Holiday Baking 2020

Throughout this dratted pandemic, I have done a lot of baking. I've made recipes as old as 53 years and tried new ones. Some have been wildly successful. Others -- such as the photo to the left that looks remarkably like a massive god-knows-what -- were disappointing in appearance. (The god-knows-what, however, tasted very, very good, to the point that we nearly came to blows over the last piece.) 

What has been terrific is that I have single women as neighbors on both sides, single women who really don't bake for themselves (though both are fabulous cooks). So it has been a joy to share the calories left and right and to experiment without worry.

These cookies, the striped ones, were fabulous. They are a fancy cousin to the famous peanut butter kisses that my sister-in-law introduced me to many, many years ago. We are partial to gingerbread flavor (Himself waits impatiently each autumn for the gingersnaps to appear at the local grocery store), and I prefer a soft ginger cookie. These exceeded my expectations. There's a white chocolate kiss in the center of each. 

Now you need to know that in addition to an increase in baking, our Netflix and Prime viewing has multiplied as the months go on. Each evening we watch a new episode of whatever series we are following (currently "Virgin River" which is so awful that the reason we stick with it is that we need something to mock, and "Outnumbered," a little-known hilarious treasure that Susan put us on to). A week or so ago, I got to the viewing center much before Joe did and put on the great British baking show, the program so many people have raved about but I never tried. Well, we both were hooked, and now we have three things to watch each night.

With the freezer full of cookies and cranberry cake, just waiting for tomorrow to come, I had to call a halt to the holiday baking. 

And then I came across just one more recipe. And although I don't really like roll-out cookies, I had the perfect cutter and Lizzy has been slightly more nice than naughty and both of the aforementioned single women have dogs, and so I went for it. The photo went up on Facebook with an observation about too much great British baking, and my "friends" loved it. The comments were nothing short of spectacular, i.e.,

"A little messy, and a few are broken. They are all the same size, though a few are unevenly browned."

"The question is how chuffed are you with how they turned out? Quite chuffed? Or just regular chuffed?"

"You were asked to make 12, unsure why we have 2 extra - good to see no soggy bottoms though."

“That’s a good bake!”

With Paul and Mary being unavailable, Lizzy had to do the taste test. Fortunately, I wasn't voted out of the kitchen.