holiday cookie fest, courtesy of the washington post

i made SEVEN kinds of cookies this weekend:
chocolate-orange madelines
white chocolate chocolate chip cookies
orange chocolate hearts (pictured)
cranberry white chocolate drop cookies
indulgent butter cookies
cranbery-clementine sandwich cookies
chocolate spice cookies
AND
mini-bronwies with raspberry cream and chocolate ganache

and i learned a lot. most important, that i DON’t LIKE cookies with a ton of butter. this potentially explains my partiality for cut-out cookies such as my chocolate wafers but also my love for my king arthur flour cookies, which combine shortening and butter. i also learned that while some of my best recipes might be for cutout cookies, like the hearts, but the process is enough to make a sane person nuts.

i think that the overall moral of the day was that i am going to cut back on my cookie-making and try to keep a fairly simple repetoire. and also, never again do 7 cookies in a weekend. my real motivation was that i hadn’t made cookies in forever, and i wanted to make some as holiday gifts, and the washington post cookie section came out last week and i couldn’t resist. it helped that i had no specific plans for the weekend and ample opportunity, what with work being lame and all, to shop for provisions. and even more than that, i already had most of the requisite supplies in my ‘pantry.’

p.s. the brownies were actually sort of tasteless, in the gourmet turnip way. i still like the idea, and i bought these very cute mini-muffin pans for them that came out a perfect one-bite size. should i attempt the recipe again, i will use a different brownie recipe as my base.