Here’s a picture of some cookies from the Cracker Sisters’ Annual Drunken Christmas Cookie Bake-a-Thon last weekend:
The coconut macaroons are my favorite, though the kids insist the buckeyes (top left) are the best. Sis and I had to impose rules on buckeye size because the rugrats kept rolling ever larger spheres of the peanut butter mixture, creeping up past marble size toward golf ball girth. They would have been dipping bowling ball-sized buckeyes in chocolate if we hadn’t put a stop to it.
The sugar cookies turned out pretty well this year. They’re mostly a canvas for decorating, but it’s important to have a tasty canvas. I’m reasonably proud of my dragonfly. I’m not sure who decorated the dinosaur.
I’ve got roofers coming today, so my home office will be a cacophonous hell. I’m hoping the dogs bark themselves hoarse early.
Please feel free to discuss whatever.
Cervantes
Very pretty.
Mustang Bobby
I can hear the sugar all the way down here in Miami.
Today is our office’s annual holiday luncheon which will be catered by a local pasta joint. It’s scheduled right up against my monthly training session so I’ll have to eat and run. To make things more interesting, it will be done as a live webinar, so I have to tone it down from my usual Vegas-style banter and in-jokes. Yip-fucking-yah.
Maxwel
Oooh! Buckeyes.
Kropadope
The Cracker sisters baking cookies?!? What would your parents think?
kindness
Is that one of the dinosaurs Jesus rode?
ThresherK
Okay, the Buckeye Rule should be self-evident, as if it gets too large the balance between peanut butter and chocolate becomes lost.
As someone who can bake like crazy but can’t ice worth a damn, I admire the presentation skills shown.
And if anyone wants a bit more on holiday music: Has there been a renaissance in popularity for “Baby It’s Cold Outside” and “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve”, a couple of Frank Loesser classics, or am I just imagining it?
Elizabelle
Where are the Noel Cockroach cookies?
You could have some Burmese pythons too.
NotMax
Heard a piece on the car radio reporting that there is such a shortage/price spike of butter in Japan that bakeries are switching to (gasp) margarine or other substitutes for their New Year season baked treats.
No pics of the last few trays from after the “drunken” part really kicks in and all that emerges from the oven are amoeba cookies? ;)
Juju
I just finished my Christmas cookies as well.
If the dogs bark too much try Benadryl. My vet recommended Benadryl for one if my dogs who didn’t like a part of highway 12. We discovered that was a nice way to calm a dog down when they get antsy. Benadryl makes them drowsy and they tend to sleep.
Althea
Hard to top sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles. It screams “Christmas”
rikyrah
Looks good. Bet they taste good too.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
I didn’t know about a butter shortage, but I did hear the potato shortage in Japan is so bad now that you can’t get a large fries at Mickey D’s any more.
NotMax
@Amir Khlaid
Terribly un-PC of me, I know, yet can’t help smiling just a bit imagining stereotyped Japanese-accented English pronouncing “large fries.”
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Here’s the butter story.
Manyakitty
Looks great! I didn’t know buckeyes made it out of Ohio.
I had two cookie exchanges last Saturday. This weekend, I’m knocking out the rest of my gift cookies. Then I can spend the next six months trying to undo the damage to my waistline.
Jim
Yours may be “a canvas for decorating.” Mine usually wind up tasting like canvas, and as chewy as canvas. :-)
Felonius Monk
Scrooge is alive and well in Florida.
Elizabelle
@NotMax:
Thank you for that link. Enjoyed learning about Japanese Christmas cakes.
Here’s a link about their history and how to make one.
NPR’s “The Salt” feature is doing 12 days on Christmas traditions. Will be fun to learn more.
Betty Cracker
@Manyakitty: Come to think of it, sis and I first became aware of buckeyes via an ex-stepmother from Ohio.
@Jim: It took us more than 10 years to hit upon a formulation that was both suitable for decorating and not cardboard-flavored. But it’s still hit or miss, to be honest.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
Today is the monthly birthday celebration at our office (one of the events of which I am in charge). We were debating what kind of treats to get when the cupcakes, cookies, and Danishes arrived from a couple of vendors. So we decide to go the opposite direction and get potato balls, empanadas, and feta/cheese Danishes from the Cuban bakery.
Butch
I thought ours was the only household that made dinosaur cookies for Christmas. The stegosaurus, in particular, is a tradition.
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
Interesting thought my spouse had about the Sony thing — if it is, in fact, a North Korean operation, it probably has a lot more to do with Sony being a Japanese company than any indignation about Sony Pictures USA. Apparently Amy Pascal was quoted saying that in her 20 years working for Sony, this was the first film that she was getting calls about from the higher-ups in Japan.
IOW, contrary to what the media has been saying, it may NOT actually be all about the United States but may instead be about Japan/North Korea’s relations. Crazy talk, I know.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne (iPad Mini):
Yup. And I’m not sure Japan is laughing as much as we are.
Chris T.
Of course they’re best, they look kinda like boobs. :-)
SWMBO
@NotMax: https://medium.com/@averob/he-covers-a-toilet-paper-roll-with-tin-foil-the-results-brilliant-1790d38098a9