Cut-Out Coffee Cup Cookies

The dark at three forty-five. The slap arrived on schedule. A Code Blue Wednesday morning that we did not save. I stood in the parking lot for fifteen minutes before I got in my car.

Lourdes is 76. She is slower. She still cooks. She still tells me to find a husband even though I have one.

I made puto bumbong this week. The purple rice cakes. The Christmas dawn dish.

The blog post on puto bumbong got picked up by a Filipino-American newsletter. Traffic doubled for two days. The traffic was the surprise.

I went to bed Sunday at nine. I slept for ten hours. The sleeping was the inheritance.

I checked email at the kitchen table while the rice cooked. There were one hundred and twenty unread messages. I closed the laptop. The unread can wait.

The Filipino Community newsletter announced a fundraiser for typhoon relief in Samar. I committed to making three hundred lumpia. The number is the number. The number has always been the number. Three hundred is what I make. The math has stopped surprising me.

The Anchorage sky was the Anchorage sky. The mountains were the mountains. The inlet was the inlet. The geography was the geography.

A reader from New Jersey wrote in about her grandmother's adobo, which used pineapple. I had never heard of pineapple in adobo. I tried it. It was strange. It was also good. The strange and the good are not opposites.

I took a walk on the coastal trail Saturday. The light was good. The body was tired but moving.

Auntie Norma called Sunday to ask if I had a recipe for a particular merienda from Iloilo. I did not. I said I would ask Lourdes. I asked Lourdes. Lourdes had it. The chain.

The break room had cake Tuesday. Someone's birthday. We ate the cake. We did not ask whose birthday. The cake was the cake.

I made coffee at six AM. The coffee was the start. The start was always the same.

The Filipino Community newsletter announced the Saturday gathering. I will be on lumpia duty. I am always on lumpia duty.

I taught a Saturday morning Kain Na class on basic adobo proportions for new cooks. Eleven people in the kitchen. Half of them had never cooked Filipino food before. By eleven AM the kitchen smelled the way it should smell. By noon they were all eating. The eating was the lesson landing.

The neighbors invited us over for a small dinner Thursday. They are an Iñupiaq family — Aana and her grandson Joe. We ate caribou stew and rice. I brought lumpia. The kitchens of Anchorage have always been the small UN. The food is the proof.

I took inventory of the freezer Sunday. The freezer had: twelve quarts of broth, eight pounds of adobo in vacuum bags, six pounds of sinigang base, fourteen lumpia trays at fifty rolls each, three pounds of marinated beef for caldereta, and a small bag of pandan leaves Tita Nening had sent me. The inventory was the proof of preparation. The preparation was the proof of love.

I had a long phone call with Dr. Reeves on Wednesday. We talked about pacing and rest and the way the body keeps a log of what it has carried. Dr. Reeves said, "Grace. The body remembers. The mind forgets. The cooking is the bridge." I wrote the line down. The line is now on a sticky note above the kitchen sink.

I made tea late at night. The tea was the small comfort. The comfort was the marker.

Auntie Norma called Sunday afternoon. She is now seventy-nine. She wanted a recipe. I gave it to her. She wanted to know how my week was. I told her, briefly. She told me about her week. The exchange took eighteen minutes. The eighteen minutes was the keeping.

I made puto bumbong because it was the Christmas dish, the before-dawn dish, the one that smells like the season before the season officially arrives — but what I kept coming back to all week was the coffee. Six AM. The mug. The start that is always the same, no matter what the Code Blue Wednesday took. These cut-out coffee cup cookies are the sweetest version of that ritual I know how to make: a little festive, a little silly, deeply comforting, and shaped like the one thing that has never once let me down in the morning.

Prep Time: 30 min (plus 1 hr chilling) | Cook Time: 11 min | Total Time: 1 hr 45 min | Servings: 24 cookies

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
For the glaze icing:
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
3–4 tbsp whole milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Food coloring in brown, white, or cream (optional)
Espresso powder or cocoa powder for dusting (optional)

Instructions

Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat softened butter and granulated sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add eggs and extracts. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla and almond extracts until combined.
Incorporate dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to the butter mixture in two additions, mixing on low just until a soft dough forms. Do not overwork.
Chill the dough. Divide dough into two discs, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight. Cold dough holds its shape during cutting.
Preheat and prep. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Roll and cut. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut shapes using a coffee cup cookie cutter. Re-roll scraps once. Place cookies 1 inch apart on prepared sheets.
Bake. Bake 9–11 minutes, until edges are just barely golden and centers look set. Do not overbake — they firm up as they cool. Cool on the baking sheet 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
Make the icing. Whisk together powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla until a smooth, pourable glaze forms. Add milk one teaspoon at a time to reach desired consistency. Divide and tint with food coloring if desired.
Decorate. Spoon or pipe icing onto cooled cookies. Use a toothpick to guide icing into corners. Allow to set fully at room temperature, about 30 minutes. Dust lightly with espresso powder for a cafe-style finish, if using.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cut-Out Coffee Cup Cookies — The Start That Is Always the Same