I just ordered a great cookie press from the Pampered Chef but since it wasn't scheduled to be here until Tuesday (tomorrow) we couldn't use it to make cookies last Friday night and so decided to go the more pedestrian, cookie-cutter route.
So I got on BakeSpace and found a great recipe for Christmas Butter Cookies
Joe was very excited and ran around and got all the ingredients together while I was getting the recipe ready to print off:
Once the recipe was ready, he donned my BakeSpace apron (the one I won in the October bake-off) and I snapped pic of him checking out the game plan. I love a man in an apron....
Since we don't have a Kitchen Aid mixer (or any mixer for that matter), once the dough started getting tough we had to abandon the spoon to use our hands to get it mixed really well. Actually, Joe had to (or got to) use his hands. It think it was his favorite part. Don't worry....he washed them first.
After refridgerating the dough for an hour or so, it was time to roll them out and cut out the shape. No that wasn't a typ-o. I said "shape." As in, only one....because the only cookie cutter Joe and I own is a heart. ♥Baking tip: Most people roll out cookie dough onto a work surface, cut the cookies and then transfer the cut-outs to a baking sheet. Instead, if you roll out the dough directly onto your cookie sheet, you can cut out your cookies and simply peel away the leftover dough. That way you don't need to try and move the cookies and risk smooshing them.
But before we could put the cookies in the oven to bake we had to "Christmasify" them. Some of them got "Italisized" (as in: made to be Italian) as well.....
I think my two favorites are the Italian flag-ish one (top center) and the one with the rainbow sprinkles and the red border (southwest of the Italian one).
Once they were done baking and cooling (this was close to midnight or 1 am), we packed some cookies up into boxes to go deliver to some of our friends who live in our building. Well, almost. I forgot that one set of our friends (the Evans) actually lived in the building next to ours....and so after delivering the other cookies Joe and I ran outside in the snow like crazy people (crazy because I was only wearing a lightweight hoodie and no hat or coat) to try and break into the apartment building next door. Luckily someone else was crazy enough to be coming in with groceries the same time we were trying to break in, so we were able to get in without making a big scene (whew!)
All-in-all, it was a good date. We both had a lot of fun and got to go hook our friends up with homemade cookies.
