The Itchy Lot

The problem with decorating cookies is that it takes a very long time. First you have to bake them. Then you have to cool them. (And that's a whole-day affair as it is) And then you have to decorate them. And then you have to dry them. This is an incredibly time-consuming process and can scare off even the most dedicated baker (like myself) who just doesn't want to devote the time and energy necessary, especially during the dark, depressive days of November, December, January, and February. I was talking about this with Mariella at Fantes last year, and she suggested baking the cookies ahead and freezing them until I wanted to decorate them. I was shocked; I'd never even considered the idea before. But when I was little, I have fond memories of my grandmother keeping blue coffee cans of cookies wrapped in waxed paper in her freezer, which she'd store there for as long as a year sometimes, and bring them out for company (or, Lisa and I would just steal cookies straight from the freezer while Nona was watching her "stories" on the tv). To be honest, they tasted like they'd been in there for a while, but most people don't freeze cookies for a year. Also, she seldom defrosted them. She just serve a plate of frozen cookies. (I wish I had her recipes. Especially for blondies and those iced cookies she made.) So I knew that freezing cookies was possible. I'd never gotten that idea out of my head, but my freezer was too small and crowded to store much of anything for long, let alone several batches of cookies.

And then I got the freezer this summer from Sears. Oh what a glorious freezer it is, too. Now that my basement was finally accessible from *inside* the house, I'd planned on getting a small chest freezer where I could store butter and vegetables. But when dad and I got to Sears, we discovered that there were no frost-free chest freezers, and they needed to be defrosted every 6 months. Fishy pointed out that I'd never defrost it (guilty!), and that the space in the freezer would get smaller, and smaller, until finally, instead of defrosting it, I'd just say, "ok let's get a new freezer." And of course, he's spot on. So, I ended up coming home from Sears with a wonderful full-sized stand-up frost-free freezer, which I love. And I keep it at zero degrees F, which is considerably colder than the freezer in the top part of my fridge, so things keep well even longer than usual.

In the last few days, I've baked several batches of cookies: sugar cookie xmas trees to be decorated, rugelach (both apricot and raspberry), and some white chocolate cranberry pecan cookies I made this morning, and except for a few i kept aside for the insatiable Fishy, they're all in the freezer now. I'm a little afraid they won't taste good when I finally pull them out and defrost them, closer to Christmas, and that I will have baked them all for nothing, but for now, whenever I have the energy, I bake some more. Tonite I'm making more sugar cookies--either xmas trees again or snowflakes; I haven't decided yet.

Hey, give me a day's notice, and I'll defrost some for you if you'd like to drop by.