This is an honest Christmas cookie recipe.
Current fashion in online recipes is to begin by treating readers to a personal essay about the emotional impact almonds have had on your life, followed by a culinary genealogy of cookies, stretching back to William the Conqueror.
But I’ve got 354 presents to wrap, so let’s get going.
Ingredients:
Butter, brought to room temperature. On the countertop, this takes between three hours and four days. Or microwave it and accidentally create butter soup. Your call.
Flour. You likely have a bag left over from the Great Bread-Making Era of the Pandemic. Expiration date: July 2021. I’m sure it’s fine, though.
Slivered (not chopped) raw (not roasted) almonds. They’re in the baking aisle. Or the snack aisle. Or the candy aisle or the seasonal aisle. Or maybe an end cap with the fruitcake ingredients, conveniently placed for the three people in the world who still make fruitcake.
Powdered sugar. How much? Well, when you sneeze, your kitchen’s going to look like Pablo Escobar’s bathroom.
1/16 tsp of an exotic ingredient requiring four grocery store trips and a final, desperate drive across town to a specialty shop where the proprietor has blue hair, smells like patchouli and wears a T-shirt reading, “Ask me about my podcast.”
Now you’re ready to bake!
Directions:
1. Gather the kids and excitedly inform them of the upcoming magical holiday experience. When you tell them what kind of cookies you’re making, listen, with a tight smile, as they tell you that they “hate almonds” and won’t eat those cookies, never EVER. Remind them that an hour earlier, they were eating almonds you needed for the recipe and saying, “Yum! Almonds!”
2. Beat the eggs, which are at room temperature. If the eggs are cold, have the kids watch a little TV while they warm up.
3. Two hours later, when the kids refuse to get up from the couch, make the cookies by yourself, resentfully.
4. Slowly add the sugar to the beaten eggs. Slower than that! SLOWER! OK, now that’s too slow. Speed it up. Oops. It all fell in, didn’t it?
5. Add the rest of the ingredients with your youngest child, who wanders in and asks to help. Realize after he dips his hand into the dough and starts licking it off his fingers that he hasn’t washed his hands. Consider that he also probably just got salmonella from the raw eggs.
6. Use an ice cream scooper to perfectly portion 1/4 cup of dough. When you can’t find the ice cream scooper, use a spoon. Resign yourself to the fact that some will be the size of a baseball and others the size of a marble.
7. Take the cookies to the preheated oven.
8. Notice that you forgot to preheat the oven.
9. Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, unless it’s a nonstick tray, in which case it’s 325 degrees for 12 minutes, unless it’s a convection oven, in which case it’s 375 for 5 minutes, unless you live in a high-altitude area, in which case just go to the grocery store and buy premade cookies because no one’s going to know the difference anyway.
10. Yell at the kids that they better get in here if they want to frost the cookies.
11. Try, and fail, to prevent them eating 37 cookies apiece during decorating.
12. Give the youngest one the blue frosting. Now the green. WAIT, no, the red. Actually, the blue. Can the oldest have some sprinkles? Not those sprinkles, the ones in the pantry.
13. Obsequiously praise the artistry on the cookies, even the ones that look like the dog might have puked them up. Especially those.
14. Excuse the kids to watch more TV.
15. Eat 10 cookies, one at a time, each time promising that this is absolutely the last one.
16. Now, congratulate yourself on a job well done and have a nice glass of wine. Or two. The holidays are hard, and you deserve it.
To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.
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I’m Brian Danny Max, a chef and a writer at cookingtom.com. I’m here to talk about food and cooking, and to share some of my favorite recipes with you all! I’ve been interested in food and cooking since I was a child. My parents are both great cooks, and they taught me a lot about the kitchen. I’ve been cooking professionally for about 10 years now, and I’ve loved every minute of it! I specialize in healthy, flavorful recipes that are easy to make at home. I believe that anyone can cook a delicious meal, no matter their skill level. I’m here to help you learn how to cook, and to show you that it’s not as difficult as you might think! I hope you’ll check out my blog and my recipes, and I look forward to hearing from you!