim to my culinary affections. Flavor and texture are key and sometimes what I’m really longing for is a delicious, crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside chocolate chip cookie. I almost always have balls of chocolate chip cookie dough in the freezer, ready to pop in the oven at a moment’s notice. No decorating time is necessary to produce these heavenly bites.
When my sister and I were children, my father would bring home several boxes of See’s candy every Christmas. My sister would always choose the milk chocolate pieces and I would choose the dark chocolate pieces. We made a great team!
Easter is my favorite springtime holiday. After a long winter, it’s such a joy to see all the flowers beginning to bloom and fill the garden with color and elegance. I also like decorating Easter cookies because all the shapes that match this season symbolize new and abundant life...bunnies, butterflies, flowers, ducklings, etc. The pastel colors are soft and dreamy, too. Such a lovely time of the year.
When my great niece was two years old she met Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. He actually showed up at our house! She was terrified. To her, he was not a “jolly old elf.” He was a giant and a scary dude. That was the last time he appeared at our holiday gathering!
A few Christmases ago, I bought a kit to build four small Gingerbread houses with my sister and her grandkids. Yes, I said “bought a kit!” I always make my own cookies but in this case I was not above letting someone else make the gingerbread for these houses. I was 99% certain that no one would want to eat the houses, especially after they sat around for a few weeks being admired and collecting dust. So I reasoned that I didn’t have to go to all that trouble of baking the extra-sturdy gingerbread and planning out the correct dimensions, etc.
I lived in “snow country” as a small child and remember the fun part of snow with fondness...making snow angels, letting snowflakes melt on my tongue, building snowmen. Snowflake cookies remind me of that time. And like real snowflakes, each cookie is different.
