Cookie Bake '08, Day One

Alas, no pictures because my computer died. Last night was the first night of Cookie Bake '08. I baked two cookies off and have two more doughs in the fridge. Tonight is baking off the two doughs and making 3 more. Hopefully Cookie Bake '08 will only be two nights, but a third is a possibility.

Last night's cookies.

Hazelnut Shortbread Sticks
I've baked these off and are ready for dipping in chocolate tonight. I'm not going to dip them in crushed hazelnuts, because I like the cleaner look. Without the chocolate, they're good but could use a little more sugar. We'll see how they are once finished. An easy recipe to make, it just took a long time to shape all the dough into cookies. This was the first time, in my entire life, that I portioned the cookies so perfectly that the last cookie was just the right size with no leftover dough. I did a little dance in commemoration of my awesomeness.

Cinnamon-Sugar Pinwheels
This recipe is something that I usually just do with leftover pie dough to make Matt happy. Generally I make the cookies in the shape of rugelach, but this time I did half the batch in the pinwheel method they describe and half as rugelach. The pinwheels I put on the pan standing up. Even though most of the cookies fell over onto their sides, I would still recommend that because they seemed to cook better that way. Or maybe that's just my oven. Either way, these are excellent and supper easy, especially with pre purchased pie dough.

Off-To-Bed Butter Cookies
I tasted the dough, and it seems like these are going to be good, but I'm reserving judgement. The dough was a massive pain in my bum to get to hold together into a log for cutting tonight. I ended up using a bunch of plastic wrap to manhandle it so we'll see how it ends up (Seriously - buy yourself a $40 thing of plastic wrap at Costco. It's the best cling wrap without sticking to itself and you can use tons of it without feeling guilty. I've had mine for 5 years and it's showing no signs of being anywhere near finished.)

Pecan Snowballs
This is my first attempt at vegan baking. I liked this recipe because it only called for one ingredient I didn't already keep around. The dough is fantastic and I'm looking forward to trying these when they come out of the oven tonight.

I'll update tomorrow with the results of tonight's extravaganza.