This Sunday I will go to my very first cookie exchange.
I am way, way more excited than I have rights to be. First there is the excitement of getting the two words we use in our household to mean sweet baked good confused. I think "cookie exchange" as a whole entity, and then the next beat I am thinking about the type of biscuit I am going to make.
I should say types because we will each make two kinds of cookie/biscuit/sweet baked good things. Originally we were supposed to do three types and make enough that each person could take 6 home. But then an ass-ton of people wanted to go. The friend organizing had to cap it to ensure her house wasn't overrun. Sadly this means our Biscuageddon has gone from a potential 144 biscuits to half that at 74 - but still a very respectable amount of waist-destroying goodness.
I had to think about the first cookie I'd make for about 1 second. I have always wanted to make the New Mexico state cookie, the biscochito or biscocho. It's one of those things it never occurs to you to make when you live there because they are omnipresent so why would you ever bother making your own? But now I am many miles from a biscocho and I'm definitely craving them. Most recipes call for lard, which I'm a little skeptical about finding here because I am thinking the lard here is going to be perhaps a bit more meaty than the baking lard you find in the US. We shall see.
The second cookie I had to think about a little longer, maybe 10 minutes. I have been collecting recipes for ages. I have a wee streak of obsessive-compulsive which generally gets channeled into tidying and reorganizing anything for the millionth time. So I have been reviewing these cookie recipes for literally years. But whenever it is time to make a sweet I can't resist the show stopper and much easier cakes, so the cookies languish on. I finally decided on a deceptively simple sandwich butter cookie, except you are meant to brown the butter. I have never (intentionally) browned butter. It could go horribly wrong. OH kindly went out and stocked up on a frightening amount of butter in preparation for some failures. Browning the butter is the best thing about this recipe. The second best thing is that they are meant to age, so perfect for making ahead of a cookie exchange. I love the idea of cookies sitting around, growing in potency, like a dark cookie power smoldering away in a tin of cookie so-good-it's-evilness. I imagine the tin starting to shudder and then exploding suddenly, unable to contain the aged, concentrated cookie goodness.
It would make an impression.
I am way, way more excited than I have rights to be. First there is the excitement of getting the two words we use in our household to mean sweet baked good confused. I think "cookie exchange" as a whole entity, and then the next beat I am thinking about the type of biscuit I am going to make.
I should say types because we will each make two kinds of cookie/biscuit/sweet baked good things. Originally we were supposed to do three types and make enough that each person could take 6 home. But then an ass-ton of people wanted to go. The friend organizing had to cap it to ensure her house wasn't overrun. Sadly this means our Biscuageddon has gone from a potential 144 biscuits to half that at 74 - but still a very respectable amount of waist-destroying goodness.
I had to think about the first cookie I'd make for about 1 second. I have always wanted to make the New Mexico state cookie, the biscochito or biscocho. It's one of those things it never occurs to you to make when you live there because they are omnipresent so why would you ever bother making your own? But now I am many miles from a biscocho and I'm definitely craving them. Most recipes call for lard, which I'm a little skeptical about finding here because I am thinking the lard here is going to be perhaps a bit more meaty than the baking lard you find in the US. We shall see.
The second cookie I had to think about a little longer, maybe 10 minutes. I have been collecting recipes for ages. I have a wee streak of obsessive-compulsive which generally gets channeled into tidying and reorganizing anything for the millionth time. So I have been reviewing these cookie recipes for literally years. But whenever it is time to make a sweet I can't resist the show stopper and much easier cakes, so the cookies languish on. I finally decided on a deceptively simple sandwich butter cookie, except you are meant to brown the butter. I have never (intentionally) browned butter. It could go horribly wrong. OH kindly went out and stocked up on a frightening amount of butter in preparation for some failures. Browning the butter is the best thing about this recipe. The second best thing is that they are meant to age, so perfect for making ahead of a cookie exchange. I love the idea of cookies sitting around, growing in potency, like a dark cookie power smoldering away in a tin of cookie so-good-it's-evilness. I imagine the tin starting to shudder and then exploding suddenly, unable to contain the aged, concentrated cookie goodness.
It would make an impression.
4 comments:
Yum! I made brown butter and nut cookies for our Christmas party. They were delicious! I'm a bit sad that I forgot to bring the leftovers to Ohio for Christmas.
I would love to see pictures of the cookies you received.
Aunt B I'll try to remember to get some photos!
Post a Comment