Christmas Cookies—-2010

We did ahead and brought with us:

Gina—-one batch of Butter Balls—p46 Mom’s cookbook—-the ‘For Christmas Recipe’

Geriann—three batches of Kipfuls——p58 Mom’s cookbook

Maria—five batches of Cornstarch cookies—p51 Mom’s cookbook

Dennis—one full recipe of Basic Dough—p42 Mom’s cookbook (We needed to make a second full recipe the day of baking)

              Two 1/2 sheet pans of sponge cake for Petit Fors—P452 Good Housekeeping Cookbook (Hot Milk Sponge Cake)

               Two recipes of Neopolitans—p18–Lee Mangione’s cook book

                1 and 1/2 fig cookie filling—-p43 Mom’s cookbook

                1 and 1/2 Ricotta cheese filling—p43 Mom’s cookbook

Baking Day:

Georgia and Dennis began at 8AM.

Geriann and Maria arrived at 9:00AM.

Gina, AnnMary and Clara came at about 9:30AM.

Garretta and Gerald Anthony arrived at 11:00AM.

Jeneve and Tim brought Margot at about 11:00AM.

Maria brought two Wegman’s pizzas for lunch. We didn’t really take a break, just ate quickly and went on.

Everyone left between 3:00 and 4:00PM.

Gina, Geriann and Maria brought extra 10x sugar and walnuts.

Georgia and Dennis began the Cheese cookies—Geriann took over when she arrived. The two of them completed the Cheese cookies and then did the Kipfuls.

Dennis made more Basic Dough and then Geriann, Georgia and Gina made the fig cookies.

Maria and Gina did all the Cornstarch and then all the Butter Balls. AnnMary and Clara helped at the end.

AnnMary frosted the coconut and nut Petit Fors. Margot and Clara helped.

Clara did the Chocolate Icing on the Neopolitans, then helped AnnMary, Geriann, Gina and Maria.

Garrett frosted the Cheese Cookies and Cornstarch Cookies. He taught Margot too and she could complete them on her own.

Georgia kept an eye on the timer and did most of the ‘in and out’ at the oven.

Dennis took up slack (space?). Gina and Dennis double sugared the Butter Balls.

Gina did most of the dividing up and packaging in storage containers. The four major players ended up with about 4 dozen of each cookie. Maybe 5 dozen Cornstarch and 6 dozen fig.

Gina would like to get to the point where we make up finished trays. Time is the issue. (My (Dennis’) opinion has always been they would have to then be given away immediately or frozen to keep the flavors from blending. 

Here’s an idea: we could all bring one completed batch to share and then spend the time just making the Ricotta and Fig cookies???????

We really needed more table space and more cookie racks. We could also probably use a second oven too, really!