Christmas Cookie Chaos

Yesterday, I left my daughter with a neighbor while I took a call with a client. When I went to pick her up, she had made a beautiful stenciled Christmas tree painting. Crap, I thought. I never do things like that with her. So in a moment of feeling completely inadequate as a mother, I decided we’d bake Christmas cookies!

I whipped out my Betty Crocker’s NEW Boys and Girls Cookbook. It’s the same one my mother has and I was lucky enough to find a copy at a vintage bookstore in Virginia. I decided we’d make my old favorite—sugar cookies. Jesus Christ, why I decided to do this when I freaking h-a-t-e baking, I’ll never know. I just wanted to be a good mom.

Baking with a two-year old in the kitchen is fun. Kind of. You need a stool. You need to keep them busy with their own baking project. And above all ladies, you need to know what you’re doing and either have an endless amount of patience or a full glass of Rioja. Your choice.

Mistake #1: I thought giving her a bowl of her own butter and flour would be a good idea. You know, for stirring while I made the real cookie dough? An experienced mother would tell you never to give your child flour under any circumstances, or butter for that matter, because, yup you guessed both ended up either in her mouth or on the floor.

Mistake #2: Once the dough was made, I felt nostalgia for the baking-days of my youth and gave her a small taste of the cookie dough (which was delicious, I used fresh lemon peel!). This was bad, bad, bad. For the rest of our baking experience she threw tantrums because she wanted more cookie dough. And then I freaked out after the warm nostalgic cookie dough moment because, SHIT! cookie dough has raw eggs in it, now we both have Salmonella…

Mistake #3: In an effort to save on dishes, I decided to line the cookie sheet with parchment paper. The recipe didn’t say to do this, and I’ve never really heard of this before, but dammit, it seemed like a really good idea.

Baby teeth rotting

Mistake #4: Little teaspoon drops of cookie dough are on the cookie sheet and I decide Josie should get to decorate with the jar of sprinkles. After all, this is her first batch of Christmas cookies, but instead, this and more tantrums happen:

Mistake #5: Decide to take picture of her DRINKING sprinkles. This startles child and she drops the whole jar on the floor and it explodes into a rainbow of crunchy sprinkle floor mess on top of the butter and flour from earlier. I was hyper ventilating at this point or I’d have taken a picture of that too.

Mistake #6: Oh God Fucking Dammit!! There is smoke and burning smells coming from the oven! Muther fucker! The smoke alarm is going off and it’s really high up on our stupid 14-foot pre-war ceilings. Quick hit the smoke alarm with the broom until it stops! I know Josie, that is LOUD! Oh fuck, get the cookies out of the stove. What? What the hell? I used WAX paper instead of parchment paper? Jesus, get the melting wax cookies out on the fire escape so the smoke alarm doesn’t sound again. Josie! Stop eating the sprinkles off the floor!

The only thing I did right with this whole fiasco was hold back enough cookie dough to make eight, count ’em, eight perfectly delicious sugar cookies.

This was far too much work.

 RECIPE:

1/2 Cup butter, margerine or shortening
1 Cup Sugar
1-2 Teaspoons of fresh grate lemon peel

1 Egg (if you use butter or margerine, add an extra egg white or whole egg or your cookies will be too crunchy)
2  Tablespoons milk

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon soda

Preheat oven to 400. Mix butter, sugar and lemon peel in mixer first. Add the eggs and milk, then gradually add the dry mixture. Use a teaspoon to drop dough on cookie sheet, decorate as you wish, and pop into the oven for 6-8 minutes. They cook fast so keep an eye on them.