Dryers and Weighers

Saturday was a fun day of baking cookies with my good friend Erica. We got a little delirious after a while but that only made it that much more fun. Erica is my friend who loves traditions and our cookie making is one of them. Her daughter Lynden is usually a part of the festivities in some way, this year she was busy keeping Sugar and Honey occupied (really they were running from her but she thought it was fun). This year we made 8 different types of cookies: spritz, sugar, gingerbread, rice krispy yummies (that's the name I gave them), white chocolate cranberry, lemon melt-aways, peanut butter blossoms, and peanut butter chocolate cups. It didn't seem like a lot until we were all done and realized how many cookies we had to decorate and frost!
Erica makes the same kind each year and I think this year she really perfected the recipes! I try to make some the same and some different. I've never made gingerbread men before so that was one of my new ones. Erica has made sugar cookies in the past but I haven't so that was a "new" one for me. The other two I make each year. That stinkin' cookie press gives me grief each year I use it. I TOTALLY love it when it works but it takes me forever to figure out how it goes together because I only use it once a year.
We started the cookies at around 8:30 and I had to stop to get ready for work at 3:45. We took a small but very necessary break at around 1:00 when Tramaine brought us lunch (thank you Tramaine!) and then it was back to work. I did get a new stove which served us very well, I only over cooked one batch of Spritz cookies but otherwise everything came out fabulous. Two funny conversations occured during our delirious baking:

Me: how much is 6oz?
Erica: like 3/4 a cup, do you not have a weigher?
Me: (giving Erica that huh? look) You mean a scale?
Erica: (laughing hysterically) Yeah, or weigher...same thing.
Me: Yeah, same thing (laughing hysterically)

I ended up using a cup because it was for my rice krispy yummies so the more chocolate and butterscotch the better!

2nd conversation:
Me: I need to move these cookies off the dryer
Erica: (just looked at me and laughed)
Me: (catching what I just said) Yeah, cuz when you take cookies out of the oven they need to DRY first. Sheesh, that one will go on the blog for sure.

All in all, it was a great day spent with one of my best friends. I have been so busy this fall that we haven't really hung out all that often. In fact, she's even been dreaming that we aren't friends anymore. How horrible is that?! She said the twist of the knife in her dream was when I said I didn't want to coach tennis with her anymore. So, I am going to set the record straight right now. Erica, I will always want to coach tennis with you. You are my buffer, and I know I couldn't have coached all 19 of those girls last year without you! On another note, Erica took a bunch of pictures and when I get them from her I will post them. I am still trying to get her to BLOG but she just won't...yet. I will turn her over to the dark side of blogging before too long!