The Christmas Cookie Bake

Each Christmas my mother and I pulled out the Mirro aluminum cookie press, or cookie gun as it was sometimes called. We made a spritz cookie in different snowflake shapes and sprinkled them with sugar baubles. I always thought the green cookies tasted best, though there was absolutely no difference except for the food coloring.

I was amused to see that my granddaughter, Addie, and her mother, Lisa, made a newfangled addition to their holiday cookie trove: Rainbow Sugar Cookies.

New Fangled Cookie

Tom donned a mask and brought me a sample of their pre-Christmas baking. (I notice family and friends feed me more often these days now that I’ve taken on a “caged” lifestyle.) This doesn’t bother me in the least, though I may come out of COVID lockdown carrying some extra tonnage. 

I put on a pair of sun glasses and ate one of the cookies. While excessively bright, they were not excessively sweet. I put the rest in the freezer, where they added a brilliant neon touch. No trouble finding those puppies in the dark. 

The Bench Cutter

What’s more, I was glad to learn of another use for my bench cutter (pastry scraper). I use it mostly as a scoop to shuttle vegetables to a skillet.

In addition to slicing cookie dough, it’s also good for smashing garlic cloves, cutting brownies, leveling a cup of flour, and slicing soft cheeses. It’s really a pretty handy gadget.