The Accidental Christmas Cookie

We blame this entirely on Betty Crocker.  Mark and I are no fools.  We've learned much of ourselves and each other in the midst of past baking disasters.  Like when Mark calmly and kindly brought me back from the ledge during the mini-christmas-eve-cupcake frosting disaster of 2006.  So, we started this cookie baking effort with help:  a pouch of no-fuss Betty Crocker sugar cookie baking mix.  Just add egg, water and butter.  Easy.  I turned on the carols and Mark started mixing the batter.  We would roll out the dough and use just one cutter -- a christmas tree -- and one decoration -- green sprinkles.


"@$#*^%*!!!" 


The expletive came from Mark, at the helm of the cookie batter bowl.  It is the precise type of expletive you usually hear when he's assembling TV trays or light fixtures with "poorly written" directions from some clever product engineer.


Apparently, Betty Crocker had two types of mixing directions on the back of the pouch:  one for drop cookies, one for cut-outs.  And, I have to agree with Mark, it was not very clear. 


It was too late for cut-out cookies for us.  Mark had added the butter for the drop cookie instructions, and you can't take extra butter out of batter.


So we improvised.  I was secretly delighted, as I'm not a huge cutout fan.  Mark added about a half-cup each of chopped dried cranberries and almonds (which we always have in the pantry for our favorite house salad).  We dropped about a half teaspoon of batter for each cookie, baked about 8 minutes in a 350 oven, and drizzled an icing we made from about a cup of powdered sugar, a little bit of milk and some almond extract.

Success!