urge to bake

The week before Christmas, I had a rare desire to bake: Christmas tree-shaped cookies, decorated with various tasty colorful toppings like rainbow sprinkles, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, crushed candy canes, crushed cinnamon candy, you get the idea. And so I went right to marthastewart.com to investigate cookie recipes. Did you know that the site features a different cookie each day during the holiday season? I think Martha should continue Cookie of the Day for the whole year. I personally would return everyday, or at least every week, to see what's new in the world of cookies.

We chose the Spicy Chocolate Sandwich Cookie, unsandwiched and unfilled, for our colorful cookie-cutter Christmas tree cookies. I became inspired to bake after I saw Martha create some overly-elaborate but quite wonderful gingerbread cookies with Isaac Mizrahi on the show. Poor Isaac could barely get a word in edgewise, but the cookies turned out fantastically. On our own baking day, I wanted to deviate from the recipe in all sorts of ways, because that is just my way, but my husband wouldn't let me. I did, however, add extra espresso powder and cinnamon when he wasn't looking.

The cookie project, which included gathering supplies and ingredients in mid-town Manhattan and two neighborhoods in Brooklyn, cookie-cuttering the trees, decorating and baking them (in our Brooklyn oven) took two rather full days. We walked many miles to buy a rolling pin, Christmas tree cookie cutters and parchment paper, burning off calories in advance of the tasting fun which was to follow. But after the baking was done, we were left a little cookied-out, with many more cookies than anyone could imagine. A little overwhelmed, we ate one each and decided they were a total failure. But after some distance from our mega-batch, we now think they are delicious, a bit quirky, but tasty. My husband thinks that Martha would not approve. I probably agree.

days later, the Christmas tree cookies, now accepted as valid,
proudly pose for a picture