It's That Time of Year Again!

When mediocre cooks like me begin to dream about all the delicacies with which they'll grace their friends and neighbors this Christmas season, you know it must be time to bake!  However, if you were with me last year, you also know that this is a particular challenge for me.  Feel free to hop into the Time Machine and re-visit last year's debacle here and here, if you so desire.  I did and laughed my head off.

This year, I decided to get a jump on things, so I made a batch of dough to freeze, which we'll bake closer to Christmas.  I chose a childhood favorite of mine.  We called them gingersnaps, but I have since learned that gingersnaps are thin and crispy, while the cookies from my youth are thick, soft, and chewy.  They are so easy to whip up, and, I'm thrilled to report, the dough tastes exactly the same as I remember.  The girls and I each ate about three cookies' worth of dough, so I'll need to make another batch to freeze.

I'm also planning to make the saltine toffee and Tuscan shortbread I made last year.  If you'd like the recipes and photos, pop over here.  And I'll make what we always called forgotten cookies, which now seem to be better known by the fancier name of meringues.  However, forgotten cookies feature chocolate chips, and meringues pale in comparison, since they offer no such delights.

Last year, my English friend, Jackie (whom I quoted in my Drawbacks to Globalization post yesterday), asked, "Why don't you just make a Christmas cake and call it a Christmas?"  Because that's not what we do in the States, Jackie, where we have Martha Stewart and hundreds of other chef-cum-lifestyle gurus to make us all feel guilty and inadequate.

However, this year I'm sticking with the tried and true, and I'm starting earlier.  So things should go much more smoothly.  Right?