We had a family cookie baking party.
We’ve done it once or twice in the past and it was really fun but it’s hard to get everyone organized, especially at this time of the year, what with Christmas events and sports and work and school. There are just so many of us!
But someone suggested it a week or two ago and everyone was on board. In the end, not everyone could make it, of course. We really missed the spritz cookies but pneumonia kept the only one who bakes them at home.
Work, illness and the National Rodeo Championships didn’t stop nearly 20 of us from converging on Mom’s house before noon.
It was a lovely day, sunny and not too cold but cold enough for Chocolate Pecan Crinkle cookies, which need to be frozen the moment they come out of the oven to finish properly. The extreme temperature shifts are what make them so chewy and wonderful.
Chocolate Pecan Crinkle Cookies
In a large saucepan over low heat, melt ¼ cup of butter, ¾ cup brown sugar; stir till butter melts and mix begins to bubble around the edges. Add ½ cup of chocolate chips; heat gently and stir constantly till chocolate melts, then remove from heat. Stir in one egg and 1 tsp vanilla, beat until if forms a thick paste. Lightly butter foil covered cookie sheets and drop 1 tsp of batter 2” apart. Bake at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes, then chill immediately.
We did it at my Mom’s house for several reasons; She wanted it there, her house has a big, open kitchen and she has enough oven space to do four trays at once. Jen might be able to match all that but Jen had to work. I don’t think Jen even gets to sleep during December. Mostly, Mom wanted it at her house and what Mom wants, Mom gets.
When I arrived at the house with my quadruple batch of Devil Cookie dough (I’m the only member of the family who can make these with any consistency, although I’m pretty sure Meg can do it, too.)
Chocolate Devil Cookies
IN a double boiler, melt ½ cup of butter and 2 oz of unsweetened bakers chocolate, then cool.
Put in a bowl: 1 cup brown sugar*, 1 egg (at room temperature) and ½ cup of milk; beat together.
Sift: 1 ½ Cup of flour and 1 ½ tsp baking soda. Add to egg mixture: beat.
Add: melted butter/chocolate mix and 1 tsp vanilla. Beat till smooth, then refrigerate at least one hour. Bake at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes, till the top of the cookie springs back at touch.
When completely cool; frost.
*I’ve found that only C&H brown sugar gives the cookies the proper consistency. Any other brand and the cookies turn out flat and the middle falls out.
I thought I was first but much to my surprise, Margy was there!
I knew she and her boys were all coming in for Christmas this year but didn’t expect her so early. Turns out, she’d just flown in to bake some almond cookies, rearrange some furniture and put up Mom’s Christmas tree and was headed back West in the afternoon. She’ll be back in a week. Her almond cookies were already cooling on the nine foot long island and she and Mom had a huge skillet full of pecan crinkle batter ready to go.
Chocolate Pecan crinkle cookies are magnificent. What you get is large, flat, chewy cookies of chocolate carmel chock full of pecans. They’re delicious but if you try to eat three of them in a row, your mouth will be a bloody mess.
Totally worth it.
They’re the quintessential Christmas cookie because you really can’t bake them unless it’s below freezing outside.
We had a snow covered table on the deck, perched right outside the sliding doors so we could put the cookies in the cold without setting foot outside. The problem was transporting the hot trays the ten feet once the room was full of little people. I nearly set Bean’s hair on fire at one point but she never knew how close she’d come to having a new coif for Christmas so no harm; no foul.
Vi showed up with the fixin’s for mimosas so by the time Meg set up her mixer and got the ginger snaps together and MJ unwrapped a bowlful of kisses for her Peanut Blossoms, the party was rolling.
Joe and Heidi were able to stop by for an hour or so, along with one of their many offspring, Alex.
Mom had mentioned in passing earlier in the day that she’d sort of thought of rearranging her furniture so Margy, Joe and I took advantage of the moment before everyone arrived to switch out two chairs and her TV stand. We chucked the old, ugly TV stand for a wonderful antique table Mom had refinished years ago and was underutilizing by the couch. It has shelves for the cable box and DVD player and looks a million times better than the serviceable, boring box she’d been using. Plus, there was now more room to move between the living and dining rooms. We moved a couple of chairs to make room for the Christmas tree, which Margy, MJ, Nanners and Bean decorated while we baked cookies.
Over the course of the afternoon, we baked eight different kinds of cookies. For most of the day, we kept all four racks in Mom’s ovens full of trays, which made for some merry mix ups. For some reason, Katie kept forgetting to set a timer for her shortbread cookies, so two trays of them got burnt to a crisp, which is tragic.
We made: Almond cookies, pecan crinkles, chocolate crinkle cookies, chocolate devil cookies, peanut butter kiss cookies, ginger snaps, pretzel candies and shortbread cookies.
Each batch was huge so everyone could bring some home. MJ did the math later in the day and figured we’d made very close to a thousand cookies. The pretzel candies were the simplest: square pretzels, spread on a cookie sheet, a rollo on each cookie, an almond on top of the rollo, put into the oven for a couple of minutes to melt the rollo. They were yummy but Katie P. dubbed them Georgia O’Keefe cookies for obvious reasons. The Pecan Crinkles, having to be fried, baked then frozen, are the most complicated, although the Devil cookies are the most difficult to get perfect. I’ve spent the last 40 years perfecting them and every once in a while, even mine don’t turn out quite right, although it’s been a few years since I had a batch go wrong.
I make killer ginger snaps but Meg put real chunks of candied ginger in hers, then dipped them in white chocolate and garnished each cookie with a chocolate sprig of holly. They looked camera ready and Zack declared them the best ginger snaps he’s ever had!
At one point in the day, we had at least five kinds of cookies cooling on Mom’s giant island, two kinds baking and at least two different decorating stations in the kitchen, while the tree was being decorated in the living room, right on the other side of the island.
Mom was into ‘open concept’ long before anyone ever heard of the Property Brothers.
Oh, and the Army/Navy game was on the TV through all of it. It was a major concession on the part of Dad and Joe (Go Navy!!) to turn the sound off so we could listen to Christmas music.
Sia's new Christmas album spurred an impromptu dance party and of course, everyone's favorite is Roger Whittaker.
Meanwhile, two crawling babies and one lactose intolerant toddler were underfoot, ‘helping’.
It just may have been the best Christmas party, ever.