Unplugged #9: Fluffy

Whew, these holidays are racing by at such a crazy speed. I'm wondering if I'll ever get on top of cleaning for guests, let alone getting a tree up. It helps that I decided that everyone will be getting cookies this year (so sorry to spoil the surprise, family). Baking may leave me with more to do, but the process is relaxing and the results are (usually) satisfying.

The theme of fluffy at Unplug Your Kids this week was timed perfectly, as we had 10 dozen cookies to make for a cookie exchange. Our first fluffy was to cream the butter and sugar together. Oh so white and fluffy. Our second fluffy was to make meringues, which are the definition of fluffy!

I like to make meringues anytime I make Spritz cookies, since spritz need yolks and meringues are just whites. It's a perfect match!

Here we are, all apronified together getting ready to whip up the egg whites.





Okay, white eggs in a white bowl are not so photogenic, but Bella loved watching the beater.



Here are the egg whites at "shaving cream" consistency, before we folded half of them with cocoa powder, squirted them messily onto a cookie sheet and stuffed them in the oven for 4 hours, haha. And all the while I managed to keep Bella's hands and face out of the eggy mess!


The yolky spritz dough after we creamed the butter to a most fluffy consistency.



And what Christmas would be complete without Spice Mice! Bella and I made the dough and amazingly enough, Dave decorated them! Check here to see how they turned out. :O) (and note the meringues on the back sheet)



And in case you're wondering, no cooking escapades in this kitchen are complete without some type of fiasco due to my scatter brained attention span:


After all was said and done and I was negotiating soup and cookies, I set the lid to my stock pot on a burner that was ON (!), and then had the brilliant idea to cool it off with water. Now, I KNOW that you do not pour hot water on a frozen windshield for this very reason, but I was just trickling warm water onto the edge to start the cooling process when POP!, just like a supernova, it burst into thousands of chunky little tempered pieces (which I then cleaned out of the grumpy disposal for the rest of the week).