Holiday Baking

So it's back to the cookies and the first week of May is a busy one.  I'd already missed my shot at baking 'Kentucky Derby' cookies - though I don't quite know what those would've been, I've never run across a 'Mint Julep' cookie, though I'm sure I could've come up with something appropriate, but I opted for the spring like pinwheels last week instead.

Happy Cinco De Mayo.  I wracked my brain all weekend trying to come up with a cookie appropriate for the holiday.  And then I realized that a perfect Cinco De Mayo cookie would've been the Dulce De Leche Duos, but "D'oh" I just made those a few weeks ago.  I won't pretend to know much about Mexican or Spanish cuisine or baking, but ruling out the caramel cookies didn't leave a whole lot of viable options.  I preferred to avoid the obvious 'Mexican Wedding Cake' cookies because they are just too heavy on the butter and fat, which really only left me with a chocolate/cinnamon/spice geared cookie - a very traditional Mexican dessert flavor combination.  The spices really enhance the chocolate flavor and you typically don't really notice the cayenne pepper in the final product. I found a great recipe from Bon Appetit and hoped it would be a winner: Mexican Chocolate Cherry Rounds - which are topped with cherries (the version that went to Gilda's) but it can be varied too - nuts, cinnamon red hot (the version that went to Ronald McDonald House) or just left plain - which I wish I'd done - more on this later.

And then, you take Cinco De Mayo out of the picture, and we're only a few days out from Mother's Day.  I kind of wanted to do something 'mother's dayish' but again, not quite sure what that would be.  All of my ideas began and ended with me having to do some form of frosted cut-out sugar cookie and I just knew I didn't have enough time for that one this week.  Then I, once again, realized a great mother's day cookie would've been a flower like pinwheel cookie .. hmm ... foiled again.  No worries, I happened upon a Pilsbury Bakeoff contender that would fit the bill, a light, lemony, butter cookie that's shaped into a daisy like flower. Perfect, well, except for my 'shaping' abilities, but 'close enough' on these mother's day bouquets!

Ok, enough of the cookies - I need your opinion on this.  All the cookies this week were kind of small, so I had planned on packaging them in two's.  Not a big deal, other than the fact that I had to make twice as many cookies!  But as I was packing them up, I realized my Cinco De Mayo cookie easily could've done double duty as a Mother's Day cookie too, no?  C'mon, it is a little obvious right? and it gave me some second thoughts about using those cherries and cinnamon red hots! :)