My first venture back into baking…
I stopped baking when I got the diabetes diagnosis. It just wasn’t safe to expose myself to any quantities of tasty baked goods, as my willpower, initially at least, wasn’t up to the challenge. The Husband, a true saint, backed me up, and has willingly sacrificed his own access to the good stuff in order to support me in losing the excess weight and maintaining my blood sugar at safe levels.
Seven months down the line, I’m able to control myself! So it was time to do some seasonal baking for the benefit of the Chiconi Fam, who came for Christmas lunch. No need to impose my dietary restrictions on them… Everyone got a little carton with five bickies to take away afterwards. Tasty, but not a sweet overload.
The red velvet cupcakes with white frosting and sprinkles were fine, but nothing spectacular, so I’m not bothering with them. The bickies (cookies to my American/Canadian friends) are another story. I haven’t baked bickies/cookies much, aside from my default, 20-minute start-to-finish Peanut Butter Cookies. But I saw this recipe on the Emmy Made YouTube channel, and wanted to give it a try. Y’all should give it a go, it’s a winner.
Ready to go into the oven. Top left to bottom right: spice thins, jam drops, raisin, peanut butter and double chocolate
You make a Master Dough, to which you subsequently add a variety of flavourings for different variants. It’s a smart, time-saving idea, and it works really well. I made her suggested variants except for one, and tried one additional option of my own.
The dough is delicious, versatile, well-behaved and forgiving. It’s not too sweet, and is yummy enough to eat raw, if you’re not concerned about raw egg (which I’m not). It cooks up quickly and responds well to both dry and oily additions.
Plus, Emmy is such a delightful, funny and inspiring presenter, and makes me laugh out loud at least once every time I watch her, whether she’s testing a recipe or trying some weird food. Worth a visit, people!
And in case you’re wondering? No, I didn’t have any bickies! 😇
talltalesfromchiconia 
I couldn’t eat just one either. I’ll go have a look when I have an oven again. They look yummy and I’d probably bake to give away too. At least to give the house a Christmas smell. Merry Christmas and good for you for taking care of yourself.
They are very tasty, especially the spice ones, my favourite, and the double chocolate. I haven’t tried the latter, but this is an opinion given to me by others 😊 I tried the scales this morning with some trepidation, and find that I’ve actually LOST the equivalent of 4 ounces. Who knew?
Not gaining is a huge plus. Congrats. My scale is in storage where it will stay until spring allows for moving my things to my new home. 😦
Best place for it. I didn’t get on the scales for years until May this year… I wish I didn’t have to, but it’s the best way to gauge my progress..
Well done! 😉🎄⛄️
I feel rather virtuous, but also VERY deprived!
I’m sure! I baked some shortbread to send my son since his wife and daughters have to avoid gluten and I didn’t keep any for myself 😉
It’s the smell of baking that I find the worst torture… But worth it for the pleasure it gives others.
Lovely news on your journey…
I’m on a semi clean living lifestyle to help with my current woes. I just made a online grocery order and I feel I’m making progress with “what wasn’t in the cart”. I can still have treats but I limit them to very tiny amounts.
When I was looking for some product in the low fat line the window had all kinds of products that I used to eat a lot of…and I didn’t cluck even one!!!
I kept away from going to anyone for Christmas as I’m not at the point of over indulging, I want my next GP check up to show I’m on the right track…
Emmy is one of my favorite YouTubers! She is such a delight and so positive! Glad you liked the bickie master recipe. I’m a little behind on video watching, so I’ll have to pull that one out of the queue and check it out.
Hope you all had a fabulous holiday! (And extra smooches for Mr. Mouse.❤️)
She’s a beautiful lovely, isn’t she? This recipe is dead simple. By far my favourite version is the spice cookies, rolled nice and thin so they’re crisp. And Mouse sends a nose boop to his Aunty Marty!
Master dough is fab… if I’m indulging I like variety in biscuits. a thoughtful, generous gift for the fam.
They seemed to meet with approval 😉 Personally, I think the raisin, double choc and spice were the best, the latter being my favourite, but that’s my Dutch blood rejoicing in the spice! Plus, I made exactly the right quantity to ensure there were no leftovers to tempt me.
They look delicious! I have never been a baker, I should try it one day🎄
I don’t think you really need to be with this recipe. Make the dough, chill it, roll it into a sausage, cut into slices, flatten a bit and put onto a baking sheet. I wouldn’t say I was a real baker (no pastry, no fancy cakes), and I found this dead simple. I’d only add to ensure that both eggs and butter are at room temperature, and the butter is really soft.
Sounds easy enough! Thank you!!
Oh my! Jam drops and peanut butter cookies remind me of my childhood. Thanks for the feel-good post. Congratulations on your ability to bake such deliciousness for others…and hour weight loss.
It was tempting to make the whole batch in one flavour, but I thought this way everyone would find something to their taste! It was a struggle to hand them all over, but let’s face it, better on their hips than mine!
I’ve used that term before, too. I worked hard at losing weight this year, and now I’m focused on keeping it that way. I’ve imbibed in my fair share of delicious carbs these past few weeks, but I have peace of mind, that I’ve not tipped the scales too much. That helps me feel settled.
Well done you, for staying strong!
I’ll just nip out and polish up my halo… Seriously, it was fun to do and a pleasure to give simple but tasty treats.
They look fantastic, maybe one day I’ll have another bash at baking something – but right now, as a friend of mine would say, “I’m not feeling it”.
I’ve said it before but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of repetition sometimes – bloody well done on taking control of your health and weight. I didn’t find it easy myself at the beginning but it was all worth the effort. I’m seeing my mom today and have bought her some chocolate and other treats – they’ve been in the cupboard for 3 days and, if they were calling my name, I didn’t hear it 🙂
There has been a box of posh chocolates in the back fridge for a couple of weeks. It’s mine, I won it in a raffle. It still has the cellophane wrapper on it… I think I’ve reached the point now where I can have just one without feeling the urge to dive into the whole box and devour it like one of the more aggressive raptors. Just as I can watch the Husband devouring chicken and garlic rice without salivating (much). Sight and smell do tend to hijack your hindbrain unless you stay alert…
You didn’t eat any! That’s will power, or did the desire go with lots of healthy eating? I was always surprised that after a week in Greece with oodles of fresh fruit the desire for biscuits etc went…at least for a while.
I had a small and wizened spice biscuit that was rolled out too thin… I must say, my tolerance for the sweet stuff is much less than before, sweet things generally taste much too sweet!
They look delicious ! I seldom bake cookies as they are too delicious but sometimes my granddaughter asks me to bake some, I take a few for me and my husband and the rest go home with my happy granddaughter. I hope you had a lovely Christmas !
That sounds like the perfect solution! We had a lovely quiet Christmas, thank you!
Good for you! I have not eaten sugar since 2014…after being terribly, horribly sick. Dr. Treatmets didn’t work, so I went online Sugar feeds so much stuff so I went off Cold Turkey. So far I haven’t had any symptoms all these years and I hope to keep it that way. Kuddos. ( Yes I still bake and all that for everyone else)
There have been one or two tiny treats this Christmas, but they haven’t woken the Sugar Monster so far. Just goes to show you can live quite ahppily without it, even if the baking smells are torturous!
Yummmm 👌
Definitely on my list of baked goodies for gift giving next year 😍🤩
I think they’re probably less time consuming than cakes, and the variety makes it seem like you’ve slaved for hours!
True but I don’t think I’ll ever stop making cakes. I’ll keep going as long as my hands can do it 😍
What a great idea. i love having an assortment of cookies to put out but do not want to make so many different batches. Thank you for the link.
You could make more than 5 varieties, of course, and it would create the impression of hours of slaving in the kitchen 😉 Off the top of my head, I’d like to try caramel chips, freeze dried strawberry, dried apple and cinnamon, chocolate dipped, glazed, sprinkles, etc.
I used to have that same sugar overload problem! After the cancer diagnosis, suddenly sugar hasn’t appealed to me at all, or carbs in general. These cookies look good, and I like the idea of a master dough. My son is crazy for red velvet anything!
When I was on chemo, I found sweet foods totally disgusting, chocolate was like clay in my mouth, fruit tasted spoiled, etc. Sadly, the effect didn’t last, but eating les sweet stuff has diminished its appeal as my palate has changed. One square of chocolate is quite enough!
Gosh Kate! You have willpower! I am so glad you felt able to bake again and well done for trying something new. I hope your Christmas get together was a joy for you as well as everyone else – it can be a lot of work!
Luckily this didn’t take long! And every last crumb is gone, so I think they must have been nice…
The cookies all look good! Happy Christmas!
Apparently, they were!
Well done, also this dough freezes well. I free into small portion sizes, 4-6 cookies. When making a roast bake them for a fresh treat.
Yes, it does freeze well, plenty of butter in it to keep it workable. But because of the diabetes I prefer not to keep it too handy – too much temptation! I’ll make a big batch to give away, but small batches just reinforce that my willpower is virtually zero when it comes to baked goods!