Cookie Cutter Creativity

Back when I had a real job... whenever I wasn't doing a good enough job... my boss would crab at my lack of creativity and accuse me of taking a cookie cutter approach.

That was a confusing way to insult me because I've tried to make perfectly consistent cut out cookies since my daughter was a baby and it's a whole lot harder than it looks.

This is my theory as to why most of us leave the creative cookie cutting to Pillsbury:

After we turn 40, we figure out that women's magazines are filled with re-touched photos of flawed people.

Once we realize that Angelina Jolie could very well be fat and ugly in real life, we feel a whole lot better about ourselves.

For some odd reason, we haven't quite accepted the fact that food photography gets the same specialty treatment.

I can assure you that it does.

I once spent 16 hours at a photo shoot because a far too meticulous art director needed to place the peas in the pasta salad in precisely the right spots.

While I suppose that works for magazines, it's no fun at all in real life.

So, perhaps we could just ignore those unrealistic standards. Haul out the cookie cutters, roll up our sleeves and think... Picasso, Dali, and Pollock ~ Oh, yeah! Most definitely Jackson Pollock!

Because there are a whole lot of creative masters out there who happily failed Art Class 101.

Simple Sugar Cookies
No matter how they look, they all taste delightful. This recipe makes 3 dozen average size cookies or 1 gigantic cookie sculpture (in case you'd like to pay tribute to Gaudi!)

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1.5 teaspoons vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 1.25 teaspoons baking powder

Meet my Cookie Monsters:

How to:

1. Beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in egg and vanilla.
2. Add flour and baking powder in intervals. (Dough will seem too dry but it will improve when chilled.)
3. Divide dough into four equal parts and refrigerate about an hour.
4. Roll out dough between 2 sheets of waxed paper, 1/4 inch thick for crisp cookies or 1/3 inch thick for soft cookies.
5. Cut out shapes with cookie cutters and and bake for 7-8 minutes @ 375 F.

 

Hot Tip!

Be sure to eat lots of cookie dough.

This dramatically reduces the amount of time you spend baking the cookies.


* Cookies need no adjustments when baking at high altitude.

Maniacal Ovens and Spritz Cookies

If you bake one cookie this holiday season,
make it a Spritz

Spritz, the yummiest of all the buttery little morsels, are made with a cookie press. If you're a perfectionist, that should give ya fits.

It's not so bad for me because we generally eat all the dough before the oven is preheated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For years, I suspected my oven hated me. It would bake too hot, or broil too cold. Friends accused me of being childish and immature for blaming the appliance.

Last year, that #!%*! oven decided to quit baking on December 23rd ~ so, we had to broil our Spritz Christmas cookies! They weren't very pretty but they still tasted great.

Who's crying now?
Sure, I could have recycled it. But, deep down, I knew it was possessed. So, I happily hauled that mean-spirited oven away to a place where it will never (ever!) be able to foil another baker's plans.

Yummy Spritz Cookies
* If you can refrain from eating the cookie dough, this recipe makes 4 dozen.
1 cup butter
3 egg yolks
2.5 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

How to:

1. Mix the butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla. Add the flour and mix by hand.
2. Spoon into cookie press and press onto cookie sheets.
3. Sprinkle with colored sugars. (Or, use red and green food coloring on smaller batches of the dough.)
4. Bake @ 400 degrees for 7-10 minutes.

* Cookies require no recipe adjustments when baking at high altitude.
** Do not, under any circumstances, try to lighten up this delightfully high fat recipe! ['Tis the season to not fret about such things....]