This time of year many of us turn to baking — and the fun of this activity is enhanced by baking with friends and relatives. Joanne Belair of Turners Falls spends a lot of time with her adorable granddaughters, Eva and Sylvie Clemente. They are her neighbors and her frequent companions.
During the lockdown they were with her daily — and even now they spend every Wednesday afternoon, when their school ends early, with her. They run in and out of her home freely.
“They love crafts and drawing,” Joanne told me in a recent interview. “In the house they have a dedicated space where they can come and do crafts anytime they like.”
They also cook at her side. Last week Eva, age seven, and Sylvie, age five, joined their grandmother to make her favorite sugar-cookie recipe.
“I’ve been making this recipe since I was a kid, which was a long time ago,” Joanne said with a laugh. She said she started cooking at home with family members when she was little.
“And then I just took off. I had such a sweet tooth when I was a kid that I’d just find lots of recipes and I’d go off and make them,” recalled Joanne.
To this day she sends a batch of the sugar cookies every holiday season to her younger sister, who lives in Florida, as a reminder of happy memories and because her sister “just likes to eat them.”
Although Eva and Sylvie are quite young, they have mastered breaking eggs and several other kitchen tasks. They are learning to measure, and they can pretty much handle an electric mixer, although it helps to have Joanne standing nearby in case of accident or overenthusiasm.
And they know that they are supposed to wash their hands thoroughly before embarking on a baking or cooking project.
When they prepared this recipe with their grandmother, Eva wanted to try piping frosting on top of the cookies.
I was skeptical about this idea (I’m a clumsy piper, and I’m quite a bit older than Eva and Sylvie), but the sisters did a creditable job. Of course, as Joanne noted, “some of the cookies (had) more frosting than actual cookie underneath it.”
This is not atypical, she explained, and I understood. I am close enough to childhood myself, mentally and emotionally if not chronologically, to know that the phrase “less is more” should never be applied to youthful decorators of cakes and cookies.
Joanne admits that the floor pretty much always needs washing when the girls come to cook. She accepts that fate calmly in exchange for the joy being with them gives her, however.
“They just like …” she paused and decided on her wording… “I won’t say making messes. They like being creative. Sometimes when you’re not looking they’ll open the refrigerator and make ‘inventions.’”
Eva and Sylvie happily shared their cookies with photographer Paul Franz.
They managed to eat quite a few by themselves.
“They are so cookied up!” laughed their grandmother. “They do a lot of sticky in the kitchen, but we have fun.”
Here is the recipe Joanne made with Eva and Sylvie, which she has been making since the 1950s. She suggests topping the cookies with a basic butter icing (moistened with orange juice to match the flavoring in the cookies) and sprinkles or nonpareils … or both sprinkles and nonpareils.
“Forget the cookie,” she admits. “It’s just a vehicle for the frosting and sprinkles.”
Ingredients:
2/3 cup butter or margarine
1-1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
the grated zest of 1 orange
up to 1 tablespoon orange juice to taste
Instructions:
Cream together the sugar and the butter or margarine. Beat in the eggs until the batter is light.
Sift together the flour, the salt, and the baking powder. Gently stir them into the wet mixture. Add the orange zest and a little juice to moisten things, and blend until the batter is smooth.
Cover the cookie dough and chill it overnight in the refrigerator.
The next day, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and prepare cookie sheets by greasing them lightly or lining them with parchment.
Roll the dough out on a floured surface until it is 1/4 inch thick. Use the cookie cutters of your choice to cut it into shapes.
Arrange the cookies on the prepared pans, and bake them until they are golden, about 12 to 15 minutes. Let them cool completely before decorating them.
Makes about 4 dozen good-sized cookies, depending on the cutters you use.
Tinky Weisblat is an award-winning author and singer. Her latest book is “Pot Luck: Random Acts of Cooking.” Visit her website, TinkyCooks.com.