Cookies to warm the heart and the home!

As a sales person for Nordic Ware, I get to meet with people from different parts of the country.  Inevitably, and especially in winter, they have lots of questions about Minnesota. Especially THIS winter. Today its -40 degrees with the wind chill factor. Which brings up questions number 1 – what is the wind chill factor?  (Answer: temperature it really feels like). 

Other questions I get from my customers and partners on the west coast include:

How does -20 and -40 feel different? (Answer: it doesn’t – it’s too cold to feel anything)

You don’t go outside DO you? (Answer: yes, we actually do)

And most interesting: Isn’t -40 the point at which your nose hair freezes? (Answer: not quite sure, that hasn’t happened to me yet)

It is so cold this year that school has been cancelled four days due to cold.  That is right, a “snow day”, as the kids call it, but it’s just cold.  Really, really cold.  A fanciful snow day would be lovely at this point. Which brings me to my afternoon of baking – with my kids and one neighbor pal.  Baking to pass the day, warm the house and put a load of sugar in my kids when they can’t even run it off outside.  Yes, I must be crazy. I live in Minnesota after all.

I’ve always loved to bake. Teaching my kids the math, science and joy of sharing homemade treats with others have been some of our best mother/child times.

Today’s agenda: simple peanut butter cookies that are jazzed up with Nordic Ware cookie impressions.  I’m not a baking purist, I’ll even use shortening once in awhile to the horror of one of my fellow bloggers – I just love to bake simple things well.  When I graduated from college, my mother gave me “Betty Crocker’s Everything You Need to Know” Cookbook and I find the best classics are right there.  Including Peanut Butter Cookies.   My book is ragged and ripped and loved.

So here goes – after making our dough  – darn, I always forget that this dough needs to chill, so kids got a little movie time today, too.  Now we’re ready!

1 – roll ball of dough

2 – dip cookie stamp in dough to make sugar stick

3 – dip cookie stamp in sugar

4 – stamp ball of dough

5 – continue stamping (3 beautiful designs)

6 – Fill up the whole pan (kids aren’t super efficient at this, but who cares?!)

7 – Voila!  Adorable Peanut Butter Cookies – just that little step up from the classic fork cross!