Midwest Mary

I’m the family cookie baker for our events. For most celebrations, I bake one or two types of cookies, but at Christmas, I make a large assortment. The recipes vary depending on requests and the amount of time I have to complete them.

This year I baked at least two batches of 10 different kinds of cookies which included white and dark chocolate chip, double-dipped chocolate shortbread, brownie balls, shortbread, cut-outs, brown butter rice crispies, pizzelles, gingerbread, snickerdoodle, and molasses.

There are a few key practices I’ve found that result in the best-tasting and freshest cookies. Most importantly, I use quality ingredients, nearly all of which are organic. This year I switched to all-natural sprinkles, as well. The colors aren’t as vivid, but the alternative is healthier, especially for the grandchildren.

Since it takes a few weeks to complete the baking, I freeze all cookies after they’ve cooled to keep them as fresh as possible. The cookies are tightly packaged, and each type of cookie is wrapped separately or placed in separate tins to prevent flavors from transferring from one cookie to another or picking up flavors from other items in the refrigerator or freezer. I also keep them separate when plating. This is especially important with recipes that include peppermint.

Who knows what cookies we’ll have at our next event. It all depends on the occasion and requests?

Some of the other top favorite recipes include white chocolate spritz, biscotti, raspberry bars, kolacky, cardamom sugar crisp, chocolate and oat bars, chocolate spritz, English toffee bars, Grandma’s Greek cookies, Grandma’s Italian knots, pecanettes, sesame seed, and peppermint white chocolate bark.

*Photos and Post©2023, Mary K. Doyle

Grab a cup of coffee and some cookies and relax with Tranquility. Transformation. Transcendence.