Cookies!

 Our office has an annual cookie party and I decided to participate this year.  I did two different versions of two different cookies, both of which I found over on the web (yes, through pinterest).  The first was lemon pecan shortbread .  I made the dough the night before and then rolled it into a 1-1/2 inch diameter log and put it in the refrigerator overnight.  The next day, I sliced the roll into 1/2 inch thick cookies and baked them.  I didn't roll the dough and cut shapes as the recipe called for because I didn't have the patience.  This morning, I melted some dark chocolate kisses (used for my other cookies, added a little cream and then some warm water to get the consistency I wanted and drizzled it over the cookies.  In another bowl, I mixed about a cup of confectioner sugar, a tablespoon of cream and the juice from one lemon to make a glaze. I drizzled that over the other half of the cookies.  While I found the cookies a little dry, the drizzle helped.  And coffee helped even more.  Next time I might cut back on the flour a bit.

For my next trick, I made  pretzel hugs . This is really more of a construction project than a recipe because there isn't much baking involved. You buy some Snyder's Snaps Pretzels and some Hershey kisses.  I bought the dark chocolate kisses and the milk chocolate with caramel kisses. Lay the pretzels in rows on a waxed paper or parchment covered baking sheet and top each pretzel with a kiss.  Put them in a 300 degree oven for about 2 1/2 minutes.  Do a test batch first.  You don't want the kisses to melt but you want them 'squishy'.

Remove the pretzels from the oven and top with another pretzel.  The instructions say to wait a minute but I don't know if that helps or not.  I'm impatient and I put pretzels on top pretty quickly.  The dark chocolate came out looking pretty. As you can see by the picture on the left, the caramel ones got a little sticky.  Sticky but delicious!  I liked both versions but the caramel was the best, in my opinion. 

I thought the pretzel cookies would be an easy way for me to bring something but not spend too much time baking.  As it turns out, opening all the kisses, lining up the pretzels and watching over them for two minutes makes this one a little tedious.  But worth the effort.