Moms & Baking Go Hand in Hand.

You’ve been there.  You’re 8 years old.  You’ve bragged to all your friends about the amazing cupcakes you’re going to bring to school the next day for your birthday.  You get home and share the good news to the one person in your life who actually knows how to bake cupcakes:

Your mom.

“Mommy!!  Guess what!! I told all my friends and my teacher and my gym teacher and the kids at recess and Mr. Bernard’s class that I’m bringing cupcakes for my birthday to school tomorrow!”

My mother was a full-time nurse in the Emergency Room of a mid-sized hospital in Chicago.  In other words, the last thing she wanted to do after coming home from literally one of the most stressful jobs on earth was bake cupcakes.  No, like most humans, my mom preferred windows down with a warm beverage before the television for an hour or so before heading to bed.

But, like most moms, my mother put to one side the fact that she was bone-tired and stayed up all night frosting a bunch of cupcakes for her daughter’s second grade classmates.

So, it was pretty appropriate that she asked me to bake her a bunch of shortbread cookies for Christmas this year, so that she could “show off” to all her friends. The past two months at work have been busier than normal and baking was honestly the last thing this food-blogger had in mind for the Christmas holiday.  But the thought of disappointing my 67 year old mother on Christmas Eve was about as appealing to me as disappointing an 8 year girl the day before her birthday.  So, I rolled up my sleeves, whipped out my rolling pin, and ganache’d the fuck out of these shortbread cookies.

And yes.  Mommy loved them.

Recipe for Chocolate Ganache Shortbread Cookies.