My Mum always does a ton of Christmas baking. She makes a variety of cookies like clockwork every year – from almond crescents to jam pinwheels to butter balls, our house was always full of good things to eat and give away this time of year.
My baking routine isn’t so measured – most of it is last minute (I finished a batch of cookies for my coworkers at midnight last night). That said, I wanted to make sure we included some homemade treats tucked in among the gifts to Grandma Male and Mack’s parents, which meant some necessary planning.
Cookies ‘n’ Cream Brownies
To satisfy Grandma Male’s sweet tooth, I thought Anna Olson’s recipe for cookies ‘n’ cream brownies would be perfect. The layer of snow white cream cheese icing on top had a nice winter feel to it, and speckled with crumbled Oreo cookies, how could one go wrong?
They turned out quite well, with a soft, chewy brownie base thanks to the cream cheese inclusion and a balanced icing from a combination of butter and cream cheese. Mack had to taste test them (of course), and declared them gift worthy! And Grandma Male enjoyed them too.
Cookies ‘n’ cream brownies
White Chocolate and Cranberry Drops
For Mack’s parents, we made sure to pick a recipe with full nutritional disclosure (nearly the same as it appears here), and a cookie that included red and white fillings seemed to be a good fit for the holidays.
The good news: the dough was easy to work with (shortbread doughs are hit or miss for me), and didn’t require any refrigeration before baking. The bad news: I didn’t pay attention to the fact that it was a shortbread to begin with – not a problem if we were just delivering the tin ourselves, but since we had to mail them to Yellowknife, cookies at risk of crumbling + rough handling should not mix.
White chocolate and cranberry drops
The story does have a happy ending though – the cookies reached Patti and Martin in good shape!
Only Here for the Food 
You are such a sweetheart!! So few would even THINK of baking anymore at all, let alone to send in the mail! Kudos to you! I did that with Vanja for his parents one year when he was travelling to Bosnia on his own (his dad had heart surgery) and filled his carry on bag will all sorts of beautiful fragile Canadian cookies, truffles, and sweets I had made thinking just of them. At the last minute… without thinking – he still doesn’t know why he did this: he threw his carry on bag onto the belt to go under the plane. Stress and worry about his day, obviously. Needless to say, the entire bag was nothing but clumps of sticky crumbs. Thrifty as they are, they used them in trifles and crumbles and whatever else they could. Glad the Male family received theirs in tact! Too bad you aren’t getting up there this year. That is where it all happens, at Christmas, isn’t it?
🙂
Valerie
Valerie – you’ve done quite a bit of baking this holiday season too :).
Thanks for sharing that story – I can only think of Vanja’s reaction when he discovered the crushed treats! But I’m sure it was the sentiment that mattered in the end, that you made things for Vanja’s family that showed them that you were thinking about them.
We might be in YK next year…can’t plan a year in advance!