Saturday, November 29, 2008

Welcome to the Virtual Kitchen!

To celebrate the upcoming Christmas holiday, I'd like to share one of my favorite holiday traditions - baking! When I was growing up, we spent a lot of time baking cookies and breads around the holidays. Various members of my family were part of this tradition and the baking has become a long-standing tradition that I hate to lose, especially because the sharing of the cookies was half the fun! However, in light of the tiny oven, lack of kitchen appliances, etc. that I am faced with this year, the baking will be kept to a minimum for sure, if it happens at all.

I was saddened by this prospect, especially as my Thanksgiving was less than stellar. Suddenly though, I was inspired. Why not create a "virtual kitchen" in which I could share my finds, ideas, and desires with whatever readers might stumble this way? Perhaps someone with an oven will execute one of these recipes and tell me how heavenly the end result tastes. Alternatively you might let me know if the recipe needs tweaking so that when I can bake more (hopefully next year!) I'll know what to do to improve the recipe.

Thus, in the spirit of the season then, I present you with the VIRTUAL KITCHEN.

Today I'm cooking up:
Egg Nog Sparkle Cookies
I'm a sucker for egg nog. I never drink a lot of egg nog, but I love that one glass each year. This sounds like a perfect way to use that excess egg nog.

3 comments:

  1. Looks yummy! Do you think you will/would make egg nog to put in it, or just use milk or cream? What a great idea. Kind of like a cookie exchange - without the actual cookies! SMILE!

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  2. ohhh.... I think those are out for me this year... as if I had eggnog in the house I would be SORELY tempted to drink it!

    but anything with the name "sparkle" in it has me at first glance!!

    take a pic for us hungry readers!

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  3. Kim: That's a good question! I didn't even consider the availability of egg nog in Japan. We'll have to see. I'd probably substitute whole milk with some nutmeg :)

    In the past I've also made Egg Nog Thumbprint cookies. The recipe imitates the "egg nog" flavor without using actual egg nog. I think this is what I'd essentially mimic.

    And Sara - the egg nog thumbprints (and hopefully sparkle cookies) are just as tempting as egg nog!

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