Cookies and Carols

(YouTube -- George Winston's Carol of the Bells.  Love this.)

There is something powerful and healing about the rituals we create and practice for this time of year.  

'Tis the season for cookies and carols at our house. At least, it usually is. But this year feels a little different, a little more hesitant, a little...less.

By this point in the holiday season I have baked myself into a frenzy. Or at least that has been the case since the first year we were married, and I baked homemade cookies as presents with flour, sugar and other baking ingredients that I'd gotten on sale and with double coupons so we could afford it on our meager law school days income.  Since everyone loved the cookies, I've made them ever since, even as life has gotten insanely hectic and the lupus wears me out.

I suppose it is my way of easing into the season with a chocolate-frosted bang.

But this year, I hadn't done any baking until Tuesday.  And then only because I got a wild need to bake something because The Peanut wanted to do what we always do and make cookies, and I wanted to make things feel like our usual Christmas for her.

Between my recent cancer surgery and her being sick for a week, I just couldn't muster the energy this year.

Until Tuesday.

Just mixing together ingredients and rolling the dough into little balls was almost a healing ease into the Christmas season.  Although I couldn't do much, just doing something made a world of difference in terms of mood and attitude.

So my advice for you, if you happen to be in a holiday or life funk?  Pick out one favorite thing you loved as a kid about this time of year.  And find a way to do it.

Here are a few ideas:

Lemon Meltaway Cookie Recipe

I got a few requests for the lemon meltaway cookie recipe as well, after mentioning I'd made them.

I use a recipe that I clipped from a Land 'O Lakes butter package ages ago, and it really is the yummiest one I've ever tried.  I did a bit of digging around, and found their Lemon Meltaway recipe online now.  I've reviewed it to be sure it is the same one I use.  (It is.)

The only thing I do differently?  I use store-bought frosting that comes in the little can -- I like the Duncan Hines lemon frosting because it has more zing to it.  I used to make my own but, honestly, the canned frosting is easier and it tastes pretty similar to (if not better than) what I make on my own.

I frost them with the lemon frosting and then sprinkle the tops with some yellow sugar crystals.  They look lovely.  And better yet?

These cookies are delicious, but incredibly delicate, so be forewarned: the dough is tender, the cookie is more so after it is baked, so frosting is your friend.   I give mine a hefty swipe of frosting on the top to help keep the tender cookie all in one piece.

These will absolutely disappear from your cookie tray. They literally melt in your mouth.

Honey Spice Cookies

I've had several requests for the Honey Spice Cookies recipe that I'm baking, after posting a description.

So here it is.

As usual, I can't leave well enough alone.  So my modifications to the recipe are below, but it originally came from Taste of Home: Cookies.

A couple of things:

-- This dough is really, really sticky since it has honey in it.  Because they are refrigerator cookies, you can let them sit a day or so before slicing and baking -- I recommend two days.  Otherwise?  You wind up having to clean your knife blade constantly and that's really annoying.

-- Although the original recipe didn't call for them, I added some chopped walnuts to the batter, and they are wonderful in it.  I highly suggest either walnuts or pecans for this.  Seriously yummy.

-- The original called for a powdered sugar glaze to be brushed on the cookies before baking -- I didn't like it, so I've taken it out here.

So here's the recipe:

Cookie Baking, Day 3

Thus far?  I've got:

-- 4 dozen brownie bites:  triple chocolate, fudgy brownies baked in a mini-muffin tin -- still have yet to frost them, though, but I'll get there.  More of those to bake today.

-- Slightly less than 8 dozen chocolate chip cookie cups with Hershey kisses stuck in the center.  Wow, are these good (and evil!  hence the slightly less, since Mr. ReddHedd discovered these.).

It's just chocolate chip cookie dough, pulled out of the bowl in a big heaping tablespoon-sized chunk, and plopped into a mini-muffin tin sprayed with cooking spray, and then baked at 350 F for 15 minutes or so.  You pull it out of the oven, plop an unwrapped Hershey's chocolate kiss in the center, and then pop it back into the oven for another 4 minutes or so until they are mostly set.  Then take the pans out, and cool cookies in the pan on a wire rack for 12 minutes or so, then remove from the pans and cool the rest of the way on wire racks.  (Trust me on the in-pan cooling time first -- these are tender and will fall apart, which is great for eating the mistakes but not so great if you are trying to make cookies for gifts.  So don't skimp on the cooling time in the pans.)

-- 6 dozen incredibly potent fudgy rum balls.  I make these from an amazing Emeril recipe and they are fantastic.  But only if you like rum.  If you don't?  I'd skip this recipe.  But if you like rum?  These are heaven.  Seriously.

Brownie Bites

Yesterday, the Christmas cookie baking began in earnest. 

Or at least it began, anyway.  All I got made were 4 dozen one-bite brownies, but it's a start.

And I'll take it.

Today?  More one-bite brownies and a lot of refrigerator cookie dough to make.

I plan on dividing 12 dozen one-bite brownies in half, and doing half of them with coconut-pecan frosting (like the kind you get on German chocolate cake) and the other half with peppermint frosting dotted with little mint chips.

I made some with the mint frosting last year and they were delicious.

How do I make these nummy brownies, you ask?  Pretty easily: