As of now, I’m embarking on the largest cookie baking spree I’ve ever done at one time (and in this tiny kitchen, too). I have no cash, so it’s hard for me to buy as many presents as I have people I want to give presents to. Instead, there’s a classic fallback – homemade goodies!
Despite the mad rush of people at Wal-Mart and Michael’s, I ventured out into the world and picked up all the things I figured I’d need for goodie-making. I forgot how much fun I could have in Michael’s – and how much stuff they have in that store that I want. I spent a bunch of my paycheck in both stores, but it will totally be worth it.
The majority of my present recipients are from my dojo, American Black Belt Academy. I’ve made a lot of really good friends there since I started taking kama bushi kai with Shihan McElwee. The fun part about making cookies for these folks is that not only will they eat almost anything, but a big favorite in the dojo is a cookie that one of our attendees makes – apparently it has flax, oatmeal, coconut… a big kitchen sink cookie, healthy and delicious. But J won’t give me the recipe, so I’ll have to do my best.
- Gingerbread men (decorated martial-arts style!)
- Sugar cookie cutouts
- Matcha green tea trees
- Tassies with black bean brownie filling
- White chocolate macadamia cookies (though I’m debating on adapting the salted w. chocolate cookie from smitten kitchen to something with craisins and macadamias… ooh, what a thought)
- Chocolate thumbprints
I figured that would be more than enough. Though I’m considering adding espresso snowcaps and some biscotti… but we’ll see how the list so far works out as it is. :)
As for packaging, I bought some plain white boxes, white gift tags, thin red ribbon and red tissue paper. I figured I would divide the cookies among the tissue paper and tie the boxes closed with the ribbon. I have these ceylon green notecards that I’m going to use for personal messages – I adore them, really, very pretty. I bought an eight-pointed star stamp and a tiny stamp of a Chinese coin; I already have a set of twenty Hànzì (Chinese characters) stamps. I figure I can decorate the outside of the boxes with the star in silver and the coin in red, and the inside of the boxes with red Hànzì – not only is red Christmas-y, but also the color of wealth, prosperity and good reputation in feng shui.
Tonight, I’m gonna make up a massive collection of cookie doughs which will then be residing in my fridge for the night. Tomorrow — tomorrow begins the baking, Stage Two of the Great Christmas Cookie Bake, 2008.
Those are going to be some interesting Gingerbread Men. You totally need to take pictures! And uh… be careful where you put that stick.
~Cat
You nut. I’m going to take pictures of every cookie batch, and the finished products. Posts per batch, etc. I’ll have stuff for at least a week, which will probably cover my general lack of Internet during Christmas week…
Kate