tuesday night knitting

It's snowing like a banshee here. So we decided to cancel Stitch Sisters. Funny thing is that I must have spent over an hour on the phone talking to everyone as we were all sad that we couldn't get together. One sister suggested that we need a "snow night" for when this happens. We may have to do just that.

One sister lives just over the hill. I decided to chance it and went to her house for a cup of tea and knitting. It was great to spend time with her. I brought some cookies I had made and we had a cup of tea to go with our knitting, it was great.

I've been looking for another cookie recipe to teach at my next baking class. I've successfully developed a scone recipe, have a great biscotti recipe and wanted to make a cookie as well. So I made two different kinds of rye cookies (one Russian, one Swedish). Neither one came out great although the Swedish cookies were better than the Russian ones. Mostly because the Russian ones tasted like toffee to me. If I'm eating a cookie I want a cookie not a candy.

I'm going to change both recipes further (working with fresh ground flour is always a bit difficult). The Russian cookies I will cut back on the butter and see if that helps. The Swedish cookies I'm going to make thicker (they were too thin and crisp) and add cardamom. I think they may wind up being the winner for the class but both cookies will go through at least one more round before I decide.

The hardest part is that it's really not healthy having all of these cookies around. Luckily the folks at the library, post office, yoga class, etc don't mind being my taste testers. This also gives me the opportunity to ask them what they do or don't like about the cookies.

Funny enough my friend tonight liked the Russian rye cookies better because she said they were sweeter and they were great to suck on (they were button-size) while drinking hot tea.

At the end of the evening I managed to make it down their hill and up mine to be safe and sound back at home. I'm thinking there must be lots of spoons under pillows tonight and seriously question whether or not there will be school.