On Cookies of all kinds!

 Yesterday, I spent the morning visiting with a friend, fully intending to race home and start the holiday baking, which I'd been putting off.  Putting it off mainly because I wanted to have some left for the holidays and the hungry boy people here would scarf it all down beforehand otherwise!  However, my friend gave me a lovely pressie,  Knit. Sock. Love.  by Cookie A, autographed by the author no less!  It's a beautiful book to look at and is full of brilliant sock patterns as well.  I got home and found the fire almost out... that lead to waiting for the stove to cool enough to clean it out.  After I rebuilt the fire,  I had a cup of tea and a gander at the book instead of baking.. big mistake as my afternoon baking session disappeared into a relaxing afternoon of brilliant book perusing and napping!  Oh well..  Today is definitely baking day. 

The must have cookies are just out of the oven.  The official name is Spicy Raisin Crinkles, but we call them Ginger Crinkles, because we've bumped up the ginger to give them a bit of zip.

Ginger Crinkles
3/4 cup unsalted  butter
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup raisins
1/3 cup finely chopped crystalized (candied) ginger
extra sugar for rolling cookies in

oven - 350, 10 minutes or until just starting to barely brown on the bottom
cream butter and sugar, add molasses and egg, beating well after each addition.   Stir in dry ingredients, raisins and ginger.   Roll cookie dough into 1 inch balls.  Coat each cookie ball in sugar by rolling it around in the sugar.    Place on parchment covered baking sheet.  Press down with a fork or not as you choose.  I don't worry about it.  They don't flatten out totally, but do stay moist and chewy in the middle.  Bake for about 10 minutes.

The filled date cookies are out of the oven and assembled.  Talk about yummy and because they are loaded with oatmeal and fruits -yes, dates are a fruit, you almost don't feel too guilty eating this gems.  I couldn't find the medium sized round cookie cutter and the large one is biscuit sized, so way too big.  This year, we got stars since it was the only cookie cutter the right size.  Well, there was the dog bone one, but some how that didn't seem appropriately festive!

The cherry nut cookies may be a miss this year because I have 2 things left to sew and I cannot sew and bake cookies at the same time!    I could get the pies in the oven and start to sew, since they have a longer and more flexible baking time, so I'm not likely to forget them or at least the one more minute to finish a seam won't really affect the pie in the same way it will the cookies.

So why am I wasting my time on the computer when I have so many things to do ?  Tea break.  If I don't sit down to drink my tea, I'll set it down someplace, forget about it and not find it again until it's stone cold and miserable.  This way, I get to drink it nice and hot and get a break:)   The bonus is that I know exactly where my tea mug is for the next cuppa!     Happy Christmas!

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