March of the Cookies (dunh-dunh-DUNH!)

I love love LOVE baking...almost as much as I love eating! Everyone who knows me knows how much I love to bake. What they may not know, what is indeed my secret shame, is that I'm not (yet!) terribly adept at baking cookies. For some reason, I've never been able to consistently make fabulous biscuits. They turn out tough, or the wrong texture (too crumbly, not chewy enough, etc), too brown on bottom/edges...and even though I know intellectually how to correct these issues (don't overmix, use less sugar, don't overbake, etc.) I still can't seem to develop the knack for certain cookies. There was one time in recent months that I made some really fabulous chocolate chip cookies, but as I recall, they were the ONLY chocolate chip cookies I've ever made that turned out the way I picture the perfect chocolate chip cookie to be.

SO! I propose March of the Cookies (à la Julie & Julia) in which I bake a different cookie recipe every day in March. Potential schedule snags: Jeremy--my manfella--and I will be going to Niagara Falls Friday and Saturday of one weekend, so I will bake 3 different cookie recipes on Sunday to make it up. I'm also going to an Air concert and two Tastes of Tomorrow events, all on weeknights. I'll make it up somehow. The point is, by the end of March, I will have baked 31 different cookie recipes. Not as impressive as taking on every recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but you know, my French cooking skills are just fine thankyouverymuch; it's the cookies I stink at!

I will draw my recipes from a few different sources, namely:

• Professional Baking (4th edition) by Wayne Gisslin
• Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook (thanks Sarah!)
• Some thrift-store cookie book find whose name currently escapes me (update: it's an older edition of "The Ultimate Cookie Book", but not the Better Homes and Gardens one)
  
• Maybe some cookie recipe suggestions from friends? Haven't decided yet.

I'll try my best to blog with photos every day in March, but we'll see how it goes.

TO DO LIST:

1. Scour my sources to find 31 recipes that highlight a wide variety of cookies (they can't all be drop cookies, y'know!).
2. Plan what days to do which, accounting for schedule.
3. Grocery shop to ensure all ingredients are on hand.

So yeah....cookies! Wish me luck.

Yvonne