Three Times Wasn't a Charm

The Spritz cookie dough I made in October needed to make a baked appearance.  I had been in the kitchen all day and was determined to finish the day's projects.

I thawed the dough and gathered my supplies.

My favorite cookie press, the electric one that can spit out cookies faster than I can load the dumb thing, was dead.  Totally dead.  Now she's buried.

But, I had a backup old-fashioned hand crank cookie gun I bought at the thrift store for $3.50.  I pulled it out, thinking I'd beat Murphy's Law, but discovered why somebody donated it.  It was missing a piece!  A crucial piece that actually holds the pattern piece onto the bottom end.

I was ready to quit, but remembered I had actually ordered one off the internet a few years ago.  I had been receiving this email for "free" stuff for homeschooling.  I shoulda known better.  Nothing is free.  This was a deal, only $5 for the cookie press, along with a nastily thin cookie sheet and a puny wire cooling rack.  But, hey it was only $5.  The only problem was, shipping was $25, unless you spent $25. 

Can you believe what I did?  Yes, I ordered five of them.  I never order off the internet, I never fall for those sucker deals, but I ordered 5 for $25. After all, I have four daughters, or so I reasoned in an unseasonable moment of insanity. Then, in utter embarrassment, I just shoved them in a corner shelf in the garage.  There they stayed, until today. I thought it would save the day.

When something is too good to be true, it probably because it isn't good or it isn't true.  We really had issues with the press. It wasn't good.

My husband stepped in to be the hero and filled the cookie press.  He tried and laughed and tried and laughed and tried and laughed. We removed the parchment paper.  We chilled the dough some more.  We tried different wrist techniques.  We couldn't get the dough to come out in cute little tree shapes, just big splotches.

I know this would have been a good time to praise my hubby, but with all the It Has To Be A Perfect Christmas Passion welling up inside me, I wouldn't let him bake these cookies.  He put all the dough back in the fridge.

But, he couldn't waste the dough left inside of the cookie press,  so made just one cookie.  After all, the oven had been preheating for nearly an hour.

It was aMMMMMMMazing!  We love Gramma Alice's Spritz recipe!  Since they taste even better when shaped into a tree, we will try again tomorrow after we borrow the cookie press from Kelly-Across-the-Street.

If there is one thing I am learning over and over and over again - it isn't about the projects, it is about the patience the trials of the projects produce.

James 1:3 "Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience."

After this holiday season, I should be going down in the Guiness Book of World Records for patience, because I feel like I have been swimming upstream to school both ways in the rain with two left feet.

But, in the future, I won't look back and marvel at all the goodies I baked, I will look back and marvel at the goodness the Lord worked in my heart by trying me over and over and over with trials.

Tomorrow, I plan on making cookies, but the Lord is planning on perfecting one of His beloved children.

Christmas in October

In an attempt to maybe have that magazine perfect Christmas, I invited Kelly-Across-the-Street over to make Christmas cookie dough to put in the freezer. That way, we'll be more ready for baking Christmas cookies with little ones who are more intent on alternately spilling and eating the frosting and decorative sprinkles, having to go poddy just after you've washed your hands for the fourth time or trying to tell you something important the minute you turn the mixer on.

Kelly is sifting with my Gramma Geneva's flour sifter, working on Gramma Geneva's red chrome table, and using Gramma Geneva's recipe for rolled out sugar cookies. This cookie has been a holiday tradition as long as I can remember. But, for years after Gramma died, I couldn't make her cookies. Only in the past few years have I been able to bring this tradition back into my life without pain.

The spritz cookie recipe was from Gramma Alice, a dear older Christian woman who raised six kids, saw them all marry believers and raise scads of Christian grandchildren for her. Alice and husband Marvin welcomed Scott and I into their hearts and home and we learned much from them about marriage, parenting and the Christian faith. I celebrate her spiritual influence on my life every Christmas by using her recipe for spritz cookies.

I am using my new Bosch mixer, a dream come true servant. Since I don't like learning how to do anything new, Kelly read the directions for me. I threw in four not-so-soft sticks of butter, sugar and vanilla and we watched through the clear top - marveling. Tim the Toolman would LOVE this mixer. So much power. You think you love your 325 watt Kitchen-aid mixer, try the Bosch 800 watt motor. Read that and weep. Lotsa power. Never again will I worry about not thawing out the butter long enough. If you want to check out incredible cooking gadgets, recipes and spiritual encouragement visit Urban Homemaker.

Since the kids were SO disappointed we weren't going to EAT any of the Christmas cookies that day, they mixed up a $1 Betty Crocker peanut butter cookie mix for the Easy Bake Oven. Don't let marketing strategy fool you, you don't have to buy their $5 mix to make 6 little cookies. You actually can use the grownup pouches and make WAY more cookies.

Since it takes several minutes to roll out the cookies and 7 minutes to cook four teensy-tiny cookies, the kids were kept out of our way for a long, long, long time.

Kelly and I were able to make double-batches of gingerbread, green and red spritz, sugar cookies and the nummy filling for peanut butter cups.

Next week, we'll make four more kinds of dough and then we will be ready for the fun part - baking, decorating and hiding the cookies from our husbands until we are ready to display them Martha Steward style on gorgeous trays, next to shimmering candles with the strains of Christmas music wafting through the air. Accompanied by the jostling and fussing of children debating over who gets the tree cookie or who gets the last peanut butter cup, of course.

When the kids got tired of making their teensy-tiny cookies, they decided to make forts, take the Barbies camping and touch everything they could find under the four foot high parameter in my
living room. I didn't care. They were having a blast. Rebekah has so few opportunities to play with kids, I needed her to play with abandon. They needed to play, pretend, imitate, dress-up and be kids. When Kelly and kids arrived I had informed them, "I didn't clean for you."

That doesn't mean they aren't important to me, that means I am comfortable enough to let them see the real me. Not the perfect me I wish I could at least to pretend to be while blogging and posting pics of my wonderful life. The real you-gotta-shovel-a-path-thru-the-living-room me.

But, because I didn't clean, it didn't matter if the kids messed it up. A lesson in hospitality I have learned over the years.

Gramma Geneva's Sugar Cookies

Cream together:

1 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup milk

1 t. vanilla

2 beaten eggs

Sift together and add:

3 cups flour

2 t. baking powder

1 t. soda

1/4 t. nutmeg

1/2 t. salt

Chill dough. Roll out and cut with cookie cutters. Bake 350 for 8-10 minutes or until lightly brown.

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Gramma Alice's Spritz Cookies

Cream together:

1 cup butter

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 t. vanilla

1/2 t. almond

food coloring (It's easier to add to wet ingredients, make it darker than you want it)

Sift together and add:

1 t. baking powder

2 1/4 cup flour

1/4 t. salt

Mix, add and put through cookie press. 350 for 8 minutes or until lightly brown.

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Only 58 days until Christmas!

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What are you working on? I'd love to be inspired more. That magazine perfect Christmas just might happen this year.....maybe.....just maybe....