Start Time: 10:00 am
Stop Time: 5:50 am
Goal: 23 types of cookies, packaged, wrapped & ready to deliver on Saturday 12/17
Completed: Chocolate Swirls (4x), Rose Hibiscus Shortbread (4x), Snickerdoodles (4x), Gingersnaps (4x)
Mixed: Geode (2x), Pecan Sandies (6x)
Holy hell. I feel really accomplished today. First off, let me share a little OCD victory. These swirls are near perfect.
I busted ass today. I literally swapped out pans every 6 minutes for about 4 hours today. The Husband figured out that we can overcome our wack-a-doo oven with it’s heating issues by putting both racks in the center so that they are only about 3 inches apart to get 2 trays baking at roughly the same temperature. To be safe, I’ve been pulling out the trays, rotating them and swapping them. EVERY. SIX. MINUTES. This gives me the perfect bake.
I’m super excited about the Rose Hibiscus shortbread with white chocolate chips. When I was scouring Pinterest for ideas on black or dark cookies, I came across this image for handmade bath bombs. Now, mind you, mine don’t look as good as these– I mean come on– these are flowers pressed into bath salts and made into cakes and totally not edible. But, it made me think, Why can’t I make cookies with flowers in them and color the dough black??
McIrish & I went to Michael’s this morning, and I picked up a ton of black food coloring so I could finish flooding my cookies and color my dough. I had a bottle of dried roses and dried hibiscus flowers from a trip to an organic herb and spice farm in Oregon that my mom took me to. So I used my trusty food processor, ground up the flowers and mixed up the shortbread dough. 
I knew the flowers would turn brown and darken in the over, so I wouldn’t get the radiant colors in the inspiration pic there, so for added color, I tossed in some white chocolate chips. The result was a really beautiful, fragrant, floral shortbread that is a little odd, but interesting to taste. They remind me of something that should be at a really posh tea party or something. Again, not as pretty as the inspiration pic, but they smell amazing and are just different in flavor. I really like them.
The Snickerdoodle recipe is a new one this year, and it’s waaaaay better than my usual recipe. As with any type of cookie, there are 2 camps: those who like chewy and those who like crunchy. My normal recipe is a crunchy, and this new one is a chewy one (in the centers). Personally, I’m a chewy cookie person unless it’s a shortbread or sugar cookie– then it’s crunchy or crisp all the way.
I worked as efficiently as I could today. There isn’t a way I could have made up more time or knocked out more, and I’m totally spent tonight as I get ready to turn in for the night. I totally killed it. Flooded the remaining cookies, hammered out a bunch of recipes and finished the final touches on a few of the sugar cookies. It’s nearly morning, when most sane people are thinking of getting up and going to work, and I’m only now getting ready for bed, but I feel GREAT. Made up for some lost time, and moved the project along insane-o style.
So this is day 4, in the bag. Tomorrow is the last push for baking and then I’ve got to start packaging. My decorative papers arrived Saturday, so I’m in good shape. Thank heavens that stuff is in order and I don’t have to worry about running out of card stock and stuff to make tags. This project can’t suffer any more set backs or I’ll be in a pickle. But we’re not there yet. I’m off to bed for a 5-6 hour nap, then it’s back at it. More tomorrow.
g’night!
