Yummy stuff!

For the last few days we have been baking up a storm!  We have made Grandma Gillette's Christmas Toffee, Thumbprint cookies, made Sugar Cookies, and are now making Irish Whisky Coffee Crunchy Cookies.  Plus of course dinners, lunches, and breakfasts!

Every year I invite some good friends over and we have a women's only cookie party.  It is a lot of fun, and it lets me hang with friends who I haven't seen in a while or friends who I see all the time but can't actually say more than 2 words to since we are usually running after toddlers in different directions.  Every year the guest list changes slightly as to who is still on island, who feels up to baking the obscene amount of cookies (6 dozen) that I ask each participant to bring, and who doesn't already have another commitment.  One year I made Merengue and hazelnut cookies, those were super fast to make, and yummy.  Two years ago I tired to make windowpane cookies with mango filling. While they tasted divine they were a pain in the ______ to make.  I learned my lesson then, no more fancy time consuming fragile cookies.

This year I am making the aforementioned Irish Whisky Coffee Crunchy cookies.  If I didn't ask for so many darn cookies I could have gotten away with only doubling my recipe as I used a small cookie cutter to cut out the shapes, but since I ask for way to many cookies, then I need to quadruple my basic recipe.  The cookies cooked up fast, and look tasty, and a bit substantial.  They aren't sweet cookies either as the basic dough has oats, whisky, and coffee.  The filling is more of the same but is a cream base sans oats.  Aside from cutting the cookies out, the whole cookie part of the recipe only takes about 30 mins to make from start to finish.  The cream part only takes a little longer, so all told, the mixing, baking, and assembling only takes up 45 mins.  They aren't very festive looking, but they are easy to make, and they are a good way to offset the sweet flavors of other cookies.

I know these are adult only cookies, as Christopher grabbed one and said "MMMmmm".  Of course as soon as he ate the cookie, he put it down, and said "YECK, Agua plis Mami"  Pretty smart for a 2 year old.

Next up I want to try making Macaroons.  Not the coconut ones, but the sandwich style macaroons, sort of like this photo(which I stole from www.aglutenfreeguide.com).  Don't they just look scrumptious?  I have always wanted to make theses, and hope that they taste as good as they look.  I figure the kids will like these WAY better than the Irish Crunchy cookies.  :)


Enjoy your weekend everyone!