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Cookie Grinch

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Today’s guest post comes from Joanne in Big Lake.

Ah, the smell of Christmas cookies baking in the oven. Who doesn’t love Christmas cookies and all the other baked goodies the holidays have to offer? “Where’s the cookies, Mom?,” ask my boys when the sweet scent hits their noses. Oh, hmm … uh – sorry, that’s just my favorite candle burning.

christmas-cookies

For better or worse, you will never find homemade Christmas cookies or massive quantities of baked goods at my house. I realize most women feel obligated to fulfill their motherly duty of making dozens of delicate rosettes, rice krispie bars, Russian sandies, chocolate covered pretzels, frosted sugar cookies, etc. Slaving away in the kitchen for hours and hours on the weekend or week nights, spending precious grocery money on pounds of butter, humongous sacks of flour and sugar, mounds of chocolate chips and tons of nuts. It’s a badge of honor, and with a definite sense of smugness to say you did your Christmas baking already.

I listen as women moan that they have to stay up all night or spend the whole weekend baking because they HAVE to make their Christmas cookies and treats that their families expect. And for what? Once all the baking is done, they give away most cookies to everyone else! Or participate in a cookie exchange, or serve them at a family gathering or bring them to the office. It’s a never ending cycle of baking treats for someone else, so you end up with someone else’s cookies that you don’t even like, or even worse – inferior quality cookies.

Where’s the sense in this?

God forbid we actually eat all those darn cookies because we’ll gain 50 lbs, raise our cholesterol to the roof and bust a gut because we can’t help ourselves. Eating those wondrous sweets reminds us of the sweet moments of childhood when mom or grandma baked their specialties just for us out of pure motherly love.

Well, bah humbug, I say. I chose a long time ago to forgo the baking of fattening, unhealthy, high calorie, fat-laden Christmas treats. Because, well …. baking is stressful for me. Measuring, timing, greasing, stirring, sifting, dirtying 10 bowls, 20 utensils, burning the cookies and then ending up with a kitchen from hell because I’m famous for creating a mess with foodstuffs. And I hate cleaning even more than cooking!

In all honesty, I envy women (and men!) who enjoy the baking, do it patiently with their children, pass on a tradition and share their baking skills.

But it’s just not my scene.

What’s your favorite kind of Christmas cookie?

153 thoughts on “Cookie Grinch”

  1. The GF kind would be the necessary kind, which. I hope, will not come to pass in the little bit of lifetime I have left.

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    2. Maybe it’s Grinch Fingers, which I have badly today from both OA and PA. I’d take JM’s Enbrel but what a list of SE’s.But I’m still going up to the EB. TTFN

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  2. I have two favorite Christmas cookies, and they’re both Danish. No big surprise there, I’m sure. Most cookies tend to be too sweet for me, so I rarely indulge, but at Christmas time, making cookies is just part of getting in the spirit of the season. I love Klejner! Hands down my favorite cookie. Not too sweet, just right. Not baked, but boiled in lard, it’s a cookie you don’t want to overindulge in, but once a year, it’s a real treat. The other is Brunkager (brown cakes!), a name that just doesn’t do this delicacy justice . Thin, crisp, slightly spicy and delicious.

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    1. A cookie I especially like that comes from Europe is springerle. Also, we always had krumkake that my uncle Horace made, when he was still with us, and they were highly appreciated

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      2. Saturday is my day to make krumkake. I use my grandmother’s recipe (complete with nebulous directions like “beat the batter long and hard”). My best friend Steph comes to roll while I work the stove top irons. This year we are introducing Daughter to the rolling part (or as Steph calls it the “owie owie hot hot hot” part). Maybe this year I won’t start anything on fire…

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        2. Daughter did ask if she got to start anything on fire if she helped. I told her no – she needed to be older to start fires with butter grease…

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  3. Good morning. My mother always made a big selection of all kinds of cookies for Christmas. One favorite was a cookie made by cutting cross sections from a roll of cookie dough that had a date and nut filling rolled into it. Decorated gingerbread cookies were another favorite. My wife discovered a recipe for cardamon cookies with cardamon frosting that is very good.

    Is GF for god forbidden, Clyde?

    Good job, Joanne. Very seasonal, even if you don’t like making Christmas cookies. I also think there is a tendency for people to get carried away with Christmas baking.

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      1. I guess you are right, Steve. At least I have Joanne for company regarding Christmas baking. Actually I there are other people who favor the simplified approach to christmas. I don’t see anything wrong with making a big thing out of christmas if that’s what you like.

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        1. You and my mom are polar opposites on Christmas. She would have been astonished to know that anyone thought as you do. You would have found her incredibly unbalanced about Christmas, and she was.

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        2. Most folks think I’m a little unbalanced about the holiday season…. I would probably get along with your mom!

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  4. Morning all. Joanne – brave to admit you don’t like baking at this time of year. I am one of the women you’re thinking of, except that you will NEVER hear me moaning about having to make cookies. I love this time of year because it’s the only time of year you can bake 17 kinds of cookies and not have people think you are completely insane.

    At our house, we start thinking about cookies in November. We get out all the cookie cookbooks and all the “101 Holiday Cookies” magazines that I can’t keep from picking up at the check-out stand at the grocery store. We flip through and if something catches our fancy, we write it on the list, along with the book and page number. This year we had about 30 on the list when we were done. Then we winnow it down to 14-15.

    I don’t know if I can easily narrow it down to one favorite, so I’ll mention two, one for me and one for Teenager. Peanut Blossoms (peanut butter w/ the chocolate kiss in the middle) is one. The last few years, the Teenager has asked for Speculaas and I have to monitor her to make sure she doesn’t eat them all before our annual party. Unfortunately as much as I love baking, molding the dough into the wooden frame (since I only have access to one) is way too time-consuming, so I just roll the dough out and then cut it w/ my reindeer cookie cutter. I’m not sure why I think it has to be the reindeer cutter, but… that’s how it goes.

    So, Joanne… you are welcome at my house for hot chocolate any time and I promise, I won’t force any cookies on you!

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    1. I don’t make peanut butter blossoms mostly because they are one of my favorites. If I made them I would eat them all. I have learned to indulge in other people’s peanut butter blossoms so I don’t make a dinner of peanut butter blossoms.

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    2. I would love to come, Sherrilee — and you can bring on ALL your cookies! Just don’t make me bake them or clean up the resulting catastrophe!

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  5. Spritz are my favorite. A plain little cookie, sort of like shortbread; mostly flour, sugar and butter, shaped with a cookie press. The dough contains almond extract, which makes a sweet-smelling dough that is to me what Christmas smells like.

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    2. I have a nice Spritz recipe that has cream cheese in it. It is a little harder to get this recipe to stick on the cookie sheet – so I only make it every other year!

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  7. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    Unfortunately for my waistline, the list of cookies I do not like is much shorter than the ones I do like–I don’t care for pfeffernussen. The rest are all on my list. Especially shortbread in any form, and Russian tea cakes, and, and, and….

    Re: burglary I reported Monday. Uffda! What a parade of landlords, police, repairmen, locksmiths, and insurance companies in response. My file cabinet, although bent and broken, stills holds my financial and client records. I now break into it with a screwdriver each morning. Lou and I will be procuring a new one this weekend. I hope it comes equipped with a simple key. The screwdriver entry method is a bit labor intensive.

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    1. We had real Mexican wedding cakes baked by real Mexicans at our son’s wedding in San Diego. Yup. Same as Russian tea balls, except maybe a bit different spices.

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  9. My mother was a church musician before she retired, so Christmas baking was not on her list – she was busy getting choirs ready to sing and services planned and such. She did make julekage some/most years, though (a Norwegian Christmas bread). I have picked up the julekage baking and make four round cardamom-laced loaves every year. I also have picked up where Grandma left off on making krumkake. I keep thinking one of these years I will try rosettes or sandbakkels (I have Grandma’s sandbakkels tins, so really I should give it a go) – but sanity and lack of time prevail. I refuse to get stressed over holiday baking – I love it too much and don’t want to start dreading it.

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  10. I learned the “bake many cookies” from my mom. All of my school teachers, my piano teacher, Sunday school teacher, etc. etc. got a box of cookies. All the various kinds would be laid out on the dining room table and we would each take a box and walk around the table, putting one cookie from each recipe in the box. We would go around the table until the box was full.

    It’s funny that I inherited this tradition from her (and I absolutely love it); when she was up here at Thanksgiving and we were baking (OK, I was baking, she was cleaning up after me), she told me that she’d never enjoyed all that baking, but it had been cheaper/easier than trying to come up with little gifts for all the teachers/tradespeople, etc. She was so happy to watch me bake and not have to do anything except put the occasional chocolate kiss on a peanut butter cookies.

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  12. I have a friend who is a gourmet cook. Nancy is especially gifted at making gourmet sweets. She used to send our family (of three) a big tin of Christmas cookies from several ethnic traditions with little elegantly scripted slips of paper to identify which was what. I think those tins lasted between two and three minutes on average once they got to our house. We didn’t eat the slips of paper but came close to it. It was like serving a 1981 Cote de Nuits burgundy to a homeless alcoholic who would rather you had given him a really big box of red plonk whose vintage was “last week.”

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  13. I also found a recipe in Gourmet several years ago for Skibo Castle Cruch, a very thin, gingery crust topped with a mixture of Lyle’s Golden syrup and powdered sugar and more ginger. I think yuou can find it on epicurious. It is delicious and pretty easy to make, as it is just prepared in a 9 X 13 cake pan and then cut into squares.

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    1. Im working on a touch screen that is killing me today. It erased my epistle earlier and launched that last one early. Powdered sugar and sometimes the come in crescent shapes too. Kind of a shortbread feel but fall apart as the hit your tongue. Umm
      Looking forward to cookie thoughts

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  15. I must admit that I am not aware of any kind of cookie that I dislike. I have found out about a number of kinds of cookies that are new to me this morning. Every one I hadn’t heard about can be found by doing an internet search.

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    1. You can have my share. I don’t mind giving up gluten except BAGELS and some breads now and then. My share of cake and cookies are all yours. My German mother baked all the Scandinavian cookies. The one I liked the most was futemon, is that the word, poor man’s food we were told it meant.

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    1. Mmmmm, hamentashen! Apricot is my favorite. They make good ones at Cecil’s Deli, over on Randolph. Yet another thing I have to try to veganize.

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        1. Yep, and in many different flavors. I know they usually have poppyseed, apple, strawberry and/or cherry, I’m not sure which, prune and apricot.

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  19. My mom baked a LOT–I had a homemade treat in my lunchbox every day until I finished high school. She made all kinds of bars and quick breads, as well as cookies. My (non-crazy) uncle loved her overnight cookies; I think my favorite was probably her maraschino cherry bars, although they have stiff competition from a dozen other recipes because she really had the touch for sweets. Oddly, the only Scandinavian thing ever made at our house was rosettes, but I’d gathered that her mother was too nasty and impatient to teach her so she learned everything from Betty Crocker after she got married, and Betty Crocker didn’t run so much to lefse and krumkake in those days. Baking was a major mother-daughter “together time” thing while I was growing up, which is why I stopped after she got very sick and am only now starting again. I own a copy of “The Joy of Vegan Baking,” as I’ve mentioned before, and I’m looking forward to digging into it and experimenting Real Soon Now. Having sugar in the house would probably help with that. My ex-hippie friend makes excellent Russian teacakes that happen to be vegan, so I’ve decided those are my favorites until my repetoire expands. Hey, I just realized Ex-Hippie Friend has never given me the recipe for those! That has to change…

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    1. I’ve only made Kringla once… when I was doing a home economics project (remember those days when the girls all had to take home ec and the boys did shop?). I found the recipes for kringla and fattigman in the Betty Crocker Cooky Book and had never heard of them before (not all that many Scandinavians in St. Louis), so chose those two for my presentation. No one else had heard of them either, but they were enjoyed by all.

      Yes, those of you who know me – you know I’ve always been an over-achiever.

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      1. Oh yeah, I remember home ec well. In my school it was a huge waste of time. We learned to sew, knit, cook and do dishes, never mind that most of us already knew how to do most of those things. Four memories from my home ec class stand out: the incredibly ugly blue gym suit we made (and subsequently had to wear to gym classes); the, I’m not making this up, pregnancy top we sew; an awful buttermilk pudding we cooked, and, last but not least, a lesson in how to wring a dishcloth!

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        1. That is very funny, PJ. It is hard to believe that they would have you do those things in home ec, but I grew up in schools where they had home ec classes so I can believe it.

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        2. Ah, home ec memories. Sewing a top with huge polka dots that was shown off in a “fashion” show we did for each other, , how to file our nails (don’t saw back and forth), whipped turnip puff and eggs benedict.
          Why my team picked a turnip dish, I don’t know. I had never had turnips before and I’m still not crazy about them. We were supposed to get a faculty member to come to the room to taste our creation. It was tough to find a willing victim….. er…. guest to taste that dish. Another time the team decided to make eggs benedict. I don’t think any of THEM knew what was involved with hollandaise (another favorite food that supports my aforementioned love for artichokes). I warned them that I knew it was tricky but to no avail. I don’t actually remember how it turned out.

          An indication of my coddled, dishwasher-owning upbringing was the pre-test on washing dishes. When asked about the water temperature for rinsing washed dishes, I picked “cold” because it seemed so crisp and fresh.

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        3. Damn, I was never taught how to file my nails. I’ve always used a 3-in-one nail clipper, didn’t know any better.

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      2. I enjoyed Home Ec and Shop 🙂 But then, Home Ec was a lot different for me. We learned simple, fun recipes to make for the food side, and made a pillow and a bag for the sewing side. I knew how to do both already (my mom taught me), but the recipes were new and the bag was handy 🙂 Shop was fun. Ours was two-part: technology and actual shop. The technology one was using different computer programs and making different things. We built balsam wood bridges (with a competition to see who’s was strongest…my team won!), used a flight simulator to try to fly, drew a room with furniture in AutoCAD, printed iron-on decals for T-shirts…the list goes on. That was a fun class 🙂 In the Shop side, we built metal toolboxes, created little wood race cars, made plastic keychains. The Shop teacher was kind of weird, but otherwise, it wasn’t too bad. I miss those days. So much fun!

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        1. Home Ec and Shop! I’m guessing you’re at least 30 years younger than me, Alanna, and times have definitely changed. Is Home Ec still taught in school? And if so, is it only taught to girls?

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        2. Definitely not taught to only girls 🙂 Same goes for shop. I took those in Junior high (7th & 8th grades) in 1997 and 1998. I took a cooking class in high school, but that was voluntary. Home Ec and Shop were required in junior high. They called them something else, but I can’t remember what they were…

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        3. I know what you are talking about, Alanna. I did substitute teaching and the shop classes were similar to what you described and not like the ones from the time when I was in school. I think PJ and I when through school at about the same time. I go back to a time when the still had a class where they taught print setting which involved setting the type in place to print a page. That was many years before computers came into being.

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  21. I don’t think I’ve ever met a cookie I didn’t like. I list cookies with lobster and artichokes as my favorite foods.
    Cookie baking at Christmas has never been a tradition for me. When my boys were at the age when it might have been something I would have done with or for them, wasband#2 was diagnosed with diabetes and so sugar laden treats just didn’t happen in our home.

    Lovely Christmastimes with my first in-laws included cookies from my SIL. Like VS, she made dozens of types and dozens of dozens so there was always a heaping plate on the sideboard. We played games and did puzzles on the dining room table and I always had a cookie in my mouth as did my FIL.
    Oh, the days of being able to eat like that and not suffer the additional poundage.
    Those were also blissful days of ignorance about nutrition, health and other life dampers.

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  22. “Greetings! I’m so glad I asked that question. I love all cookies, but I particularly remember a cookie-type thing from my childhood that my maternal grandmother made for us. She did not make sweet cookies – usually gingersnaps, molasses cookies, UNFROSTED sugar cookies and the unusual treats we called “bullets.” These particular things resembled small, light-colored turds and were spiced with cardamom I think. They were hard as rocks and needed a special cutter that resembled a bullet casing – hence the name. All my siblings and I clamored for these things, though I can’t explain the attraction – rather like those wrinkly dogs that are so ugly they’re cute. Maybe that’s why we liked them – they were weird.

    I think they were made similar to biscotti without the nice results. Dried then baked; or maybe baked them dried – I have no idea. Anyway, several years ago, my brother’s wife got the recipe, found the special shape cutter and she made some for each of us for Christmas. Naturally, we were all thrilled; even though you could seriously break a tooth on them. I’m guessing they were designed for dunking in coffee or tea to make them edible. But, as kids we crunched them down when we had strong teeth and gums. If anyone can figure out what these were actually called, I’d be curious to know.”

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  23. My favorite holiday treat is not a cookie, or is it? Chocolate covered peanut butter coconut ball. I have to be very careful not to eat the entire tray! Runner up or tied for first is my sister-in-laws fudge! She usually make me a shoe box full every Christmas. I’d have to say that anything with chocolate in or on it is undeniably irresistible.

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    1. James, I don’t know if those are cookies or candy. I would also have trouble with leaving any of those behind to share with others and it would be hard for me to avoid over doing it on the fudge. A favorite at our house is mint brownies that are topped with a thick layer mint frosting covered with a layer of chocolate. These brownies are so rich that they could be thought of as a kind of candy.

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      1. Something like this showed up at the cookie exchange that I was in on Tuesday (yes, I was in a cookie exchange even though my front porch is all filled up with cookie tins… what can I say) along with the chowmein noodle/chocolate clusters. We counted them as cookies!

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  24. Meant to add that in the later years, my dad did a lot of baking at Christmas – just plain oatmeal raisin cookies with black walnuts, a really yummy fudge, and his peanut brittle, which I include even though it’s not a cookie. He would box up pounds of this wonderful stuff and send it to my sister, to give the teachers at my sister Sue’s preschool. The year he died, she and I managed to put together a passable batch of the brittle at Christmas.

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  28. OT: I bet I know what Dale’s topic will be tomorrow, but is he planning one for Saturday? I wonder what BMB would say are the proper social graces for doomsday? My take is we should all say “After you.”

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  29. My mom’s Peanut Butter Blossoms – made with Brach’s Stars instead of Hershey’s kisses. They’re so good! I made three different batches and none turned out right. They were all crumbly and falling apart 😦 Oh well, everyone at work liked them. I did make a second-favorite cookie that I just discovered. They’re Red Velvet Cheesecake cookies. So yummy! I have to finish making them tonight so I can bring them home with me tomorrow 🙂 They have a cheesecake-like center in the middle of a Red Velvet cookie. They’re moist, chewy, and oh, so delicious! And they’re a festive red 😉

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  32. I love cookies. I’ve tried baking them but I lack the time and patience and they just don’t come out right. I love them but I really shouldn’t make them because I eat them and that’s not a good thing anymore.

    Great topic, Joanne!

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  33. My poor husband has just been diagnosed with gout. No more beer or dried legumes for him! Sugar is good, however, as is very low protein, so I think that cookes will be just the ticket.

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  34. Haven’t been here for a while and i don’t know why–it’s such a lovely blog. My husband and I make rolled and cut out cookies every Christmas season. We both like to play around with food, the fussier the better. Our frosting styles are totally opposite: I make the snowman white with a red hat and buttons, his are Jackson Pollack style. It’s a lovely tradition for our family although our feline children don’t contribute much except the occasional cat hair.

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    2. Glad to hear from you again, momkat. I love the image of Jackson Pollack-style cookies… it reminds me of when Teenager was younger. Some of those frosted cookies were amazing indeed. You had to really really like frosting to bite into one of those!

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    1. For the world will end not with a bang, but in a batch of cookies.
      Maybe earth is a chocolate chip in the cookie of the galaxy, sort of liking making room for a new off ramp.

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    1. I’m here with my towel. Did anyone hear the dolphins say anything like, “So long and thanks for all the fish?” Because if the dolphins are gone, we’re doomed.

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  37. My husband and I are still here, and his gouty foot is still here, so the world hasn’t ended yet. Husband thanks you, Clyde, for saying he was one with Ben Franklin. He feels as old as Ben, I’m afraid.

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    1. Hope his gout is better in a hurry. Here’s a little poem to cheer his spirit on this the shortest day of the year. Happy Winter Solstice, baboons. I’m sorry, but I don’t know who wrote it.

      Before the fall, the summer
      Before the summer, spring
      Before the spring, the winter
      and before the winter, sing.
      Before the song, the singer
      Before the singer, air
      Before the air, creation
      and before creation, Prayer.

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  38. Yes, Happy Solstice all. Here is one of my favorites from Wendell Barry:

    To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
    To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
    and find that the dark, too, blooms and sighs,
    and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

    Tonight Teenager and I do a Yule log and open gifts. Then because it takes a long time for a whole log to burn, we sleep downstairs in sleeping bags and have caramel rolls in the morning.

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    2. Enjoy, VS. Celebrating a moment like the Solstice is just about the greatest gift we can give our children. There are all the good memories, of course, but in the act of celebrating you are teaching your daughter a priceless lesson about finding and expressing joy in life itself.

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  40. before the end we blog the trail and announce that we are here
    discussing cookies and the season we are filled with cheer
    talk of whether dale forgot us as we crash and burn
    off to everlastingness with the little that weve learned

    shuffle off this mortal coil and twenty three ski doo
    and to do it all on solstace is awfully special too
    lining up the sunrise and sunset should bring a pizza
    while checkout the paths of stuff at stonehenge and chichan itza

    this final blog a replay of the one from yesterday?
    its not what i expected in life so little is they say
    if its all over now i guess ill have to be at rest
    seems the time i spend here blogging’s the time i liked the best

    if life is all about the way we get from a to b
    then the trail is the place where it works flawlessly for me
    with good baboons and snappy patter life just cant be beat
    and the baboons that are here today are wonderful to meet

    if life were just an excersice to see how well wed do
    id like to be here excercising every day with each of you
    so on this final posting on this final day lets try
    to enjoy the trail on final time as we kiss our ass god bye

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  41. Happy Solstice! Here, have a song (it’s kind of long, and someone in the middle is having WAY too much fun on a xylophone, but the chant itself is a Neopagan classic):

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    1. Excellent, CG – I was just going to post the words! That’s the song we had featured for our Solstice day last year!

      Light is returning, even tho’ this is the darkest hour
      No one can hold back the dawn.
      Let’s keep it burning, let’s keep the light of hope alive
      Make safe our journey through the storm.
      One planet is turning, circle on her path around the sun
      Earth Mother is calling her children home.

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  42. Kinda OT — was just sitting in the lunch room of my building and there was a commercial on the TV w/ explorer-types scaling a huge Mayan pyramid with crates. When they got to the top, they unpacked a small mountain of chocolate pudding cups.

    I’m stopping on my way home to pick up pudding cups to sacrifice to the gods!

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  43. Here’s a song for the End of the World 😉 I’m heading home today, so who knows when I’ll be back on. I’ll try to check in though! Merry Christmas!!

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  45. Apropos of nothing, I was driving around doing errands today when I realized you could sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” to the tune of “Lulay, Lulay”.
    Rudolph the Red
    nosed reindeer had
    a very shiny nose
    And if you ever
    saw it you
    would even say it glows

    I know the phrasing isn’t perfect, but it’s not the end of the world.
    You’re welcome.

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  47. My neighbors leave a plate full of Christmas cookies at our door every 24th. My children really lookmforward to it. Now we leave plates of cookies for others all over our neighborhood. What a great gift for those around you maybe even for those who can’t get out.

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    1. That’s a cool tradition. My neighborhood does something similiar at Halloween – anonymous Halloween treats and little signs that say “We’ve been Boo’ed” so that no house gets treated twice!

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