Nomen est omen - since I had decided to call our Christmas cookie expedition The Baking Inferno, the whole thing did indeed go to hell yesterday. The cookies looked good. Here is proof:
Exhibit A
Spritzgebäck (by Sonja)
Exhibit B
Dark Shortbread (by me)
Exhibit C
Banana Cookies (also by yours truly)
I won't be including the recipes this time around because there's not much to be proud of. If you know what Spritzgebäck means, then you know it's not supposed to look like that. The cookies should have been nicely formed by a pastry press with a star-shaped nozzle. The dough chose to melt during baking and became flat and shapeless. However, these are the tastiest of the lot.
The "dark" shortbread was a recipe from last year's Brigitte Plätzchen supplement. It's not shortbread. It's pure cocoa with a little bit of flour and sugar. If you're a chocoholic, you might like it, but it's definitely an acquired taste.
The Banana Cookies are a variation of my great-grandmother's cookie recipe. Changed to include bananas, and because mashed bananas make the dough soft, I had to add more flour than the recipe suggested. The result: a bland, forgettable cookie with a hint of banana, soft enough to become crumbly long before Christmas.
Yes, a disaster. An edible disaster, but a disaster nevertheless. I suppose that last week we had been treated by a streak of what is generally known as beginner's luck. This week was a rude awakening. But we're not discouraged and promise to do better next week. Or at least to try.
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