Cookie Exchange

All of the women on our street got together this past weekend to do a cookie exchange.  Let me make this very clear - I don't bake.  I do my annual pumpkin breads and it stops there.  I CAN bake, I just choose not to.  I don't find it enjoyable, I don't like using rolling pins or anything that you measure with for that matter.  Any recipe that requires a mixer never sees the light of day.  My mom didn't really bake either.  Her brownies from the box were the bomb though.  Seriously awesome and all she'd do was follow the instructions.  She also made the pumpkin breads but that was it.  I'm sure my grandma was very sad about this because she'd bake a lot and it obviously didn't get carried down the line.  Anyway, I've established that I don't bake.

We were instructed to bring 8 dozen cookies - 1 for taste testing and the remainder for people to take home.  There would also be a prize for the most creative plating (I already knew that I wasn't even going to try and compete). While I have a lot of cookie recipes, I don't have any favorites.  I decided to try something new that I found in one of my Christmas cookbooks - Egg Nog cookies.  I know Egg Nog isn't for everyone but I love the C.F. Burger brand and think it's quite yummy.  Luckily I made the dough the night before the exchange because it took an hour just to make it.  I'm pretty sure I did it wrong too.....after you cream the butter and sugar are you supposed to keep using the mixer for the flour and remaining ingredients?  Not sure you are because I did and almost burned out my mixer.  It was hot and smelly and I had to unplug it.  I wish I were kidding.  The recipe said to "add in" the remaining ingredients so I just kept using the mixer.  Anyway, I definitely think I overworked the dough.  The next morning, the dough was hard as a rock and my wrists are still sore from rolling it out.  Ah, rolling it out.  What in the world was I thinking picking a recipe that required to be rolled and cut?  Poor Bill walked into the kitchen after his overnight shift, talked to me for about 2 minutes and then grabbed the girls and hightailed it out of the house.  He later told me that he hasn't seen me that stressed in YEARS.  The last time I was at my dad's house I found all of my mom's old cookie cutters.  She had a large selection of Christmas ones so I picked a few and got to work.  It's probably a good thing the girls weren't home because I had some choice words when the dough would stick to the inside of the cutter or I couldn't peel the dough off of the counter.  These cookies were doomed from the start.  In the end, I have no idea how many cookies I actually made.  I even ran out of time and still have about a quarter of the dough still in the fridge.  I'm pretty sure I'm just going to throw it away.  If eaten right away, while still warm, the cookies actually weren't that bad.  After they sat awhile, they weren't the greatest.  They looked nice though.

Needless to say, I didn't win for my plating presentation.  That went to someone who had shortened her Christmas tree so she used the pieces of the stump as pedestals for her gingerbread cream cheese bites.  She definitely deserved to win.  I had a great time mingling with the girls over hors d'oeurves and their yummy treats.  There were 16 of us so I came home with way too many cookies for just the three solid food eaters in the house and sent Bill to work the next day with a bag full to share with the nurses.  I would definitely do this again but next time, I'm sticking to basic drop cookies or bars or bite sized somethings!