I am simplifying Christmas this year because we are just not heading out to the store so much to get baking supplies. If we don’t have supplies on hand we will have to do without! I also got a late start, as we just weren’t sure what was going on in our part of the world. This year we will be going into a lockdown starting on the day after Christmas – so is it a good thing to have a lot of cookies in the house during our 28 days of lockdown? I’ve already added my pandemic 10 pounds, perhaps that’s enough but……a few batches of cookies can’t possibly hurt can they? So this year instead of making 12 types of cookies, I’m making Shortbread, Football Cookies, and perhaps some Butter Pecan cookies – but all in a vegan version, as our vegan daughter is here and we will be mailing some cookies to our son and his vegetarian roommate. My project last year to make 12 types of cookies helped me to learn a bit more to improve my baking skills, and I am reposting it today:

This pre-Christmas season, I set out upon a quest to improve my cookie baking abilities, and to create a stash (most of them frozen) of cookies for the holidays. My four adult children start arriving next week! The trick will be to release a few cookies a day from their hiding spot in order to ration my cookie-work! I tend to be a bit obsessive about Gardening and Food, so I keep these two topics on a separate blog https://www.gardenlove.food.blog/ away from my general day to day topics here on justanumber!

Here is what I learned from the project:

1. I do not have enough tupperware. I used to dislike tupperware, but now I can’t get enough of it! Did you know that as of March 2010 all Tupperware sold in the US and Canada are supposed to be BPA free? https://www.tupperware.ca/about-bpa I had no idea! I have always tried to minimize my use of plastic in the kitchen because of BPA, but this makes me happy.
2. Those recipes on the internet don’t always work! I like the ones that have reviews or comments, and I like to compare sites and modify the recipes. My relatives’ recipes – re-transcribed for me, are occasionally missing an ingredient or a step. (Usually an important one). It’s good to research and compare a new recipe before you start!
3. I now love Parchment paper – Just as with the Tupperware, I scowled at parchment paper, because I thought it was environmentally wasteful and I wondered what was on the paper to make it oven-safe. Well I still think it’s not very green to put paper on cookie sheets and then throw it out, but after using it for most of the recipes – I LOVE the stuff! For $2.60 or so a roll, my Generic Brand 50 foot roll of parchment paper lasted for more than 40 batches of cookies. The cookies didn’t burn or stick, I barely had to wash the cookies sheets and I was able to use it to roll out the dough between parchment sheets. I’m converted. ALTHOUGH……Wikipedia tells me that ” Modern parchment paper is made by running sheets of paper pulp through a bath of sulfuric acid (a method similar to the way tracing paper is made) or sometimes zinc chloride. This process partially dissolves or gelatinizes the paper This treatment forms a sulfurized cross-linked material, with high density, stability, and heat resistance, as well as low surface energy — thereby imparting good non-stick or release properties”. That doesn’t sound very healthy or appealing to me.
4. I may spray cookie dough a bit when I beat the cookies. Every time I turn on the electric mixer, the dog lays down at my feet. I definitely should have applied sealer to my new brick kitchen backsplash before starting this project!
5. I cannot assume there are any chocolate or caramel chips left just because I bought them yesterday. Apparently my husband thinks these are a snack to be freely consumed on their own. That’s why there were no chocolate chip or snickerdoodle recipes in my project.

The link to some cookie baking tips: https://gardenlove.food.blog/2019/11/23/how-to-bake-the-best-cookies/

The link to the 12 cookie recipes: https://gardenlove.food.blog/2019/12/13/12-cookies-of-christmas/