Snow Day Cookies — The Week the Kitchen Smelled Like Winter

The cookie production began this week — gingerbread Wednesday (Helen's molasses recipe, do not skimp on the molasses, the dough rolled between waxed paper), shortbread Thursday (the simple Scottish three-ingredient kind), Russian tea cakes Friday (powdered sugar and ground walnuts and the brief baking and the rolling in more powdered sugar). Three batches, three storage tins, the kitchen smelling progressively of butter and molasses and walnut as the week went on. The dog enjoys the cookie-making weeks for the smells if for nothing else, his tail thumping against the floor as he watches me work, the small enthusiastic rhythm of a dog who knows a kitchen is becoming festive.

Made a beef pot pie Saturday — the proper full pot pie, with the leftover beef from the chili and the gravy and the carrots and onions and a top crust of the buttery biscuit dough I use on every pot pie. The dish came out the way a pot pie should come out, which is bubbling at the edges and golden on top and smelling of the kind of supper that has been served in this kitchen on cold Saturday nights for a hundred years. I ate two helpings and gave the third to no one because no one was here to receive it, the dog being uninterested in beef pot pie which is good because beef pot pie is not for dogs.

The Friday vets coffee — Tom's first meeting as the organizer. He had set up the coffee, brought a box of pastries (his wife's baking, the apple turnovers excellent), and ran the meeting with a slightly more deliberate hand than Phil had used, which suited the new arrangement. The room received him as the new convener without any comment about the change. Phil was there. Phil drank his coffee. Phil told a story about the time he had ice-fished through three feet of ice on Lake Champlain in 1987 and had caught nothing for six hours and had decided that day that ice fishing was a fool's errand and had not done it since. The room laughed. The transition was complete.

Anna texted Sunday — she and Marcus had signed the lease on a small house in Brattleboro and would be moving in the second week of January. The house has a small yard, a wood stove of its own, and a garden plot that Anna intends to plant in the spring. She asked if I could come down for a weekend in February to help her think about the garden layout. I told her: yes. The granddaughter asking the grandfather for garden advice on her first home is one of the small late dividends of having spent fifty years in the garden, and I will go in February with my notebook and my opinions and we will lay out a garden together for her first house. The image is a good one. I let it sit for a while in the kitchen before I went to bed.

Three batches was probably enough — the tins were full, the dog was happy, and the kitchen had earned a rest — but if there is a lesson I have learned in fifty years of December kitchens, it is that there is always room for one more cookie. Snow Day Cookies are the ones I reach for when the week has been generous and I want to close it on a quiet, sweet note: nothing complicated, nothing that requires rolling between waxed paper or a sift of powdered sugar, just a good honest cookie that suits a cold afternoon and a house that is already halfway to festive. Anna’s news about the Brattleboro house put me in the kind of mood where baking another batch felt exactly right.

Snow Day Cookies

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 27 min | Servings: 36 cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips
• 1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• Powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Mix dry ingredients. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugars. In a large bowl, beat softened butter with granulated sugar and brown sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add eggs and extracts. Beat in eggs one at a time, then mix in vanilla and almond extracts until fully incorporated.
5. Combine wet and dry. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, stirring just until no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
6. Fold in mix-ins. Gently fold in the white chocolate chips, shredded coconut, and dried cranberries until evenly distributed throughout the dough.
7. Portion the dough. Drop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart.
8. Bake. Bake for 10—12 minutes, until the edges are just set and the tops are very lightly golden. The centers will look slightly underdone — that is correct.
9. Cool and finish. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Dust lightly with powdered sugar while still warm if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 148 | Protein: 2g | Fat: 7g | Carbs: 20g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 72mg