You, or someone related to you by blood or marriage, had better start baking. Preferably cookies. It is required by law, I believe in the Constitution. "We the People, in Order to form a more perfect Union, declare that within sight of the holidays all Households must deliver unto all many cookies. This insures domestic Tranquility."

It is up to you whether these cookies derive from beloved family traditions or reflect something new each year. If you’re leaning toward the latter, Kathie Young is your Christmas angel.

Young, recalling the many requests I’ve received from readers for baked goods from their school days, sent in several handwritten sheets of recipes, collected in the 1970s when her children attended, and she was a volunteer at, Hahaione Elementary School.

Her cookies are all familiar, but with a twist: oatmeal cookies with ground raisins that provide a special moistness and flavor; a light, delicate shortbread called Grandmother Cookies; and brownies made with peanut butter that turn out wonderfully chewy.

I am convinced those brownies fulfill two requests that I’ve had in my files for a while, although both Dave Nagata and Bernice Alameida-Sasahara called them Peanut Butter Chews. Nagata learned to love them at Moana­lua Elementary, Alameida-Sasahara at Waia­lua High and Intermediate, both in the ’70s.

They described a chewy bar cookie. I’m sure this is it.

"It would be a miracle if someone can come up with that or a similar recipe," Nagata wrote.

Well, Dave, here is your holiday miracle.

Young is a self-described cookie monster. "I would sit around all day long eating cookies if I had them," she says.

Hahaione did not have its own kitchen 40 years ago, so meals were brought in from another school, but when Young asked for recipes, one of the cafeteria workers came through.

"I think they just gave me a bunch of papers with a bajillion cookies on them," she recalls.

The quantities were huge, the recipes lacked instructions and the ingredient lists called for such things as powdered eggs, but Young and her husband did the math and made the ingredient conversions.

The cookies became family favorites, "my Christmas gifts when we didn’t have any money."

At the holidays she’d make 100 dozen, thereby fulfilling the constitutional obligations of several households all by herself.

Tips for baking big

I had my own holiday bake-a-thon before Thanksgiving, in order to put these recipes in order. It led to these ideas for anyone planning to bake several types of cookies, cakes or quick breads in a single session:

» Clear a counter. If you don’t have much counter space, use the kitchen table or set up a folding table. Having enough space will make you so much more efficient, and you won’t have to hunt around for a place to set your cookie sheets when they are hot out of the oven.

» Print out a copy of the ingredient list for each recipe. Divide your counter into workspaces for each recipe and tape the lists in their spaces. This way you won’t have to go back and forth between a cookbook or a computer and your workspace. And you won’t forget which cookie is being made in which space. It happens.

» Set up your equipment. Get out the cookie sheets, loaf pans, spatulas and measuring cups and spoons. Find several containers to hold ingredients. Plastic containers from sour cream or margarine work well, if you don’t have enough bowls.

» Measure by assembly line. Get out the flour and measure what you need for each recipe into separate containers. Put the flour away and follow up with baking powder. Put that away. This keeps the work area clear of bags of flour, sugar and such. Combine dry ingredients for each recipe in one container, break eggs into another, scoop sugar into another. Vanilla can go in a small cup. Cut your butter sticks into the proportions that you need for each recipe.

» Keep things separate. Put each set of ingredients in its assigned workspace, and check ingredients off the lists as you measure — just in case you forget whether you already put the baking powder in with the flour. It happens.

» Start mixing. Make the batter for the item that requires the lowest baking temperature first. Work up from there.

» Use baking parchment. When your cookies emerge from the oven, you can slide them onto a cooling rack all at once by pulling the paper sheet. If you don’t have many cookie sheets, you can stage each batch of cookies on parchment. Once a cookie sheet is emptied, slide the paper and all its unbaked cookies onto the sheet.

» You’ll need a lot of cooling space. If you don’t have a large cooling rack, take a rack out of your oven and use that.

» Fill a sink with soapy water. Put dirty items in there to soak. Deal with them later, after you’ve tasted your cookies.

PEANUT BUTTER BROWNIES AKA PEANUT BUTTER CHEWS
1/4 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups unpacked brown sugar
5 eggs
1-1/3 cups peanut butter
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-by-13-inch cake pan.

Cream butter and sugars. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, then peanut butter and vanilla.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt; add gradually to peanut butter mixture. Batter may be stiff. Spread evenly in pan and bake 25-30 minutes.

Cool, then cut into squares, or use cookie cutters to cut into shapes.

Variation: Fold 1/2 cup chocolate chips into batter, or press into top of batter before baking.

ROLLED OATS AND RAISIN COOKIES
1-1/2 cups butter
3/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons lightly packed brown sugar
2/3 cup ground raisins (see note)
2-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3-1/2 cups flour
1-3/4 teaspoons baking soda
2-1/4 cups rolled oats
Heat oven to 400 degrees.

Cream butter and sugars. Beat in ground raisins, then vanilla and oil.

Combine flour, baking soda and rolled oats. Gradually add to butter mixture, mixing until well combined.

Form into 1-1/2 inch balls (if batter is dry add a little more oil). Place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets and bake 12 minutes. Makes 4 dozen.

Note: Grinding raisins into a paste gives the cookies a raisin flavor without including whole raisins. Grind in a food processor into a sticky mass, or mince finely with a knife.

Variation: For loaded oatmeal cookies, add chocolate chips, chopped nuts and/or shredded coconut — a total of about 1-1/2 cups of add-ins.

GRANDMOTHER COOKIES
1-1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter
1-1/4 cups vegetable shortening
2-3/4 teaspoons vanilla
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream sugar, butter and shortening. Add vanilla.

Combine flour and baking soda. Add gradually to sugar mixture, mixing until combined. Form batter into 1-1/2 inch balls and place on cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. 

Flatten with glass dipped in sugar. Bake 15-20 minutes. Makes 4 dozen.

Variation: Add 2 cups slightly crushed cornflakes to batter.

Nutritional information unavailable.