The Great Christmas Cookie Extravaganza

Sometimes the Christmas spirit is so big it gets the better of everyone, taking it to slightly ridiculous proportions. This is a tale of one of those times.

It started with a batch of Christmas cookies.

Actually, let's go back before that. My second semester of grad school had just ended and I'd just written cumulatively about 90 pages of research. I was (and still am) tired of writing. I suddenly had all this free time, and yet my main time-waster (yelling at all of you on the internet) was not appealing to me. But, huzzah! It's Christmas. And I come from an Italian family with special Italian recipes.

I decided to bake.

But, when I bake, I liveblog on facebook. Because we live in 2013 and I do what I want. Anyway, I posted a picture of my first batch of cookies.

It was no big deal. It's Christmas, lots of people are posting cookies. Aside from a few curious "but why are you putting colored sugar on bagels? questions" people were mostly

The same day, I made another batch.

A few more people liked and commented this time, because I barely can bake two things in a week, never mind a day. Plus, who makes cookies shaped like S?

The final thing I posted that day garnered a bit more attention, and set the wheels in motion for what I was about to accidentally do.

People seemed to be pretty excited about the mint fudge. Enough so that I got a few joking requests for packages. But that didn't seem like a bad idea, actually. I mean, I was baking a lot of food.

The next day, the peanut butter fudge continued the streak. People were freely commenting now. In fact, some of my friends asked me if everything was okay. Like, what was the deal with all these baked goods? Very, very, unlike me. But what is like me is that I'm frenetic and I'm over the top. So, in that way, at least it was fitting.

In the next few days, we made sugar cookies and pignoli cookies as well.

While the idea had taken seed during the pictures leading up to the finished product, the project actually began as I stepped back and took a look at my handiwork. In three days' time, I'd made about 50 dozen cookies and 15 pounds of fudge. Surely, I had way too much.

So, I opened it up for real. If anyone wanted cookies, I posted, they should comment with what they want and I would send it to them. Throughout the day, responses trickled in. I ended up with about thirty requests!

Great! Except I did the math, and Santa's budget this year had enough in it for ten packages. Welp, what can you do? I posted that ten people would receive packages, and I would draw the names out of a hat (my trusty fedora, lol). If anyone wanted to pay their own shipping, I said, they would get cookies, and if their name had been drawn, they would essentially have gifted cookies to someone else, as I'd be able to pull another name.

Makes sense.

Now, knowing my friends the way I do, I don't know why I didn't expect what happened next, but it took me entirely by surprise.

People started donating money (like, a lot of money) to my paypal, so I could afford to ship cookies to everyone who signed up. $20 here, $50 there, $80 from over there. What? In fact, people gave so much that I even had enough to ship a few packages to England and Canada, which basically costs, like, a golden calf or some shit.

It was moving. It was incredible. It was Christmas.

And suddenly I had a lot more work to do. Because apparently all the cookies I thought I had were not an infinite number and after giving packages to school teachers, neighbors, friends and helpers throughout the year, I was...out of cookies and fudge.

So I had to make everything again. Phew. I did it, though, and in just a day and a half, because seriously, how much time can one devote to cookies? (unless one is a baker, of course).

But I wasn't nearly done. Next I had to collect everyone's addresses. I hand wrote them all in a notebook (which I later used for shipping paper...so some of you are getting old notes on how much money Catholic Charities needed to secure in 2010 and some of you are getting notes on how to quantitatively survey people for research. Sorry about that). Then I had to make out the cards. Because you can't send cookies without a card. And you can't send a card without saying something personal. So, I spent a little time on them, you could say.

Then I packaged all the orders up, and taped the correct card to the correct bag this morning.

At this point, online, people were really rooting for this project. They asked for updates and readily explained it to others who had just seen one or two statuses about it. There was an excitement to it that I can't recreate here. There was a true Cookie Operation going on, and no one wanted to see it fail.

I got to the post office around noon. I was in my oldest tee shirt. One from my high school graduation that's oversized, and baggy, and says "What a long, strange trip it's been".  And yoga pants. Of course, yoga pants. Because I was going to the post office on a Monday at noon to make up 30 boxes, address them, and send them. That was an acceptable outfit.

Except today (yesterday, since I'm going to post this tomorrow) happened to be the busiest mailing day of the entire year. And the local news station was there to document this historic happening.

Fantastic.

I stand at the counter, trying not to look too interesting (normally I'd be all over it, but shirt. Pants. And I'm not sure I'd even brushed my hair). But eventually, since I'd been there, taking out cookies, measuring them, making boxes, packing them, and then labeling them with a really squeaky permanent marker (God, I am so annoying), the report came timidly over.

"Would you mind if I interviewed you?" she asked. "Whatever you're doing...it looks...interesting."

I posted the pic of the finished packages and told everyone we would be on the news, and they didn't believe me. Because, honestly, really?

But, yes, that's how I became the lead story (dying laughing forever) on the local news at 6 p.m. on December 16th. Because I made a bunch of cookies, and some of my friends wanted some, and some of my other friends helped pay for them to get there.

Someday I will do something normal. Today was not that day.



GTN - Gainesville Television Network


 

Recipe Monday - Christmas Cookies

For this recipe Monday, let's just recap a few cookie recipes with new pictures!


First, anisette cookies. These came out better than last year's! I cooked the whole batch this year, and ended up with nine dozen cookies.

RECIPE:


Next up: Sugar cookies.

These also came out better than last year. The full batch yielded six dozen cookies. (I halved this one last year, too).

RECIPE:

Here are some action shots.

Of course, not all of them were artistic masterpieces...Natalina apparently takes after me in the kitchen.

Oh well. Sorry, gingerbread man.

 

Recipe Monday - Christmas Sugar Cookies

 This is my aunt's family famous recipe, delicious every time. And it's a family affair. (I halved this recipe.)

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

1 cup margarine (Hey, what's up 1993? I used butter)

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla,

2 tablespoons milk

4 cups flour

2/3 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

 

 

 

 

 

Cream the butter and add the sugar.

Beat in the eggs, milk, vanilla.

Mix together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.

 

 

 

Mix the dry ingredients into the egg mixture.

Chill dough 12 hrs or more. (I chilled it for four hours, because 12 hours? Really?)

Then, prepare your work station. You'll want plenty of flour to keep the dough from sticking. The recipe keeps this in mind, so don't worry about drying the cookies out.

Roll the dough to about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick.

Then have your helpers cut up the dough. Notice that when they get bored, it gets a lot more efficient. Then you can call them back for the sugaring.

Then, sugar it up. You can use anything you want.

Bake the cookies in a 350-degree oven for about 5-7 minutes.

Take them off the sheet and let them cool on paper towels so that the bottoms don't crisp, and you're done!

Recipe Monday - Anisette Cookies

The holiday season means all my grandmother's recipes get a workout. Here is the recipe for the Italian Christmas Anisette Cookies. Traditionally they're made in white S shapes. When I was a girl, my mother used to make a huge batch of them, and she split the dough into three sections. She used food coloring to dye one section red, one green. The other section stayed white. Then we would make Christmas shapes out of the dough, like wreaths (intertwined green and white circles) and candy canes (intertwined red and white in a cane shape). We were creative!

This year, it was enough just to make the cookies. No food coloring for me!

Anisette cookies 

(I cut this recipe in half, and the half recipe made three dozen large cookies.)

Combine and beat together:

2 sticks margarine

2.25 cups sugar

5 large eggs

3 teaspoons anise (use the flavoring not the liquor (the liquor is not nearly strong enough flavoring)

 

Combine the dry ingredients:

6.5-7 cups of flour (may want to go light and add the rest later to use when rolling)

2 tablespoons baking powder 

 

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet, folding it in until the dough forms nearly solid.

Chill for at least an hour.

 

Roll and shape into s form

 

Cook for 10 min at 325*

 

 

 

(These cookies will be white. Half of my batch is that light, crusty brown color because my husband prefers crunchier cookies, so I cooked those at 375)

Recipe Monday - Italian Wine Cookies

These are an old family recipe, passed down from my grandmother. They are my favorite cookie of all time.

6 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

1.5 cups sugar

1 grated lemon and

1/3 cup lemon or orange juice

1 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

1 glass (6 oz) white wine or rose

add chocolate chips (as many as you like!)

Mix flour sugar and baking powder; make a hole in the dry ingredients and put the wet ones in it. 

Mix well - Knead until it doesn't stick to your hands.  

Take a small amount and roll long then twist into a circle cookie.

Dip into granulated sugar.

Bake at 375* for 10 minutes

Add flour to make the dough less sticky, but not too much. Otherwise these will weigh down in your stomach. Trust me, I know. Hah. I halved the recipe. My family doesn't need more than two dozen large cookies at a time!