Snow and Christmas Cookies

The first snow of the year. The Sunday before the Sunday before last. 

Last Wednesday, I spent about 5 hours baking cookies in order to bring some Christmas cheer into my apartment. And also, I have a lot of free time. Baking proved to be quite an adventure, because I have EXTREMELY limited tools.

My measuring cup and only bowl of decent size.

my teaspoon (i.e. a small spoon)

my tablespoon (i.e. a normal spoon)

my cookie sheet (i.e. a pizza pan)

This meant that I had to convert my recipes from US volume measurements to metric weight, and that any size smaller than a teaspoon was guess work.

I also made my own sprinkles because the grocery store only had one color and they were hideous and expensive:

A few drops of food coloring in sugar.

Mix and allow to dry over radiator 

All things considered, the cookies turned out quite good. Especially the first two batches -- the sugar cookies and the spritz. 

A mini-disaster struck however with the snickerdoodles. After they had been in the oven for maybe 4 minutes a burning smell began emerging from the oven. I opened the oven to discover that the cookie dough had dripped through the holes in the pan and burnt on the bottom of the oven. I had to take them out and put foil underneath. But by that time it was too late and there was smoke billowing out of the oven for the rest of my cooking. And then even the second batch turned out flat and crunchy. Not bad, but not right. 

Nonetheless, it was fun and the cookies turned out on the whole well. 

Note puny Christmas Tree in the background...