Did You Know?

 My son is gluten-intolerant. When I ordered some one-for-one flour before his visit earlier in the month, I saw this and ordered a box. 

(Now I should tell you I've been using King Arthur flours and products for years... like 40 years. They are located in Vermont, not far from me, so ordering from them is in the realm of "normal" for me.)

Anyway, I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies with walnuts and dried apricots and milk chocolate chips the day he and my DGD were flying in. I was nervous, and baking helped settle my nerves and keep me busy. 

I don't like cookies that are too big, so I made smaller ones. I ended up making three dozen. I put them in a big tin and they were ready when he arrived.

After all the hubbub, when they were getting ready to go to my Mom's apartment (where they were staying), I indicated the giant tin on my kitchen table, that I had labelled "Gluten Free Cookies." My son took one look, lifted the lid, and started to cry. Then he stuffed a cookie in his mouth, and gave me a giant hug. "Omigod Mom, thank you so much."

He told me later he ate at least six of them that evening. By the time he left five days later, the tin was empty.

(I had eaten ONE, to test them. They were delicious.)

In the meantime I found a recipe for cookies with Malted Milk Powder. Amazon had some, of course, but I'd have to wait three weeks for it. I am not known for my patience. King Arthur had it in stock and they are just the next state over, so I decided to order it there.

Then I noticed they had this Gluten Free Cookie Mix* on sale. If you bought five boxes you'd get like a buck off each box. Such a deal, but what was I going to do with five boxes and my son living across the country?

The answer was apparent. Send them to him as a Christmas gift, of course, so he could make and enjoy cookies with my DGD any time he wanted.

It's always nice to find the perfect gift.

*One box makes 2-3 dozen cookies depending on size. All you need to add is a stick of butter (or a non-dairy substitute), one egg and a couple of tablespoons of water. You can add up to 3 cups of add-ins. Oh, the possibilities...

My son figured out a long time ago that I show love by cooking. I'm lucky that he gets it.

The Baking Frenzy

 Years ago my son and I would spend a weekend baking to create boxes of various sweets for him to give to his friends in college. We made brownies, caramel corn, cookies and biscotti and stuff I can’t even remember. We made so many different things I had to create a spreadsheet to calculate how many pounds of butter, sugar and chocolate I needed. It was a lot of fun.

I am not doing that this year, but I do want to give a box of a few different cookies to each of my family members on Christmas. Since I don’t want to give stale cookies, I made the cookie dough for several different kinds and put them in my “outside refrigerator,” which means they are sitting out on my front porch. After I rearrange the contents of my fridge, I’ll transfer them back to the fridge. The temperatures here for the next four days is not going above 34F so they are fine out there. There is a shortbread cookie with pretzels, chocolate, pumpkin seeds, coconut and pecans. There is an ultra-rich chocolate chip cookie; there are Russian Tea Cakes (also known as Mexican Wedding Cookies) and some Moroccan Semolina and Almond Cookies.

I’ll also be making some Gochujang Caramel Cookies, Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies, Spiced Chocolate Marble Shortbread Cookies and some Crunchy Coconut Twists.

I’ll also make some caramel corn, but I’ve also found a recipe for Cheddar Popcorn. This batch (above) is made with white cheddar powder. This is a test batch. I’ll bring it to work tomorrow to see what my coworkers think of it. Last week I made some Peppermint Saltine Toffee Bark and that was a great hit.

I have made another small pink bird, but with Christmas coming up around the corner, I’m pretty focused on that, and the dinner I will be cooking that day, so I haven’t been in the studio as much.