Lessons Learned During Christmas Baking

Things I learned today while baking for Christmas:

• The family pie dough recipe could be used to make two thick pie crusts instead of 4 thin ones
• Thick pie crusts are a lot harder to get into the pie pan after they are rolled out
• Parchment paper makes it possible to get the pie dough into the pan mostly intact
• Pie dough is not very forgiving when it is rolled out twice

• When mixing a green dyed powder into sugar cookie dough, dropping it into a well in the dough and kneading the dough to mix it in does not work well if the dough is well chilled
• Green dyed powder leaves a vivid color my hands and the dough
• Green dyed powder actually cleans up easily
• I am not good at estimating the thickness I need to roll out sugar cookie dough in order to make the number of cookies given on the mix
• Sugar cookie dough is very forgiving when it is rolled out more than once.
• Tooth picks quickly get clogged with cookie dough when drawing little lines
• I do not have a lot of patience for drawing lines on cookies
• Little round, red, sugar decorations roll really well. They also get very hot after being in the oven 10 minutes, sitting on the cookie sheet after they rolled off the cookie
• In spite of my mishaps with the cookies, they actually matched the box picture fairly well, see pictures with this post
• I realized that the bow cookie cutter I got with the mix could be used to make butterfly cookies!
• Rolls are lot easier to make and the dough is very forgiving. Especially after I spray Pam on my hands so the dough doesn’t stick as much.
• I have had a chance to practice my rolling pin skills before I make lefsa later in the week

Merry Christmas everyone!