Christmas Cookie Party!

I get an inexplicable level of satisfaction from entertaining. It's just so enjoyable to me to have a bunch of people in the house, eating good food (preferably that I made) and making that contented-sounding conversational buzz. So, before I move, I wanted to put together a little holiday shindig with Dawn (roommate). We opted for a Sunday afternoon Christmas cookie decorating party, and it went really well. People were great sports, probably aided by the mulled wine, and, I have to say, there was some real creative talent in the room (not mine, I assure you).

Over the next few days I'll post several entries covering the savory appetizers that I put together to combat the overwhelming sugar intake that goes with cookie decorating, but I thought it made sense to start with the cookies themselves.

You do not want to know how much flour and sugar my house has gone through in the last 48 hours. You really, really don't.

Ok, Step 1: Make the sugar cookies (recipe below). I made a vanilla-almond cookie because I do like a wee bit more flavor than just sugar and flour. Also! Make the cookies a day in advance if you can. When you refrigerate the dough overnight, it becomes much more flavorful and much less ode du flour.

Caramel Cake

Let us take a moment to discuss one of the most perfect cakes in existence (I say "one of" because I've developed a weakness for coconut cream cakes): the caramel cake. It's a bit of a misnomer because the cake itself can be just about anything, the icing is the key. The traditional combination is with a pound cake, but even I can only eat a tiny bit of that at a time, so I tend to pair it with a lighter, mildly vanilla cake.

When I was a child, my grandmother would always bring a four layer caramel cake made by, I can only assume, the gods themselves when she came to visit and it was an act of extreme fatherly devotion and restraint that I ever managed to get a piece. My aunt, who doesn't even eat sweets, always managed to appear at our house 15 minutes after the cake did. Unfortunately, the woman responsible for this magical confection retired and I've been trying to find an acceptable substitute ever since. Well, today I have. As a warning: I do not recommend making this icing if you live alone and are not planning on taking it to a party immediately... you will eat the whole cake.

I present to you caramel icing that does not require a candy thermometer!