#### General Notes | |
- Concerning the baking of macaroons: | |
The macaroons are very soft when they are still hot, so they | |
need to cool a bit before they can be taken from the tray | |
without breaking them. This also makes it very easy to bake | |
them too long because it's easy to think that they aren't | |
done yet even though they become much harder later. They | |
should still be a bit chewy on the inside when they are cool. | |
- The recipes in this section contain a lot more sugar and fat | |
than I usually use when baking cookies and cakes throughout | |
the rest of the year. This is in part due to tradition. Old | |
cookbooks often used more sugar and fat in Christmas cookies | |
because those ingredients were expensive and only used in | |
large amounts on special occasions. The other reason is that | |
using lots of sugar and fat makes the cookies stay fresh for | |
longer, which is important because Christmas cookies are often | |
eaten over a period of a month or longer. It would be nice to | |
properly study how long the cookies stay fresh with different | |
amounts of sugar and fat, but I don't have the time for that. |