Christmas Cookie Prep – Done!

There was a time when I worked AND I was a mother, and I was a wife (still am) and I had other roles, all of which seemed to require at least a plate of cookies at every occasion, and often some kind of hors d’oeuvres as well. There was only one answer – be prepared! Like a good girl scout, I developed a strategy – do one or two cookies every day for about a week, then store them in storage containers and dig them out when you need them. The good thing is, you can buy these containers and pull them out once a year for a month for many, many years.

One of my earliest memories of Christmas cookies are of my mother and her best friend from university getting together once a year and making rosettes. I made my first rosettes when I graduated from college, sitting over pan on a stove burner, turning it up and then down, trying to get it to hold the perfect temperature, which it never did. Sometime around the 80’s there was a great fad for Fry Babies and Fry Daddies, and the Fry Daddy is just the perfect size for making rosettes, holding the perfect temperature.

This year, I did a hands-on seminar for a family group who wanted to learn how to make these. I am not sure it was a huge success. Everyone succeeded, but one said “I have learned how to appreciate YOU making them in the years to come.” A couple parodied my teaching technique (I am not such a great teacher) and I just figured it means they no longer have to be polite to me; I really am family, that’s what sisters do.

So I made them this week for my friend who hosts a big party every year for the ballet performers. I think of them as ballerina cookies, light as air, mostly made of air – wrapped in fat and sugar:

Rosettes – DONE.

Meringues, too, have that light-as-air feeling, and I am hoping the weather will stay crisp enough that they will not get chewy:

Still light, and melt-in-your-mouth, are the Russian Teacakes, snowy in powdered sugar:

Last, but necessary for color, are the stalwart sugar cookies, time-consuming and fiddly, but so good and so colorful:

Cookie prep – DONE!