attempt at baking

Again with the way back machine, just not so way back this time - we are only going to Christmas on this trip. I have a friend, Yvett, who puts on the most awesome theme parties. Seriously, she could make a career of organizing parties and everyone would be jealous at the people who have Yvett-planned parties. Maybe I will talk to her about this... But I digress. This was a Cookies & Cocktails party so, yep, you guessed it, I had to step out of my comfort zone and (the horror!)...bake!! It was an adventure to say the least. Besides the stomach ache I gave myself from eating all the uncooked sugar cookie dough, I learned some things about making cookies.

Like other things, I learned a lot about what not to do before I learned what to do. I decided to make linzer sandwich cookies because they looked pretty easy but still a little fancy. Apparently "easy" is a relative term. I thought it would be really cool to cut the center in nice Christmas shapes rather than boring old circles-in-circles. So I bought some really cute little cookie cutters from Michael's in fun shapes like a bell, holly leaf (not really recommended for use on this type of cookie, but more on that later), tree, angel and gingerbread man. I also decided to take the easy way out and use Pillsbury sugar cookie dough.

The first lesson was that the dough softens while you are working with it. A LOT. And this makes cutting the centers a little difficult and results in some seriously deformed gingerbread men and decapitated angels. Since I am not one for the blasphemous act of decapitating angels, it took some time to get this just right. But I persevered and they finally worked out, or so I thought...

Lesson #2 was that the cookies grow considerably while they are baking and the center cutouts close up almost completely. So then I decided that I could fix that by recutting the center when I took them out of the oven...but if you wait to long, the cookies harden a little and they don't cut very smoothly, leaving a lot of broken bits to snack on (again, not so good for the tummy ache). In some cases, they don't really cut at all and just leave a cookie cutter shaped indention in the cookie, with an oddly shaped remnant of the original cut in the center. This wouldn't normally be a huge problem but I had to take these cookies to a family party...with kids...and people my husband works with...and I initially tried this with the holly leaf. The result was a fairly vulgar cookie that was definitely NOT appropriate for family parties or people my husband works with. I am sure you can use your imagination but if you really really want to see what I am talking about, I will be more than happy to email you the picture privately (no pun intended here).

Anyways, I finally figured out that I needed to recut them and all was well and they got boxed up and taken to the party.

Here are the 2 ingredients:

• Pillsbury Sugar Cookie Dough
• Seedless jam (NOT preserves) in your favorite flavor - I used raspberry, blackberry & strawberry (one flavor per cookie).

Roll out the dough and cut an even number of large circles. Divide those circles into 2 groups and cut the center out of 1 group of them (leave the other group intact - these will be the bottom layer). Bake according to directions on the package (more or less). When you take the ones with the center cutout, you may need to recut them. Do this as soon as you take them out of the oven, while they are still soft. Be careful, they are hot and if you are using metal cookie cutters, they will heat them up. Trust me. I learned this lesson so that you don't have to. Once they have cooled enough to handle, spread the jam on the bottom layer and top with a cutout cookie. Enjoy with your beverage of choice...