A Cookie-licious Christmas

Photo from TastyKitchen.com

I always try to get a little something for Christmas for coworkers on my team, or others that I'm close to.  This year, though, that was going to prove a little difficult since we've been sans my paycheck for about two months now.  Luckily, I've also been doing a lot of baking while on leave and the two topics collided into what promise to be yummy coworker Christmas gifts!

Mostly, I've just been making box mixes and doctoring them up a bit.  But, yesterday, I had a bunch of candied ginger to use up from my last trip to Central Market.  I didn't really have any specific recipe in mind for it, but it just looked interesting.  That, my friends, is the exact reason why Central Market is so dangerous...too both my pocketbook and my waistline.  I rather love shopping there occasionally, though.  Just kind of warms my soul (spoken like a true closet foodie)!

Anyway, I went on a search for something yummy to do with this pile of candied ginger.  What I found was these Gingered Orange Shortbread cookies.  Shortbread was already on my "list of baked goods to try making someday," so that worked out rather well.  Luckily, the shortbread baking experience went soooo much better than my attempt to bake french macarons last month.  That was a big fat FAIL!

No, the shortbread was the exact opposite...easy, cheap and DELICIOUS!  Seriously, I highly recommend it.  Just a handful of ingredients that you probably already have on hand, less than 20 minutes to mix, 20-25 minutes to bake and...Voila! Delicious cookies that taste much more complex and difficult than they really are.  I even made them sans the white chocolate and they're still fabulous!  And, what's even more awesome about shortbread...once you have a basic recipe, you can change get as creative as your heart desires with the flavoring ingredients!  Shortbread is a yummy blank canvas!

So, it looks like I'll be baking  quite a few batches of these little gems for Christmas and packing them up with the Story of the Christmas Orange.  Perfection!