Round 10 of Baking Gals just finished and we shipped our goodies to SSG Nicholas Limerick in Afghanistan on Tuesday. While I was at the post office there were two soldiers each mailing a care package to someone in the military. I know that because I’m psychic. No, because they were using the military flat rate boxes from the US Postal Service too.

Anyway, I recently bought a Wilton cookie press because it reminded me of the cookie press my mom had (and my sister probably now has) in days gone by. When I saw it, I became instantly nostalgic and culinary at the same time! :-) It wasn’t terribly expensive, about $20 at Bed Bath and Beyond, and it comes with something like 20 designs. More important for me, it comes with the recipes for spritz cookies – what cookies made with the press are called apparently – and also for a type of cheese cracker. I haven’t tried the cracker yet but I am going to soon. If they are yummy, they might not make it out of Cypress, let alone find themselves in Iraq. So, first I made chocolate spritz cookies, because even though it’s a living oven in Afghanistan right now and chocolate chips will melt, chocolate cookies must be had!

Next I made lemon spritz cookies with fresh lemon zest. They are not as good as the lemon shortbreads I made last round, but I wanted to try something new, so what the heck. I think next round I will go back to the original shortbread recipe, which came from Joy of Baking incidentally.

Here’s a mini review of the Wilton cookie press: it was overall a B+ because it was at times difficult to load the dough into the barrel. The instructions say “shape the dough into a log and place in the barrel.” I would like to know if the Wilton people have actually touched the dough from their recipes, because it is soft and very pliable. This stuff wouldn’t stay in the shape of a lump. Also, if the dough wasn’t “just right” in the barrel there were what can only be described as misfires. I’d squeeze the trigger but nothing would come out. Once the pump was primed so to speak, the press worked nicely, although at times the shapes were not uniform and I think I will attribute this to the warm pans. Note to other bakers who would like to use a cookie press: allow your pans to cool before pressing the next batch to be baked. The dough will not stick on warm pans. The Wilton recipe called for the cookies to bake for 10-12 minutes but my oven must run hot because I burned them at 10 and they were just right at 8.

We rounded out our box with candy and gum. Hopefully SSG Limerick has access to a dentist.

We finalized our baking the other day and shipped our care package to Capt Sarah Armstrong in Iraq! Hopefully she will receive our box in a day or two, fingers crossed. She did make a comment on her site about mail having been delayed recently. What did we ship, you ask? Ah, we were busy little bakers, but I didn’t get as much into the box as originally planned.

We started off making Oatmeal Squares, a delicate oatmeal/brown sugar cookie that is insanely good. They just melt in your mouth. Unfortunately, they are in fact very delicate and crumbled farily easily while I was removing them from the pan. I was afraid they would turn into really sweet granola by the time they made it to Iraq. So, those had to be put aside for the family to enjoy (I hate when that happens!) and we tried something else.

Next we made Oatmeal Macaroons with nuts and raisins. Now we’re talking! These cookies were pretty sturdy and crispy, delicious and crunchy. The batter made around 5 dozen cookies, too, so that was two gallon Ziplock bags of yummy goodness.

Third batch was the sugar cookies with the flags, our “cheat” cookies because they were premade. They turned out very nice though. So nice that not as many as I would like made their way to Sarah.  :-)

Finally, I was running out of energy so we made lemon shortbreads. Oh my, these were fantastic! I used a lemon my friend gave me from her tree to zest. The recipe is slightly modified from the source, but it basically has butter, sugar, flour, vanilla and lemon zest. Wow! I rolled them into 1″ balls, then pressed them flat with a fork. When I asked John to taste test them, he said he needed another 6 or 7 to be sure if they were good. I wound up making a double batch because they were such a hit at home! I plan to make these again because they were so easy and so delicious, and they can be made with cocoa powder too for chocolate shortbreads. Yum!

Last but not least, we included three boxes of instant drink mix singles. I had heard these would be welcomed, so I hope the flavors are as yummy as they sounded. The box was full, and I had originally planned to include Brownie Drops, but really I just ran out of gumption. Baking with a toddler can be fun, but when she loses interest in between batches, she can go play, while Mom winds up making the rest of the cookies. I don’t mind really because I love to bake, it’s just a little tiring on my back. Small sacrifice compared to what Sarah, her comrades and all our military are doing. I can take some Advil and suck it up! However, I think in the future, I might just power through a weekend making batter and freezing it. Then I can either cut off rounds, or thaw and bake, depending on what I want to do.

I’ll post pictures later, I just didn’t find the time to download them from the camera this weekend. I was too busy with Melody making picture frames and other gifts for friends. We had a great, messy time!

UPDATED: Added pictures to the gallery!

Click this insanely cute picture to see more.

Tonight we started our baking for Round 9 at BakingGals.com.  Our soldier this round is a woman named Capt Sarah Armstrong.  She is currently stationed in Iraq with Marine Aircraft Group 26, a headquarters group that supports 10-12 squadrons.  I would suspect that Capt Armstrong and company are very busy people!

Sarah Armstrong is also a fellow blogger!  Her blog is Sweets by Sarah, a foodie, family, friendy blog, and somehow she finds time in Iraq to update it on a fairly regular basis.  Sarah has made two posts about her daily life in Iraq, here and here, and they include pictures of her work area and colleagues.  There’s also a great bunch of pictures posted of her and her pals on a run at 6 a.m. because it’s too freakin’ hot any other time of day. Imagine yourself jogging in the Mojave Desert, nice!

This round, since it’s about a million degrees Fahrenheit in Iraq right now, we are making treats that shouldn’t melt, i.e. no chocolate chips or M&M cookies, which are some of my favorites to make.  We’re going a little old school and digging deep into the family recipes for some really great treats.

Gram’s Oatmeal Squares

Gram’s Molasses Crinkles

Grammie’s Brown Edge Wafers

Brownie Drops (mystery contributor)

Plus we have the “cheat” cookies from Pillsbury that were just too cute to pass up – they are sugar cookies with American flags in the center.  :-)  I’ll be sure to include mints, gum, and other candy.  I heard that magazines are welcome as are treats like lotions, soaps and drink mix singles, so I’ll try to include some of that too!  

As always, if you are interested in baking for a soldier and spreading the love overseas, check out BakingGals.com!  If it’s not for you, please pass the word on to others who may be interested.  It’s the first cause I’m really interested in, so enable me, please! Oh, and Dad and I just tried out the Oatmeal Squares and they may unfortunately be too delicate to ship to Iraq, so I may have to substitute something else for that.  We’ll see how they are when cooled.