Poll: What’s YOUR Favorite Holiday Cookie?
Read more articles on Cooking and Food and Let Me Share With You and Holidays.December 17, 2007
Posted by Karen Amato Schwartz
December 17, 2007
Posted by Karen Amato Schwartz
215 Views
As I sit here, typing and dunking my cookies into tea at the same time (as voiced by my articles in “A Love/Hate Affair with Tea” early this month and “It’s Always Somethin” n October) I found myself wondering about people’s favorite Christmas or Holiday cookies.
My mother would make certain treats only for the holidays, and I never understood why she couldn’t make them throughout the year. I didn’t understand the amount of work involved, and how they became even more special with limited availability. As the adult now, I don’t like the idea of spending entire days in my kitchen whipping up nut rolls, poppy seed strudel and nut horns, but I do enjoy baking -at least more than cooking. (“Not a Foodie”, Aug. 2006 and “Are You a Recipe Follower, Nov.) For the holidays, I tend to bake a half dozen relatively simple cookie varieties and give them away. This means the pressure is on and they better be good! This year, I was surmising that my offering may be boring to folks who are cookie connoisseurs, and that got me to thinking about the kinds that I’ve seen at traditional Christmas events.
In my former neighborhood, the residents would have a December “cookie exchange” where everyone would bring 6 or 7 dozen cookies to someone’s house, and we’d go around with our big boxes and take a few of each kind home, so that we’d leave with as many as we brought, but a slew of different ones. Those cookies would last my family about 3 weeks, and that was after we disposed of those that we knew we would never touch!
Also, every year when my daughter was young and attending a children’s Santa party, there were always more types of cookies than you could ever imagine. It always made me a little sad to see the really delicious creations lying on the floor with just one bite taken out of them.
The ones that I always went for first were Peanut Blossoms-those peanut butter ones with Hershey Kisses stuck in the middle. Then I’d choose a Thumbprint cookie, covered with nuts and holding a dollop of icing in the middle. Big, sugar coated cutout cookies were usually tasty, as were Pecan Tarts and Russian Teacakes-those crunchy little dough balls rolled in confectioner’s sugar.
Although I usually love oatmeal-raisin and chocolate chip, they usually took a backseat to the fancier types, but some cookies were just too fancy, if you know what I mean…Some had so much icing and/or sprinkles or jimmies that the cookie itself seemed weighed down. There were often many kinds of “bars”- with nuts, raisins, fruit or chocolate chips, but I’d usually skip them. However, Italian Pizzelles, (those anise flavored waffles with flowers stamped onto them) although technically not cookies either, were always worth a try.
So today I’m going to throw out the question, “What is YOUR favorite holiday cookie?” You can either post an anonymous comment right here on the Compendium, or shoot me an email. I hope to get enough feedback to be able to post some results before year’s end. Thanks in advance for your participation!
Copyright © 2006
Terms & Conditions
