I have decided to become the Anti-Martha. Not out of Schadenfreude, because I really did not take any pleasure in her misfortunes, but because some of her tactics are just so rigid and humorless and needlessly complicated. Our cat would never stand for an unnecessary weekly bath. We do not need to vacuum the garage (which is actually my studio!). Cookies should be sweet and simple.
In the current issue of Living, their holiday cookie baking practically requires not only Cordon Bleu baking skills, but also a graphic design post grad degree. Some of the best cookies I have ever eaten were decorated by children: irregular shapes overlaid with ham-fisted applications of sprinkles and icing. Martha’s cookies were perfect shapes, with piped outlines, and color gradients that are difficult to achieve this side of Photoshop. I work with Photoshop ever day. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I like coloring outside of the lines. And letting the children have their say.
I think that Christmas cookies should remind us of times spent crowding around the table, elbowing each other impatiently for turns with the favorite cookie cutter. A box of cookies sent from home should not try to impress with skills with royal icing, but to drag us back to the warm, messy kitchens of our youth. An oatmeal cookie might well be a humble Madeleine. Nothing says loving, like lumpy and bumpy and homemade. We’ll leave the streamlining and the templates to Martha.
Over the past weekend, Thanksgiving weekend, the Tall One had specifically requested oatmeal, which we gladly procured, which he then ignored in favor of labor-intensive, Mom-made breakfasts: bacon, eggs, biscuits, gravy, and sausage rolls. We needed the health benefits of oatmeal just from watching him eat all those heart-stopping plates of pork.
Baking holiday cookies with our children was always fun and messy. The results were usually delicious, sometimes cute, and usually visual disasters. One year, back in the Tall Boy day, he was concentrating so much on icing one particular cookie with red, and green (which eventually turned gray with his endless ministrations) icing that I felt like a mirthless production line. He spent a pleasurable 10 minutes concentrating on one perfect creation, letting his imagination roam the far reaches of the universe, while all I could see was a cookie sheet full of undecorated wreath cookies. I slapped on a universal base coat of green before returning to squeeze on uniform red dots (note to self: buy cinnamon Red Hot candies this year), and then covering them all with a light coating of dusting sugar, to evoke snow. Who do you think had more fun? And whose cookie probably tasted better? I bet the Tall Boy’s, since his had many layers of icing, and a generous coating of pastel-colored sprinkles.
Small aside: Did you know that you shouldn’t eat the silver dragées that so often adorn Martha’s creations? That’s right, they are beautiful, but inedible. Keep that in mind – food that is beautiful to look at, but you mustn’t eat it! Heresy, I say.
We have a large collection of cookie cutters, but we tend to use the same few every year: the wreath, the gingerbread man, the half moon, the candy cane, the star and the flower. My grandmother’s biscuit cutter, which we use for cutting circles, stays in a handy kitchen drawer. I love encountering the bag of cookie cutters in the cabinet where we keep seldom-used kitchen gadgets in July, when I am rummaging around for shish kabob skewers for the grill. I pause, and think of those winter days, when we had serious decisions to make – chocolate or vanilla? Sprinkles or the dreaded dragées? Gingersnaps or sugar cookies? Slice and bake, or roll, roll, roll? Coconut flakes or glittering sugar? Shortbread or Pfeffernüsse?
We like the simple cookies best, I think. Sugar cookies are only made for Christmas, so we have to bake them every year. What else could we put out for Santa on Christmas Eve, store bought cookies? I think not. We understand ceremony and tradition, after all. And we want to stay on the Fat Man’s good side.
A couple of years ago we were all delighted to find that shortbread is an easy cookie to master. And now that we are all practically grownups, we can safely dip the shortbread fingers in hot pots of melted dark chocolate, to give ourselves an air of suave sophistication. Unless we were in Martha’s kitchen, where I am afraid we would be found lacking.
We were still in a turkey-induced torpor this past rainy Sunday. The children had gone back to universities and we were left on our own. This time was giddily spent reading the Sunday paper, napping, reading best-selling novels and ignoring the laundry pile. But oatmeal must have been on our lazy brains. Late in the afternoon we heeded its siren song, and moseyed into the kitchen to whip up a batch of oatmeal cookies. I guess we missed the children.
Another aside: You cannot include these cookies in a heart-healthy regime. I had to read the recipe a couple of times before I understood that it calls for 1 stick PLUS SIX tablespoons of butter! Heavens to Betsy.
And, as is another time-honored tradition in this house, we did not put in a cup of healthy stinking raisins, we used Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate Chips instead. Deelish.
Oatmeal Cookie Caper
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 6 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda (In the box! Don’t make the mistake I did a couple of month ago!
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups oatmeal, uncooked
1 cup raisins (nothing to going to counteract that butter – go for the gusto – go for chocolate!)
Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, beat butter and sugars on medium speed of electric mixer until creamy. Really creamy. This is important. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Add oats and raisins (chocolate chips – really – you’re making a mistake to use raisins!); mix well. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets. (We use a small ice cream scoop) Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; cool more on a wire rack. But be nice, and take half to the office; your co-workers will adore you. ‘Tis the season!
“Baking is like washing–the results are equally temporary.”
― Patricia Briggs,
https://www.marthastewart.com/275359/holiday-cookies-for-santa/@center/1009046/christmas-kids
Write a Letter to the Editor on this Article
We encourage readers to offer their point of view on this article by submitting the following form. Editing is sometimes necessary and is done at the discretion of the editorial staff.