Making Cookies

Elena rolling out Pepparkakor

Each country presents its own problems when making Christmas cookies. They are truly an American thing. Each country has it's own challenge. In New Zealand it was too warm. Storage became a problem and my cookies just melted.

Here in Bogota it's the elevation. A few types of cookies just turned to puddles on the cookie sheet. I hadn't adjusted the flour, sugar or baking powder correctly. It's always a stab in the dark figuring out the adjustments.

But we did have fabulous success with our cut-out cookies. And beyond the success was the fun of making them. On a day the girls had off school our friend came over and we had a cookie decorating and baking fest. We spent hours in the kitchen cutting, decorating, baking and frosting. I supplied the dough for the traditional Swedish Pepparkakor and our friend brought sugar cookie dough. We laughed, created and even danced a bit!

Hundreds – or what felt like it – of cookies later we flopped down exhausted and full of sugar. It's so much better sharing tasks like cookies with friends!

Maddie filling the  ping-pong table with baked cookies

- Kris