Sick day...

Well, today can be chalked up as our first official "sick" day of the school year.  Munchkin started feel a bit off last night, and then was up several times in the night with a horrible whooping cough and the start of a fever.  So....mom made the call and took a sick day to be at home with her and hopefully mend her back to health in time for the Santa Clause Parade tomorrow!

So, after about an hour of snuggles, and her temp getting to 38.8, I found myself staring at an adorable sleeping beauty.......

Sitting there, I realized that while she was out, I might as well get cracking and start some Christmas baking (since our couch is right beside the kitchen, only separated by an island).  So off I went....let the Christmas baking BEGIN!

After an hour or so I was left with 7 1/2 dozen (made double batch) Sparkling Chewy Molasses Cookies...YUM!

Here is the recipe if you want to test them out yourself:

Sparkling Chewy Molasses Cookies

Ingredients:

* 2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled, or 10 ounces)
* 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup sugar
* 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
* 1 large egg
* 1/4 cup molasses, blackstrap works well here
* about 1/2 cup chunky sanding sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium sized mixing bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
3. Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer until combined. Beat in the egg, and then the molasses until just combined. Put mixer on low and slowly add the flour mixture just until dough forms.
4. Spoon 1 tablespoon of dough at a time, roll into a ball between your palms, then roll in sanding sugar to cover all sides.
5. Place on cookie sheets spaced three inches apart (cookies will spread while baking).
6. Bake one sheet at a time until edges of cookies are just firming up, 10 to 15 minutes. I found 11 minutes to be perfect in my oven which runs slightly too hot no matter what you do.
7. update: If you freeze the balls you can bake them by taking them out of the freezer and putting them right in the oven. It’ll take about 15 minutes at 350. The cookies will spread a little less, and crack a bit.
8. Allow to cool on baking sheet for a moment then transfer cookies to racks to cool down.
9. Will keep for four days in an airtight container.

Makes three dozen cookies, more or less.

Enjoy!