Navigating Christmas as a newly married couple has been interesting. We each have our own traditions that we want to bring into our married life, but we also want to start new ones. Christmas cookies, at least to me, are a part of these traditions. Colin wasn’t here for Christmas last year so I only made a couple of my favorite kinds of cookies to share with friends. The previous year, our first Christmas together, I think I made every kind of Christmas cookie ever because I was homesick and bored (my job hadn’t started yet). This year, since Colin should be here, I want to make each of our favorites and try out some new recipes too. Since I was already planning on donating one of my favorite Christmas cookies for the cookie drive (you can find that recipe here), I wanted to bring one of Colin’s favorites too. When I asked him what his favorite Christmas cookies are or if he had any family cookie traditions, he answered with oatmeal, molasses and sugar cookies as well as peanut brittle. Peanut brittle was eliminated right away (I’m allergic to peanuts). He always asks for oatmeal cookies and we already have two great molasses cookie recipes, one from my mom and the other from his grandma. The obvious answer for the new cookie recipe to find, of course, was sugar cookies. Did I mention that I hate sugar cookies? Hate is the wrong word, I guess, because I do actually love eating them, but I hate making sugar cookies. Just the thought of rolling out dough a million times, cutting out shapes and then, once you’re finally done baking the cookies, you have to spend endless hours decorating them with royal icing makes me shudder. I voluntarily made 30 sea turtle cookies for a baby shower this summer and I haven’t recovered yet. (Can you tell?) So when Colin asked for sugar cookies, I knew I had to find a drop cookie recipe.
funfetti
Purple Pastel Birthday Cake
Every July brings the agonizing decision of what kind of cake to make for my birthday. I make cakes, cupcakes and cookies for friends here, so everyone was asking me if I was making my own cake this year. My answer? “Of course I am!” This is my one chance to make exactly what I want, instead of what everyone else wants. The problem is that there are so many options. One of my favorite things to do is read cake blogs and cookbooks. (What? That’s not normal?) I would love nothing more than to bake and eat every cake I read about, but I’m a dietitian and always have a nutrition tally running through my head. Plus, I don’t even want to know how many miles of running with Archie that would require. It’s way too hot here for that and even he doesn’t have that much energy.