Holiday Spirit

I hate Christmas. I hate the stupid people standing outside every store trying to get your money. I hate the stupid Christmas music that stupid stores feel the need to play. I hate all the crowds out there buying stupid gifts getting in my way of just regular everyday life. And people who claim to be all holiday spirit-y and then they kill someone trying to get some stupid toy or a deal on that TV. This is what they call Christmas spirit? This is what how people show their love and goodwill to others and peace and all that other crap?

I hate people going to church, though this hatred isn't as strong now since at least I don't live across the street from a church any more. From my experience the strongly religious, in particular Catholics as that was the church I lived by, are the most rude, inconsiderate people. I am still bitter about living there. All the church people parking illegally, blocking driveways, blocking streets, hitting cars and not even stopping to assess damage, parking in multiple parking spots that had clearly been shoveled out by hand.... I could keep going and going, like the energizer bunny but I think you get the idea.

Now I realize this is not necessarily a function of the holidays. It's more a function of human nature and pretty much that people suck but the holidays seem to augment this. It brings out everything bad about people. And there are plenty of bad things. Well, maybe not everything but enough for me to hate this time of year.

So here comes my dilemma.

I want to make cookies. But I am strongly opposed to making anything that might be associated with holiday cheer and all that garbage. The fact that I did the Daring Bakers challenge (to be posted later this month) was bad enough. But don't worry, mine doesn't resemble what it was supposed to look like.

So this is what I've decided to do. I made the cookies. Well, at least the dough. Now the dough is one more thing in my freezer. I'll bake them when all this ridiculousness is over and I can go back to baking. My goal is to not do any baking until after all this crap. Unless I think of something that cannot be twisted into some sort of holiday cheer type thing.

So this is what I decided on. I still have candy left from Halloween. I know, most people finished theirs a month or more ago but I still have some there because I was figuring I'd use it for some sort of baked goods and then haven't quite gotten to it yet. Well now I have. I made a chocolate cookie dough, broke up the candy and mixed it in. I had Butterfingers a whole bunch of Butterfingers. Enough to fill up a bowl so I decided that was all I was going to use in this batch. I also had Baby Ruth's and Crunch bars and a few other things but that's all I used.

I had a little trouble initially because my heat wasn't working that day and it was cold. So when I went to cream the butter it didn't work extremely well. I left it on the counter for 24 hours thinking it wasn't under 55 in my house so it'd soften but it still wasn't as soft as usual. Oh well. I proceeded like it was soft and just let the mixer beat it a bit more.

I made them into cookie size balls so when I'm ready to make them I just have to plop them on a cookie sheet and they are good to go. I was lazy and didn't feel like going upstairs to get my computer to choose a recipe and figured I'd just fudge it.

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/4 cup AP flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup cocoa powder
a whole bunch of fun size Butterfingers, crushed

Cream the butter and sugars together. Add the vanilla followed by the eggs, one at a time, mixing until combined between additions. Scrape down the bowl and mix again to make sure it's uniform.
Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder. Add to the wet and mix until uniform. Scrape down the sides and make sure it's actually uniform. Mix in the Butterfingers.
Scoop into cookie size balls. Chill the balls for at least 2 hours. Bake at 350. Or don't. Timing will depend on how big you made the cookies, like all cookies.