Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid's dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.Let's begin.
Please don't ask how the topic of Christmas came up in September, but it did and with it came out one of the truths--the only reason the twins want Christmas is for the cookies. "Cookies," I said, "we could make Rosh Hashanah cookies. Christmas doesn't have the monopoly on cookies."
"Could we do it tomorrow?" the ChickieNob asked. "Do you know how to make cookies like that?"
"Of course," I lied. And then I scurried downstairs to write my favourite Christian baker and begged her to save me. She sent me two recipes, wished me good luck, and sent me into the jaws of death--a Martha Stewart recipe--with only this advice: "you have to chill the shit out of it."
The cookies may have taken over our life--stretched from 8 a.m. until almost 4 p.m. in terms of construction and decorating (seriously, I don't know how Christian people do this year after year. Give me an unruly challah dough to braid any day of the week)--but the twins were so excited. And when we got to the end of the batch, their immediate question was which shapes we'd make tomorrow.
Er...
A recreation of Nietzsche's nothingness? Does Wilton make nihilist cookie cutters?
When the twins were 4 1/2, I started permitting them to use my cake decorating and candy equipment on their own with my supervision. I filled their pastry bags and folded their hand properly around it and then they went to town. In their early minutes, the cookies looked like this...
But they quickly moved into a stage I loving called sugar chaos...
While they were decorating those, I made a few pomegranate cookies with the leftover dough. An old friend bought the mold for me during treatments. Maybe it was a few months before we started treatments? She knew that pomegranates were a fertility symbol in Judaism and that I loved the shape. It felt nice to remember her while I pressed these.
What are you showing today?
Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (Important: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog's name, not your name. Links not going to a Show and Tell post will be deleted). The list is open from now until late Friday night and a new one is posted every week.
Other People Standing at the Head of the Class:
Want to bring something to Show and Tell?
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25 comments:
I have a love/hate reaction to your cooking posts.
They look OH SO YUMMY!
But they are OH SO OUT OF REACH!
Countdown to Purim...
Beautiful cookies! The overdecorating reminds me of ace of cakes - the episode when they had the Gosselin kids on and they overdecorated cupcakes.
Mel - I sure have missed this place! Your kids give me a smile from head to toe with the vigor they use to live life...and you match them!
That's the beauty of it.
I only manage Christmas cookies because Christmas is only once a year. I usually spend a whole day doing cookies and then I am so tired at night that I almost cry.
I am in love with those pomegranate cookies. In love.
And what kid doesn't love to make a sugar mountain on top of a cookie base? Heaven.
You can still buy the pomegranate cookie mold if anyone wants it:
http://www.houseonthehill.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=334
Love the pomegranate cookies! Too cool!
As for Christmas baking... my mom and I have it down to a science. Each weekend between Thanksgiving (Canadian t-giving is in Oct) and the first of December we would tackle one thing. Starting with the apples and pears from her trees, through dainties (squares and logs and balls), past almond roca, cabbage rolls (I know it's not sweet, but it's part of Cmas for us), perogies, and pfefferneusse.
But even with all that, we NEVER do the sugar cookies... too much work! :)
This Christian buys her cookies from the bakery.
They look delicious and its great that the kids enjoy your hobby so much.
Cookies look delicious. Glad you had a fun time making them with twins.
I love the pomegranate cookies...soo cool. And, it looks like your kids had a wonderful time decorating those cookies.
I love making cookies (and eating them). Love the sugar chaos!
And now I must bake cookies. Seriously ... Now I MUST BAKE COOKIES. They look so yummy, and your twins icing efforts made me laugh out loud.
Loved this post - those cookies look delicious!!
I love how they will always remember being in the kitchen with you, with those pastry bags, and being given the freedom to create something of their own.
and I love the ritual that baking provides.
I love those pomegranate cookies!
Sorry for duplicate post, typo...
Send some of those pomegranate cookies my way... this is making me really hungry as i read this BEFORE breakfast. I think your twins have the right idea, the cookies are just the canvas...they've made jackson pollacks out of 'em. YUM
I love the pomegranate cookies! Finished cookies for Rosh Hashanah last night. Doing challah tonight. I ain't no challah back girl. You were so fingerboarded just then. :)
The pomegranate cookies are beautiful!
I love baking Christmas cookies! One of my dream jobs would actually be owning a cookie shop. I just don't think it would be hugely successful :D
Glad you and the kiddios had a great time!
Mmmm...cookies...
In my family, we just keep baking cookies until we have enough. Dinner is optional; cookies are necessary. Also, they make excellent cheap gifts, and who isn't willing to do a little work for that?
LOVING the pomegranate cookie press. Adorable.
And yeah, even though I'm not a Christian anymore, I will not give up Christmas (I just reframe it as "time of year to celebrate friends and family and good food"). And yes, christmas cookies are a huge part of that. And I have the best BEST cookie recipe ever, though in fairness I have not tasted the recipe of your favorite Christian baker, so I might be wrong. But I know that after two and a half decades of searching for a new recipe, we found one and it has been the family favorite since then. As it should be since it's basically several sticks of butter with just enough flour to hold it together... but I digress. The point is that these cookies are good enough to convince me to keep celebrating the birth of a man that I don't necessarily believe in.
Anyhow, yes, they take forever, but if you go with spreadable/dippable icing instead of piped frosting, it goes much faster. (We always use the confectioners sugar/milk frosting, with food coloring, and then jimmies or colored sugar sprinkles or dragees to add some sparkle) And if you really let your creative self go, you can have some real fun. (Last year's cookies: http://www.flickr.com/photos/k8izgr8/3156245575/)
Anyhow, I am so glad that you and the twins were able to have such an awesome cookie adventure. What fun!
Love the pomegranate mold!
Gorgeous cookies!
All those cookies look so yummy. I love sugar cookies even though they take so long. I will admit that one year a friend and I decided to make sugar cookies for Christmas and decorate them etc. We made one pan and decided that took way to freaking long to do and ended up using the remaining dough to make one large sort of naughty cookie.
looks like how my kids decorate cookies lol. They look yummy
I hate making Christmas cookies, but I enjoy eating them. Being an utter heretic myself, I don't save cookie baking efforts for Christmas either.
Hmmm...pomegranate cookies do look yummy...
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