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One of my favorite things to make in the kitchen is cookies. All year long. But around Christmas time, our cookie jar and holiday tins are FULL of cookies of all flavors. Peppermint, Shortbread, Sugar cookies, Chocolate Chip, oatmeal, Gingerbread, there is something for everyone. And now that the kids are getting older, they want to get involved too! Which I have love/hate feelings about, but they have to learn somehow, right?
I let our little one help with the dry ingredients and mixing them together. My oldest is going to be 8 in a matter of days, and he likes measuring and adding the eggs and wet ingredients in. I also try to incorporate some math into it by adding fractions with the 1/2 cup + 1/2 cup = 1 cup type of questions. He loves it and feels so proud that he is doing fractions already!
Then when the dough is done, they love to help plop each spoonful onto the cookie sheets. This is where my OCD REALLY kicks in, because they aren’t in the straightest lines, some are going to be huge cookies, some are going to be the size of a quarter. But they feel so special knowing that they helped bake these little pieces of heaven. So I smile, keep my patience, and let them keep going. I do let them taste a little bit of the dough that is left, but just one little bite. Enough that they can taste the sweetness, but not enough it could give them a stomachache.
Now we wait. While the cookies bake, we clean up. I try to clean up as we go, but this is where I put any remaining ingredients away and wipe down the counters, load the dishes in the dishwasher and vacuum/sweep all the flour or sugar that spilled in the process.
As soon as the cookies come out of the oven, they want to taste them right away but they don’t realize they are so hot. At least our littlest doesn’t. He almost got burned one time because he reached for a cookie so fast I couldn’t grab his hand away fast enough.
Joey loves using the spatula to scrape all the cookies off onto the cooling racks. I just hold the cookie sheet and let him do his thing. It is quite cool to see how much they love helping. I hope they love baking and think of it as a family event, not just a mom’s job or a woman’s job. Baking is something that I love doing, (when my tired self allows with my chronic illness), and hope they have that same passion as they grow older.
I have listed my top 5 favorite cookie recipes below. Feel free to print, share and let me know what you think!
- Hershey Kiss Peanut Butter Blossoms
- Peppermint Hershey Kiss Blossoms
- Classic Shortbread
- Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
- Gingerbread Cookies
Max wanted a cookie, so he brought the plate to the table! These are White chocolate confetti cookies the boys HAD to have.
Using our cookie cutters for the first time!
John was such a pro! Rolled up his sleeves and got down and dirty with us. (You like his COVID hair?)
Cutting out the cookies
John was such a pro! Rolled up his sleeves and got down and dirty with us. (You like his COVID hair?)
Proof I was in the kitchen too.
Joey was excited to make gingerbread. He just rolled with it. (Haha, see what I did there?)
These are Joey’s cookies he did all by himself. I get a cavity just looking at them. The other gingerbread cookies are naked and so good!
Cheers,
Jackie
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