I Fall To Pieces...

Life, it would seem, is all about balance. Yesterday, I threw a great party, surrounded by friends and delicious baked goods. Today, life decided to put things into balance, fittingly, by reminding me of the deficiencies of my own vestibular system. The chain of events that unfolded today started off on Friday, when I started to come down with a cold. I was too busy preparing for the cookie exchange to get the proper rest to alleviate my symptoms over the weekend, so I was still feeling poorly enough this morning that I decided to stay home a few extra hours and get some additional sleep before heading in for a day of meetings at work. Clearly, I should have sucked it up and gone into the office on time.

As I was getting ready to leave, I remembered that I had made plans to meet Lauren for a free advance screening of the upcoming movie, The Young Victoria, about the early life of England's Queen Victoria. I had planned on being home that night so that Dad could drop by and pick up his garage door opener, which I had borrowed for my party guests, and which he would be needing the next evening when I was similarly going to be out of the house. I decided to swing by his office and drop off the garage door opener on my way to work, placing me on a bus that I don't normally take to get to work.

I boarded the bus, and as I walked towards the back to take a seat, the driver slammed the accelerator, as CTA drivers are wont to do. There was no handle anywhere nearby for me to grab to steady myself, and with the floor slick with morning precipitation, I went flying through the air, landing on my knees. Two other passengers came to my aid, helping me off the ground and into a chair, and the driver stopped the bus and came back with a cursory offer to call an ambulance. That seemed like somewhat of a disproportionate response, but a quick check under my pant legs (which miraculously survived without tearing), revealed an intense case of road rash in the pattern of the parallel ridges on the bus floor that are supposed to provide traction. I was a bloody mess.

As I disembarked the bus and started walking towards Dad's office, I became aware of the fact that I could barely put any weight on my right foot. I could feel a dull ache all the way down the outside edge of my foot from my ankle to my toes. Not a good sign.

Thankfully, Dad's office was equipped with a first aid kit, and I managed to get myself disinfected, bandaged, and on my way back to work. Throughout the day, my foot and ankle swelled and bruised, as did the skin beneath my torn-up knees. I kept throwing Tylenol at the problem, but it only seemed to take the edge off. At this point, I'm waiting to see how things feel in the morning. If things are just as bad as they are now (or God forbid, worse), I'll have to head to the urgent care center to have my foot assessed. They probably won't tell me anything I don't already know, but at least it will give me some peace of mind. With the way things are at the moment, that might be the only comfort I can hope for.

"C" Is For Cookies...

My name is Haley, and I have a baking addiction. But I don't have to tell you that -- the unrelenting stream of cookie-themed posts this month speaks for itself. To give myself another excuse to keep baking, and to provide myself with an audience outside of my coworkers, I decided to host a cookie swap, a breed of holiday party in which each guest bakes and brings along a batch of their favorite cookies, and everyone goes home with a custom assortment curated from the offerings of their peers. I love any reason to play hostess, so what could be more appropriate for me than a party focused on baked goods?

Although I only requested that my guests bring three dozen of one type of cookie, because I was the hostess I decided to make three kinds: chocolate chip cookies with peppermint bark instead of chocolate chips, Aunt Lois' sugar cookies, and gingerbread-flavored palmiers (a French-pastry made from coiled puff pastry with a sweet, crunchy glaze). I also whipped up a batch of mulled apple cider in my crock pot, some homemade spanakopita, some mini-quiches, and assembled a cheese plate just to have a few savory options to balance all of the dessert.

My guests starting arriving around two in the afternoon, and they miraculously waited to attack the food until everyone had arrived and laid out their respective cookies on a platter. Indeed, the bounty of cookies was so impressive, that nearly everyone whipped out a camera or a cell phone to capture the moment; Sarah's boyfriend, Zach, even took a video of the feast.

From bottom, clockwise: Sarah brought peanut butter kisses, Mireya and her friend brought two different flavors of chocolate chip cookies, Ashley brought macaroons, Natasha brought jam thumbprints, Lauren brought pfeffernüssen (a German spice cookie rolled in powdered sugar), Jane brought dark chocolate cookies with milk chocolate chunks, Claire brought magic bar cookies, and Taryn brought toffee chocolate chip cookies.

From the other side of the counter, you can see my gingerbread palmiers on the bottom right, and Lois' sugar cookies are on the top of the cake stand.

Me with my buddies from work, Mireya and Natasha. I'm quite fond of my new headband, which I got at the One of a Kind art show a week ago. I think it's especially festive for the holiday season.

Zach, Me, Ashley, Lauren, Sarah, and Taryn.

Overall, I think the party was a success. Despite having a few last minute additions to the guest list on the morning of the party, I ended up having just the right amount of savory hors d'oeuvres and apple cider, which just goes to show that I usually serve too much food at my parties. Everyone seemed to have a pleasant time, and they enjoyed the little party favors of kitchen gadgets that I gave out in addition to the parcels of cookies. Aside from having a truly daunting amount of cookies leftover that did not get carted away by my guests, I think things couldn't have gone better. The cookie exchange might just become my default party for holidays to come...

Mission Accomplished...

For me, baking is a hobby. Some people golf, some people read, some people make arts and crafts, but what all hobbyists have in common is a craving to challenge themselves and have new experiences within their chosen avocation. Much as I enjoy baking unfussy, delicious cookies, I sometimes get struck by a whim to try something new and expand my skill set. These whims often result in overly ambitious projects, not all of which are successful. An attempt a couple years ago to turn my love of caramelized bananas into a banana upside-down cake was a resounding failure, for example.

When I was scouring my various baking books and magazines in search of cookie recipes to prepare this holiday season, I became completely smitten with a photo in Martha Stewart's Cookies: The Very Best Treats To Bake And Share (from which I seem to be drawing a lot of inspiration this year) of red and white striped, peppermint flavored meringue cookies sandwiched together with chocolate filling. They were spectacularly attractive, and I couldn't get them out of my mind. "What is wrong with me?" I wondered, "I don't even like meringues!" It didn't seem to matter that I didn't even want to eat them, I had never made meringues before and I was curious about whether I could do it or not.

I tried putting the cookies out of my mind, and was partially aided by some very negative reviews on the Martha Stewart website about the cookies' lack of longevity and people's woes in replicating Martha's results. I thought I had talked myself out of it completely when I found myself separating a boatload of eggs for a batch of spanakiropita I made over the weekend. I only needed the yolks, and the bowl of egg whites was sitting right there on the counter, taunting me. I'd already made Chocolate Peppermint Cookies and sugar cookies in the past 48 hours, but I figured, "What the heck?"

I whipped out the stand mixer, a double boiler, and the new cake decorating set that I got as an early Christmas present from Mom last week, and went to work. The egg whites didn't inflate quite as much as I thought they would, but they reached a state of stiff peaks, so I pressed forward. I made a huge mess attempting to paint stripes inside the piping bag using red food coloring, as per Martha's instructions -- she must think that people have child-size hands to accomplish this task. The piping itself (my first attempt in the past decade or so since I took a cake decorating workshop in elementary school) did not go so well at first, but once I figured out the necessary muscle movement, my success rate improved considerably.

You can really tell the difference between my first sheet of meringues on the left, and my more practiced set on the right. I ended up eating the worst rejects for "quality control" purposes.

After baking for nearly two hours at a low temperature in the oven, I thought I had been successful; the meringues seemed to have set, and they hadn't browned. I left them to cool completely, but when I went to remove them from the pan I discovered that they were still rather soft on the inside. I'm not sure what went wrong, other than perhaps oven temperature fluctuations (most ovens have a difficult time maintaining temperatures below 250 degrees.) I opted to try leaving them out overnight, hoping they would dry out further, which seemed to do the trick by morning.

The next night, I went to work creating the chocolate filling. Since my meringue-piping efforts had only produced about two-thirds of what Martha called for in the recipe, I made a corresponding amount of filling. Her instructions said to wait until the ganache could hold its shape before piping, but since I hadn't gotten home until after 10 o'clock that evening, I was short on time to wait for the filling to set up. I thought it was close enough when I started, but I was sorely mistaken. My attempt at getting the filling in the piping bag created an abysmal mess, with chocolate all over the counter and all over me. The ganache started running out of the piping bag as soon as I turned it over, because it was too fluid. I tried getting it on the flat surface of the meringues, but the filling just dripped off the edges. I ended up dipping the bottoms of the meringues in the chocolate that had pooled on the surface of the counter (the cool stone had brought the ganache to a better consistency), and sandwiching the cookies together that way. Still, even with the drippy chocolate, and the epic disaster I had created on the counter, the cookies were still gorgeous -- almost as pretty as Martha's.

As for the taste, the cookies proved to be somewhat of a revelation. Never have I had a meringue that I have enjoyed, but these might just make me a convert. They were crisp on the outside, marshmallow-y soft on the inside, with a big wallop of refreshing peppermint and a hint of chocolate, and they practically melted in your mouth. I brought the lion's share of the cookies to work the next day, where I hand-delivered them to a selection of my coworkers. Normally, when I bring cookies to work, I leave them anonymously in the break-room, but this time, after all the effort and all the mess, I wanted to see people's enjoyment first hand. Hands down, the best response came from Luciana, the administrative assistant to several of the museum's top executives, who is apparently a huge fan of meringues. She insisted on taking a picture of them, because they were so festive, and she ran down the hall to find other coworkers, because they just had to try some of my meringues. That's what baking is all about in my book -- making people's day with a little piece of love from the kitchen.

Peppermint Meringues With Chocolate Filling

adapted from Martha Stewart

3 large egg whites

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Red food coloring paste

4 oz. semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

2/3 cup heavy cream

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper; secure corners with masking tape. Fit a pastry bag with a small open-star tip. Set aside.

2. Make meringues: Put egg whites and sugar in a glass bowl. Set bowl over a pan of simmering water, and stir gently until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm to the touch, 2 to 3 minutes.

3. Transfer mixture to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form. Mix in peppermint extract.

4. Using a new small paintbrush, paint 2 or 3 stripes of red food coloring inside the pastry bag. Fill bag with 1 to 2 cups meringue. Pipe small (3/4-inch-high) star shapes onto prepared baking sheets. Refill bag as necessary, adding food coloring each time.

5. Bake cookies until crisp but not brown, about 1 hour 40 minutes. Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks.

6. Meanwhile, make ganache: Heat cream in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until just simmering. Pour over chocolate in a small bowl. Let stand 5 minutes. Gently stir until smooth, about 5 minutes. Let ganache cool at room temperature, stirring every 5 to 10 minutes, until thick enough to hold its shape.

7. Fill a pastry bag fitted with a small plain round tip (such as Ateco #5) with ganache. Pipe a small amount onto bottom of 1 meringue. Sandwich with another. Repeat with remaining ganache and meringues. Transfer to wire racks; let set 30 minutes. Cookies can be stored in a single layer in airtight containers at room temperature up to 2 days.

Sugar Rush...

In case you were concerned that I was playing favorites in disliking the traditional cookies of Dad's side of the family, you can rest assured that I am an equal-opportunist in my dislike of traditional family cookie recipes -- I don't care for the special sugar cookies produced on Mom's side for Christmas either.

These take the form of thinly rolled-out sugar cookies, frosted around the edge with green buttercream, dipped into coconut dyed green, and decorated with cinnamon Red Hots candies. We call them "wreath cookies," since that's what they look like when decorated, and their annual preparation is a Wyatt Christmas tradition. By the time the family congregates for the holiday, Grandma will have already baked the cookies, and a cadre of female relatives sits around the dining room table decorating them in assembly line fashion: one person frosts, another dips the frosted cookies into coconut, and two people work on decorating with Red Hots. For as long as I can remember, my job has been the last one; as the youngest girl in the family, it was always deemed that I would make a mess with the frosting or the coconut, and my place at the end of the assembly line has long since become permanent. So, while I enjoy making wreath cookies, I have absolutely no desire to consume any. The three features that make them what they are (buttercream frosting, coconut, and Red Hots) are all things that I don't like.

In fact, I'm not sure that much of anybody likes to eat them anymore, beyond my mother. They were the favorite cookie of my uncle Doug, who passed away when I was very young, and I think that we continue making them more to honor his memory than because we like to eat them. Instead, my sugar cookie allegiance is to my Great Aunt Lois, whose sugar cookies are pillowy, cakey delights. They are hand-formed into balls and rolled in sugar before baking instead of being rolled out and cut into shapes, and the sugar coating creates a sweet, crackly crust that is irresistible. Since we usually stay with Lois over the holidays because there is not enough space at Grandma's house to accommodate everyone (seriously, how they managed to raise five children in a two-bedroom house with what was up-until-recently only one bathroom still amazes me), I've gotten to indulge in Lois' cookies for breakfast for years before heading over to Grandma's house for the day.

Several years ago, I was lucky enough to obtain the recipe from Lois, and I've been fiddling with it ever since. It has taken years to get my cookies to match the perfection of hers, despite having the same recipe, but this year I hit upon a secret that has gotten me as close as I have ever been. Although I can't share Lois' sugar cookie recipe with you (it's a family-only secret), hopefully this trick will be enough: my cookies had always spread too much, making them flat and chewy instead of light and airy. Taking a nod from a couple recipes I had seen recently, I decided to try refrigerating the dough for 15 minutes after shaping but before baking it. It worked like a charm.

Do The Peppermint Twist...

Persistence pays off. Three years ago, I was in my senior year of college, and I was invited to a holiday party, for which I was supposed to bring a dish. Naturally, my first thought was dessert, and I had recently spotted a festive recipe in an email from Martha Stewart for Chocolate Peppermint Cookies. The picture was tempting indeed -- puffy, deep, dark chocolate mounds studded with striped bits of broken peppermint candies. I was sold on the picture alone.

When I finished my attempt at the same recipe, it was clear that my cookies didn't even belong in the same universe as Martha's. I don't know what kind of food styling tricks her staff had employed when preparing the version for publication, but my cookies were wafer thin, mostly baked into a single blob from spreading far more than the recipe indicated, and the broken bits of candy had melted off the edges of the cookies and puddled around their edges. They were a hot mess. A tasty hot mess.

Tasty enough that I kept at the recipe, despite their homeliness. I made small modifications to my technique every time, and eventually I got them to a reasonably attractive state. The cookies eventually became a favorite of my best friend Katherine, and they have become somewhat of a tradition between us. I've baked them for her for her birthday, I brought them with me when I visited her in Atlanta, and I even paid $80 to overnight a batch to her in Japan as a Christmas gift when she was living there. This year, they are going into my annual Cookie Bonanza giveaway, so I fixed up a batch of the dough to freeze and have at the ready when the time comes, so I won't have to make all of the various cookie doughs all at the last minute.

Freezing cookie dough is one of my favorite baking tricks. I roll the dough into individually-sized balls as if I were going to bake them, place them on a wax paper-lined baking sheet, and freeze them until they are hard. Then, I transfer them to a plastic Ziploc bag and squeeze out as much air as possible, and return them to the freezer. I like to write the baking instructions on the bag, so I don't have to hunt down the recipe again when it's time to bake them. Although I'm going to bake off all of these at once, this technique is particularly useful for when a cookie craving strikes when you don't have the time or energy to make a whole batch. With dough in the freezer, you can just bake as many cookies as you are in the mood to eat, whenever you want some. In fact, it's a little dangerous sometimes...

I baked a few for quality control purposes (wink, wink). They're still not as pretty as the ones from Martha's kitchen, but they're much closer to looking good enough to eat than they once were.

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

adapted from Martha Stewart

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder*

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 oz. milk chocolate chips

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract

3 large eggs

45 Starlight mints, coarsely crushed**

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside. Melt chocolate and butter in a glass measuring cup in the microwave, stirring every 20 seconds until smooth. Transfer butter and chocolate to bowl to mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add sugar, extracts, and eggs; mix on medium-low speed until combined. Reduce speed to low; mix in flour mixture. Stir in reserved third of the candies. Refrigerate dough until firm, about 30 minutes (or wrap in plastic and refrigerate overnight).

2. Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, form mounds of dough; dip tops into remaining candies to coat. Place cookies, candy sides up, on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake cookies until just set, about 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days.

* It's important to seek out and use the Dutch-process cocoa powder. I tried a multitude of substitutions when I first started making these cookies, but the Dutch-process cocoa powder is critical to producing even a moderately attractive product.

** I like to put the candies in a plastic bag and hit them with a hammer. It's a good stress reliever. I then separate out the larger pieces for dipping the cookies before baking, as these look more attractive. This usually amounts to about two-thirds of the crushed candy. The powdered candy and tiny fragments (about one-third) will go into the dough.

Fröhliche Weihnachten...

Last night I scratched a major item off my holiday season to-do list: Lisa and I visited the Christkindlmarkt in Daley Plaza for our annual photo session with the municipal Christmas tree and some German delicacies. Just as I had feared, the tree was in a sorry state, but it was not the only victim of the Great Recession -- the market itself was smaller as well.

Daley Plaza, with its iconic Picasso statue.

There were fewer vendors this year than in years past, which wasn't a huge tragedy for us, considering we seldom buy any of the over-priced handicrafts on display anyway, but there was less material to browse through. The decrease in vendors made for wider aisles, which would have been nice if they hadn't accentuated the lack of visitors present. It was a Monday, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that things are probably more bustling at other times.

I like the shape of the tree in juxtaposition with the Gothic Revival skyscraper behind it.

As predicted, the tree was sparse and sickly looking. When you looked at it, you could see through it to the buildings behind it. The lack of ornaments compounded the depressing tableau. I'm not sure that I agree with the city -- no tree at all might have been preferable to this sad reminder of our collective hard times. At least it still had a star on top...

Lisa and her commemorative mug of glühwein.

For the first time, Lisa sampled the market's primary claim to fame: glühwein, the German version of mulled wine. I am fairly certain that this is what most people come to the Christkindlmarkt for, not the delicate European glass ornaments, the strudel, or the opportunity to chat in German with the vendors. Last year, my German class at the Goethe Institut made a holiday field trip to the Christkindlmarkt, just so the class could get drunk together. I, however, do not like or drink wine, so I've always abstained, but I do admire the festive boot-shaped mugs in which the glühwein is served. They offer a different mug every year, and if you purchase one, you can return again and again for refills until the market closes on Christmas Eve.

The best apple strudel I've had on this side of the Atlantic.

For me, the greatest draw of the Christkindmarkt (outside of the Christmas Tree and our annual photo in front of it), is the apple strudel. They have a vendor who specializes solely in strudel-making, and they offer several sweet and savory versions, but I always go for the apple. The dough is light, flaky and crispy, and the filling is perfectly balanced with sugar and cinnamon. The powdered sugar might get all over my face and my winter coat, but it's totally worth the mess.

The annual photo: Haley and Lisa at the Christkindlmarkt, 2009.

Of course, the best part of the Christkindlmarkt is getting to spend time with Lisa, and strengthen one of the great traditions of our friendship. This year, we made no less than nine attempts at getting a decent photo in front of the tree. We first asked an obliging tourist to help us, but it soon became clear that the "night portrait" setting on my camera was keeping the aperture open too long to be able to hold the camera by hand and get a non-blurry shot. After four tries, we waited for him to wander away from the tree, and we set up my portable tripod on an obliging traffic-control gate. This too took several attempts: the initial shots were poorly composed, in the next couple we had difficulty getting both of us in the frame when I ran to get in the picture after pushing the self-timer button, the last few would have been perfect if the wind hadn't blown my hair in my face. Ultimately, I tugged my hat on, and we finally got the perfect shot. In fact, it is by far the best picture in our four year history. The tree in the background might be the ugliest of them all, but I guess we'll have to count our blessings that we look our best. Besides, the photo isn't really about the tree so much as celebrating another year of friendship.

Let It Snow...

Quite unexpectedly (probably because I spent the weekend holed up in the kitchen away from television newscasts), I awoke today to find the city enrobed in a blanket of snow -- the first lasting snowfall of the season. It may be a hassle to trudge through on the way to work, and icky when it turns grey with dirt and exhaust grime, but freshly fallen, virgin snow is undeniably beautiful. Since I would be spending the entire day in a windowless niche in the hallway, unable to appreciate the splendors of nature, I took a few photos on the way to work to commemorate the first snow of 2009:

A hazy view from my balcony, looking towards the lake.

On the way to the office, I was so taken with the snow that I walked the long way, through Lincoln Park to get to the museum. Somebody had decorated this tree for the holidays, with homemade garland, paper snowflakes, and tiny ornaments. Pretty charming, no?

Abe was looking a little chilly today.