2023 Christmas cookies!

[pepperhead212]

OMG those cookies smell good!!!

I baked just the buttery cookies tonight - the TN icebox, and the TN icebox, with brown butter, the vanilla sables, the sesame icebox, the oatmeal icebox, with brown butter, and the barley flake icebox, with brown butter. 12 recipes total, with 13 more to go, including 4 batches of snickerdoodles I made a couple of nights ago, and 5 chocolate icebox, and the 4 habanero gingersnaps - the first 4 I made! It was cold enough for one night, to keep them on my back porch, but I had to make room in the fridge for those bowls, as it got up in the 50s today!

It only took a little over 2 hours to bake all this, and if I had had a helper, it would have been faster - I had to only bake 2 sheets several times. Still pretty fast!
The TN icebox cookies, with brown butter. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The rest of the regular TN icebox cookies. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Most of the vanilla sables, after the TN icebox. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Last few of the sables, and all of the sesame cookies. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Oatmeal icebox cookies, with brown butter. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

All of the barley flake icebox cookies with brown butter - almost like English toffee. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[dragnlaw]

Pepper, how many (and what size) are your cookie trays? Do you have one of those ovens just for cookies (or maybe pizza's)? First ones I ever saw was on a cooking show, Anna Olson. Since, of course, I've seen them everywhere (except in my kitchen).

 

[pepperhead212]

dragn, The oven is a convection oven, in which I can bake 3 full sheets of cookies (or whatever). I almost never use it anymore, except for these. I have 6 full sheets - 26x18" - and while the oven is heating up, I get all 6 of them filled up. I line the sheets with full sized pieces of parchment paper, to make it easier to remove them. But once I'm getting them out, and putting more into the oven, I have to empty the sheets (have to let them rest a minute or so, before scooping them off), and I have to empty all of them, then fill them up, in the 12 or 13 minutes before switching again, and usually I can only do 2 sheets, unless I have a helper or 2! Larger cookies fill up the sheets faster, but most that I bake are smaller, around 48/sheet. And for removing the baked cookies, I learned, early on, that it took forever to move the cookies to the cooling trays, even using a longer spatula, which still only moved 3-5 at a time. So I made some spatulas, out of cheap aluminum cookie trays, one of which I cut to slightly less than half width, which I use to empty the sheets with 6 rows of cookies, and one to a little wider, which I use for the sheets with 5 rows, and I scoop 3 rows off at a time, using these. I beveled the edges of them, to slide under the cookies easily.
"spatulas", for full sized sheets. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[dragnlaw]

WOW, well folks, I think we could honestly say - at this time of year, pepper's kitchen is a fantastic example of dedication to Christmas Cookies!

 

[pepperhead212]

dragn, Something you don't see in all this is the rack I built for 12 of those 2x3 cooling trays, and all the rest of those trays! Some friends of mine used to come over about this time of year - his wife would make a huge bowl of 6 recipes of CC cookie dough, and I would make 6 regular and 4 oatmeal snickerdoodles, plus all those icebox cookies, plus many others. He loaded and unloaded the oven, and the cookies from the trays, and we loaded the cookies onto the trays, always getting 3 ready. Their daughter was only 3 years old when I first met them, but in just a few years, she started helping, though usually she didn't spend a long time, in the beginning. We usually baked 3,800-4,300, and did it in 2 nights. One year, he wanted to see if we could bake them all in one day, so we did - had about 3900 that year, I figured out, and his wife brought over a friend, who wanted to see how we did this (good to have another helper!), and I remember we stopped, after about 5 hours, and ordered some pizza - the last time I ordered a pizza here! This was in '96 or '97! After another hour, or so, the two women and the daughter ended up curled up asleep, in front of my fireplace! We finished the rest of the cookies, in about 2½ hours, and we never let them forget about that!

Today, I baked those 5 recipes of chocolate cookies, and about a third of the cream cheese snickerdoodles, but that was so sticky, I stopped, even though it was in the fridge for 2 nights, and put it in the freezer, and baked the oatmeal and barley snickerdoodles, which was hard, as always, so I left them out, while putting all those previously baked cookies away. Baked all the oatmeal and barley snickerdoodles, then took a break. I'll probably wait until tomorrow to bake the rest of those cream cheese snickerdoodles, then the habanero gingersnaps.
All of the chocolate coconut nut icebox cookies, and about 3/4 of the chocolate orange cookies. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The last quarter of the chocolate orange, and 3/4 of the wiennerstube - chocolate pepper cookies by pepperhead212, on Flickr

All of the barley snickerdoodles, a third of the cream cheese snicks, and about 2/3 of the oatmeal snicks. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[dragnlaw]

LOL, pepper, I think I did see that rack in one of your pictures. A long time ago.

 

[pepperhead212]

Today I finished the cookies - only took 3 batches, and a little more than half an hour total bake time, but those cream cheese snickerdoodles took a while, since I froze the dough solid, since they were so sticky (I might add 2 more tb flour next time, though I don't remember that happening last year). Though the dough was very slightly pliable, even at that temp, it was still hard to break up, at first, so what I used was an antifreeze ice cream spade, which cut right through it! By the time I got to the bottom of the bowl, it started getting sticky again, but I got them all formed, before it stuck on me too bad. And they all fit on 3 sheets, for one batch. The 4 habanero gingersnaps fit on 6 sheets, for 2 batches - crammed 54/sheet, with only a few empty spots.
The remaining 2/3 of the cream cheese snickerdoodles, finished in one batch. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

A little more than 2/3 of the habanero gingersnaps. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

About 1/3 of the habanero gingersnaps. by pepperhead212, on Flickr