Snow day=Play day

This morning at 5:26 am my phone rang. Usually, a call this early in the morning would be either frustrating or worrisome, today, however, I was elated for the wake up call. Although my caller ID didn't register the number, I knew who it was: our superintendent. I'd hoped for this call for hours. You see, this was our view from the car as we drove home from a Christmas party last night.

I told Mike that he should have watched the road through my phone because it actually made the blizzard conditions appear tame. The snow and wind continued through the rest of yesterday, into the night and through today. Because of the treachery, we got a snow day!


I made good use of the day by baking...all day. I tried a few new recipes, a cherry-chocolate cookie, a butter cookie a-la Martha Stewart, and a cranberry-almond biscotti from a new cookbook. 


I was pretty happy with the way the cherry-chocolate cookies turned out. One of my favorite Christmas cookie memories is making "Uncle Butch's cookies" each year. In reality, these were a coconut-Eagle Brand-cherry cookie, but because my Uncle Butch loved them so much, we referred to them as his. I saw a picture of these cookies and they reminded me so much of my uncle's cookies that I had to make them!

I did make a couple of changes to the recipe. Both of them were with the frosting, neither one of them was intentional. To begin with, I was somehow out of chocolate chips, so I used milk chocolate almond bark instead. Then, I incorrectly remembered how much cherry juice to put in the frosting. I compensated with a little powdered sugar, but will be sure to get the proportions right next time I make these. Regardless of the mistakes, they came out fudgey (sp?) and delicious!

In search for a good spritz recipe, I stumbled upon this Martha Stewart recipe which triples for three different types of cookies. I ended up using them for a spritz cookie (below) and a cut out cookie (not pictured). Both turned out well, and I will be adding this recipe to my arsenal. My only frustration was that Martha was right. The recipe is suppose to be blended in a food processor. I thought that I could surely get the same result with my KitchenAid. No dice. I ended up putting my crumbly mess into the food processor (in small quantities because I have a small food processor) and wouldn't you know it? It turned into dough! Apparently Martha DOES know what she's talking about! 

All in all, it was a productive and domestic day. Hopefully you'll try these recipes on your own. If you do, let me know how they turn out! :)