Even More Cookies

Before the excitement of Cookie Day even began, I learned that some friends in Philadelphia were planning a get-together: a Sunday-morning run followed by a cookie exchange. When I asked Ryan if he was interested in heading to Philly for the shindig, he said yes. So we made plans to participate in this year's Philly event.

The run was a lot of fun; we really lucked out with a mild December morning. The cookie swap was a lot of fun, too. I wish I'd done a better job of keeping track of what other people brought. There were some great meringues, some tahini cookies, blondies, and more.

I brought along the following:

Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies, from Lauren Chattman's Mom's Big Book of Cookies; I made these with a tablespoon (or so) of orange zest in the dough. Very nice. These cookies were the ones we left out for Santa this year, too. Awesome. I add 1/4 to 1/2 cup more flour than the recipe calls for; the extra flour makes for a cookie that spreads less, which I like.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies, also from the Chattman book; a chocolate cookie with peanut butter and peanut-butter chips in the dough. Excellent.

Oatmeal Cookies with Cranberries and White Chocolate Chips, also from the Chattman book. The recipe was developed with butterscotch chips, but I used white chocolate instead. They went well with the dried cranberries.

Orange Poppy Seed Spirals, from Tish Boyle's The Good Cookie. In the end, not a bad cookie, what what a pain making them. I ruined the first batch of poppy-seed filling, which involves just scalding 2 tablespoons of whole milk and 1 tablespoon of honey. Good grief! That liquid is then combined with poppy seeds ground in the food processor with sugar, cloves, and lemon zest. It's then swirled into rounds with an orange-spiked cookie dough. The cookies tasted terrific; the orange and clove are great partners. In fact, the cookies smelled and tasted a lot like Constant Comment tea.

Mojito Shortbread, from a recipe in Cook's Country magazine. In 2006, Ryan and I put this cookie on the list for Cookie Day. We didn't make it. In 2007, we put it on the list for Cookie Day. We didn't make it. Because I had purchased fresh mint (again), I finally had to make it. It seemed like a great idea for a cookie: a shortbread with lemon and lime zest baked til lightly golden, then sprinkled with a combination of mint and sugar chopped together in the food processor. I don't know. In the end, I was really underwhelmed, maybe mostly because after the mint-sugar coating hardened on top of the shortbread, it crumbled in big chunks and fell off. Also, I think I bought some lousy mint that just lacked flavor. This shortbread just left me with a shrug.