I had you at "Toblerone", didn't I?

Yeah, I did!

These shortbread cookies are my family's absolute favorite and I make them every year at Christmas. My daughter and I just whipped up a double batch, because last year, well, we ran out waaay to early. They are always the most coveted sweet on my cookie plate, so this year I figured I'd be better prepared. Here's hoping we'll have enough this time around!

Anyhow, let's just get right to the recipe!

(And don't skip any steps! )

The very first thing you need to do to bake these cookies, is to place your Bing Crosby Christmas CD in the CD player. Please make sure you have the volume turned up as loud as possible without blowing the speakers. After you have listened to the first few strains of "Let It Snow" while clapping your hands and bouncing on your heals for a few seconds, you will then need to haul out ALL of the Christmas decorations from the storage room. (Or where-ever it is that you store your Christmas decorations for the ten months of the year that they are not being displayed.) Once you have ALL of the decorations out and placed in the middle of the living room, you may begin opening the boxes. It is very important that while you open the boxes, you squeal with delight as you see for the first time this year, the beautiful decorations that you had forgotten you owned. Please note, it is perfectly acceptable to talk to yourself, or to the ornaments themselves, about how wonderful and beautiful they are.

Once you have a significant amount of the ornaments out of their boxes and placed on the coffee table, dining room table, the floor, and whatever available space you have, you will now start decorating. If you have a fireplace mantel, that is where you should begin. Now, remember, a beautifully decorated mantel does not just appear in a few minutes. You need to be able to re-arrange things a little (or a lot) to find the exact placement your ornaments prefer. Give yourself 2-3 hours to get it just right.

Trust me, it IS worth it!

And, don't be alarmed if you feel the need to re-arrange things at a later date. Sometimes Christmas ornaments change their minds about where they want to be.

The next step is to arrange and re-arrange the majority of your Christmas decorations around the house.

At this point you may begin to feel discouraged and overwhelmed. It is important that you understand, this does not have to be done all in one day. Take your time. It is best to spread this process out over a week or so. Just leave all of the boxes and decorations out until you are completely satisfied with your work. (This may be extremely irritating to your family members, and especially to your husband, but if he really loves you, he will only complain a little.)

Now, you must decorate the tree.

Once the tree is completed, you will need to get whatever empty boxes you have stored back in the storage room. (Or where-ever it is that you store your Christmas decorations for the ten months of the year that they are not being displayed.) It is also very important that your home is mostly clean. Clean sheets on the bed are critical, (I'm not actually sure why this is so important, but it is.) and it is also a good idea to have at least one clean bathroom. (But two is better.)

Ok. We are now getting down to the wire.

You must make sure that all of the Christmas lights are plugged in. It doesn't matter if you can't see the all the lights from the kitchen, they must still be on. Again, you must place your "Bing" Christmas CD in the CD player, making sure you have the volume turned up as loud as possible without blowing the speakers.

You will now need - a pound of butter at room temperature.

DO NOT USE MARGARINE! (Seriously! Don't do it!)

3/4 cup of icing sugar

1/2 cup of cornstarch

3 1/2 cups of flour

3-4 Toblerone chocolate bars (Or one ginormous Toblerone. Honestly, you cannot have too much Toblerone in your cookies. When it comes to Toblerone, more is ALWAYS better.)

Place the butter in your electric mixer and start whipping it.

Add the icing sugar and blend. Be sure to start blending on low speed otherwise you will end up with icing sugar all over the kitchen and yourself. (Not that I have ever done that.)

Next, add the cornstarch and flour to the mixture. (Again, blend slowly at first.....)

After the ingredients are blended together, turn up the speed and whip the snot out it!

Whip the batter, scraping the sides of the bowl often, until the consistency becomes soft and fluffy. (about 5 minutes)

Now you'll need to chop up your Toblerone.

While you are chopping the chocolate, do not eat even one piece of it! Because you were to cheap to buy four bars and only bought three, you will need every last morsel. If you drop a piece on the floor, quickly pick it up and drop it into the bowl. (Unless Gordon Ramsey is in your kitchen. If Gordon Ramsey is in your kitchen and you use food that you have dropped on the floor, he will scream at you and call you a stupid donkey, and nobody wants to hear that!)

Mix the chocolate into the whipped cookie batter.

Spoon out large rounded teaspoons of batter onto a parchment lined baking sheet, and place in pre-heated 325 degree oven. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes. Do not forget to set the timer, because if you do, you will loose track of how long the cookies have been in the oven and will need to open the oven door every two or three minutes to check to see if they are done, and that is a pain in the butt! (Not that I have ever done that!)

Once you have successfully completed baking all of the cookies, you have a choice of whether or not you would like to clean the kitchen. On the one hand, it is very nice to look at those beautiful cookies on the counter in a clean kitchen, but there is also something to be said for allowing your family to see, and understand, the great efforts you went through to make these delicious cookies for Christmas.

Now, before you place the entire batch of cookies in the freezer to keep for Christmas, you must make a sacrifice and keep one cookie for each member of your family. You, however, must not eat any of the cookies. They are for Christmas, after all, and you will need every last one......

.....unless of course, you break a cookie by accidentally flicking it off the spatula while transferring it to the cooling rack, or perhaps, accidentally sticking your finger in the center of one. If this were to happen, you should carefully put the cookie on a plate, as it will be extra crumbly while it is still warm. After you eat all the pieces of broken cookie, it is a good idea to press your tongue onto the plate over and over again, to pick up any of the remaining crumbs. Waste not, want not, they say! :)

Place your cookies in single layers between sheets of wax paper in a Christmas tin.

And there you have it!

You have successfully made a perfectly beautiful batch of Toblerone Shortbread Cookies!

Good for you!

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