Christmas Baking

Christmas is a time for sharing and giving, and what better way to teach Matty that than baking cookies with him for his School's end of term Christmas party. I wanted to make gingerbread men with him, but after looking at the recipe I gave up. We made shortbread cookies instead, and it turned out better than I expected!

If you know what making shortbread cookies involve, you'd know that quite a bit of flour is needed to stop the shortbread dough from sticking onto the rolling pin, and the cookie cutters. Anyway, Matty got a little too caught up in keeping the dough from sticking onto things. He started to spoon flour onto the dough and somehow managed to get it all over his face. I think, in the end, he enjoyed playing with the flour more than cutting the dough into cookie shapes.

After the cookies were ready, Matty couldn't wait to take his first bite. He looked at me and said "very good!" Although this came from a two-year-old, but it felt like I was just awarded a Michelin star.

And did he want to share his cookies?  Well, I was wrapping some of the cookies for his teachers as Christmas presents when he said this:


Matty:            "I want to eat all!"





Me:              "But you should give your teachers a Christmas present."





Matty:          "No! I want to eat all."


He still insisted on not giving his teachers the cookies when we were driving to school. But once we got there he asked me for the presents and gave it to the teachers himself. Phew! I was a little worried he'd start crying if I gave the cookies to the teachers for him.

And what did he pick to eat during snack time when he was offered a table full of yummy food brought in by other parents? He picked a little cake and jelly... and my cookies!!! Can you believe it, out of all the yummy food on the table, Matty still picked my cookies! Wow! Whoever it reading this must think my cookies were really, really good. They were just okay. I got the recipe from this Joy of Baking website.


Me:               "Did you pick Ma Ma cookies at the party because you liked playing with the flour?"




Matty:           "No."




Me:               "Is it because you made it with Ma Ma?"



Matty:           "Yes."



MATTY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS PRESENT


Matty was really happy with the present the school gave him too-- a door knob hanger with his picture, and a CD of all the songs he learned so far this year. I really like the CD too at the beginning because I wanted to know what Cantonese songs he knew. But if you ask me now I'd probably give you a different answer, after singing the songs with him over and over again. I could even hear the songs in my head when I was trying to sleep last night!!