The happiest time of the year? EDIT

[rthstewart]

EDIT:  I forgot to add the real reason for my post!  British super mystery writer PD James has written Pride and Prejudice fan fic.  Death Comes to Pemberley

Actually, it isn't, in my experience.  I am fine, humming along, though my desire for massive quantities of baking wars with my desire to not eat all the cookies.For those of you who find this

Comments

[rthstewart]

See below discussion about vegetable shortening in the UK. I hope you'll share something too!

I just emailed a big rant to harmony_lover about the decision. RAWRRR

[squishykat]

The recipe sounds tasty (I love ginger!), but two questions: can I substitute butter for shortening and treacle for molasses? From my vague understanding I believe this to be the case. If you don't know off thte top of your head I shall dust off my google-fu, but have no time right now as am late for work... oops. :)

[rthstewart]

Thanks to google fu, I learned that black treacle is the same as molasses. I've used Lyle's Golden Syrup in recipes that call for corn syrup (more on that tomorrow). The issue of substituting butter for vegetable shortening is, alas, not quite so simple. While butter imparts that delicate flavor, whereas vegetable shortening is flavor-less, shortening has a higher melting point than butter. Consequently, the more butter, the greater the "spread"' and the less chewy. Sometimes you can increase the "chew" and reduce the spread by switching out white sugar for brown, freezing the dough and the cookie sheets, and playing with cooking times. However, if you do a straight shortening to butter switch, you are going to get a much different cookie -- it will be very thin. You can get organic and trans fat free all vegetable shortening in US supermarkets. If you try it, you probably want to make a much smaller test batch (with over 4.5 cups of flour (about 520 grams?), this is a BIG batch of cookies.

[squishykat]

Hm there's only one problem with US supermarkets, I'm in the UK! :) I think of lard as shortening, usually used for savoury shortcrust pastry, but I don't think the flavour would work so well with sweet cookies. Maybe some vegetable oil or margarine? This may require some experimentation!

[squishykat]

Ah, my Mum-who-knows-all says vegetable suet is what I'll need. Maybe I'll experiment anyway, any excuse to be eating cookies!

[katharhino]

Oooh I love ginger cookies. Spice cookies are my vice. I would rather have any kind of spice cookie than chocolate chip, even.

Love the rationing details... I have a real ration book that belonged to my grandmother and treasure it.

[rthstewart]

These cookies are the favorite in our house. Given a choice between these and chocolate or sugar, these always win out. It's funny, but my sister in law is Turkish and she does not like the tastes of ginger, root beer, and molasses. They were not part of her culture or palate and she's not been able to acquire a taste for them.

[adaese]

LOL at the idea of Christmas pudding ingredients suspended in jello in pastry. Laughter cut short by mention of jello & pretzel, and has now been replaced by utter bogglement. Also, yay for Mme Jeanne-Louise Lambert (aka Rat)!

Hmm. I was thinking of making ginger cookies for visiting nieces over Christmas, but was planning the sort you can cut into interesting shapes. Decisions, decisions.

[rthstewart]

I shall find the lime green jello and pretzel recipe and share it. It has lemon-lime soda in it too, as I recall. Very special. My Minnesota cookbook has a whole chapter devoted to jello recipes. It has a treasured place alongside my 1960s Women's league cookbook: "Chilled Senegalese is perfect at a polo match. As for field trials, mugs of Boula make wiser solace than straight shots when your prize pointer has disgraced you by chasing a squirrel."

[anonymous]

Much excitement over Mme Lambert! I can't wait to see more of her adventures! Also, I'm torn over Helen's naming. On one hand, I do like the name and it fits her, but now she's named and I can't speculate anymore on what would be a good name for her! And I know fully what you mean about the three sentence ficathon, the only reason I haven't joined in is that I don't want to get sucked in when I have finals, then the GRE and then I'm going to be sans internet for the better part of a month! But when I get back from all that I'm thinking of creating an LJ and joining in. And do not get me started on the decision. Makes me so angry.

~LotL

[rthstewart]

yes, come to the Dark Side we have lots of memes and comment fic. And good luck getting through it all!!! As for Plan B, yeah, I wrote a long rant to harmony_lover about it and talked with some colleagues about it today at a party. Sigh. I wrote more and just struck it out. There are great links to information about it everywhere. and just struck out even more

[anonymous]

I shall! (Also, you have cookie recipes!) I just don't want to join up and disappear for a month. And thanks! And yup.
~LotL