the pastry chef

On Friday night I attempted to make some cookies for Josie's Christmas cookie exchange. She wanted everyone to make cookies to swap this year - instead of gifts. It's a novel idea. I didn't realize what magnitude it was until the task was upon me.

Josie had initially stated that a cookie exchange is for a person to make a dozen cookies for EACH of the guests coming to the party. So our party of 10 people meant that I needed 10 dozen cookies!! That was a crazy amount so Josie cut it back to half a dozen for every person coming. So I thought to myself 'doesn't sound that hard'. I was mistaken. As you all know - I rarely cook at home. My mom is the primary chef and if left to my own vices, the dinner menu would consist of a bowl of cereal and a bag of chips. Satisfying but of no nutritional value. That said I was all gung ho into the adventure. I did the research - found a few easy receipes on the net. Printed the ones that I wanted. I might create a binder do as to not kill more trees in my cooking adventures. That or purchase a dessert cookbook. While surfing - I did discover the Cookie Swap Party planner, maybe this is where Josie got her idea from.

I sought out Superstore. Purchased all the supplies and ingredients. When the cashier rang everything in and gave me the final amount. I cringed. It would have been much cheaper to just cheat and buy cookies for everyone. Who even knows if mine will come out right?!!

So at 9pm I started the baking. Chicky came over from work and helped with the shortbread cookies. I had a bit of trial and error runs. Discovered that having one tray of cookies in the oven works best (so as not to burn the whole batch). We baked a couple of batches, taste tested and modified the receipe. Chicky tried putting the dough onto the trays with teaspoons (so that they'd be the same size). We totally forgot that my mom has a cake piping bag. That would have made things go by so much faster. During the baking - I thought about various gadgets that would have speeded up the process. Always thinking about gadgets. Nice to have items would have been: kitchenaid blender, cookie press, silicone molds and 2 layer cooling rack. :-) So for the party I ended up packaging brownies, melt-in-your-mouth shortbread cookies and loaded oatmeal-raisin cookies (for those that don't want sweet stuff). I'll have to make more desserts when there's less pressure and more time to enjoy it.