Christmas baking

I spent last night baking shortbreads using my late mother’s recipe. That was the third time this season. On each of those nights I made two batches, which yields a little over seven tins. From start to finish the job takes four hours. It starts with bringing out all the ingredients and ends when I have finished washing up.

My new cookie gun has worked wonders and I only have to depress the trigger once and the moulded dough comes out. Over the past two Christmases my mother’s cookie gun, which must be over sixty years old, was giving me problems since I had to depress the trigger five or six times in order to get the dough out of the barrel. That certainly added a lot of time to each baking job. Another problem I had been having was that the front end of the gun, where the moulded form is, would annoyingly and frequently pop off when I depressed the trigger. I realize that heavy or dry dough can do this, but I have been making the same cookie dough for the past nine years and the gun never used to do this. Thankfully the front end of the new gun has not popped off, not even once.

Since I have retired I can devote more of my time to the kitchen. In previous years I may have only had the time to make one double batch. This season I will probably be able to do all of my baking over five shifts. So far I have made 22½ tins with about fifteen left to go.

Three towers of cookies, almost reaching my kitchen window sill. I have already given one tin away.