holiday baking madness 2008

Back in 2002, my sister started a Christmas baking tradition. On a whim, she bought a few of those "holiday baking" magazines/cook book things and we thumbed through them together citing which recipes were drool-worthy (almost all of them) and which ones we just had to make. That year, my sister churned out Christmas cookies like a mad woman, even though she had just given birth to my nephew David just a month earlier. I think it served as a distraction to other things that were going on at the time. At any rate, the desserts that made the cut were Fudge Puddles, Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies, Chocolate Star Gingersnaps, Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies, Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake (OMG, to die for), Snowballs (peanut butter balls coated in white chocolate), and White Fudge and Chocolate covered pretzels. She really went all out. I made Ginger Scones that year reminiscent of my Thanksgiving visit to California.

I haven't made Ginger Scones since but I did take up the tradition of homemade Christmas cookie baking in 2006. I scoured the Internet and found the recipes that my sister had used for all the cookies she'd baked and dutifully churned out cookies all day long while somehow maintaining a holly jolly mood. I even baked about 10 dozen (no joke) of rolled sugar cookies for the kids to decorate. (Which I wound up decorating by myself because the kids never showed up.) Needless to say, the cookies were a huge hit with the family and not a single crumb went to waste.

Last year's cookie-baking-palooza wasn't nearly as involved. I decided to forego the sugar cookies because I wasn't up for rolling them out or decorating them. My niece, Deborah, spent the day at the trailer with Tony, Scott, and me and helped me bake a few dozen Fudge Puddles, Chocolate Star Gingersnaps, pecan, pumpkin, and Tollhouse chocolate chip pies. It's understandable that I wasn't really in a particularly holly jolly mood last Christmas. The thought that I should've been huge with a overbearing baby belly simply got the best of my Christmas spirit. I just didn't have it in me.

This year I went all out (again). I started baking at noon today and I am just now sitting down for the first time in about nine hours. My feet are killing me, my back hurts, I desperately need to shower and brush my teeth (which feel a little fuzzy from the bits of taste testing I did today), and I definitely need to pop a muscle relaxer and a Lortab to rid myself of the headache that is threatening to incapcitate me. Overall, though, I feel very accomplished. We have roughly eight dozen Chocolate Star Gingersnaps, six dozen Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies, two and a half dozen of Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies, and four dozen Fudge Puddles. All baked, cooled, and placed neatly in festive tins. Michelle and I are going to finish baking probably about six dozen more Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies tomorrow. I prepared several bags of Royal Icing in various colors for the kids to use to decorate the sugar cookies. I am also planning to bake two Ooey Gooey Butter Cakes tomorrow along with some Peanut Butter cookies for my dad and regular old Chocolate Chip cookies for Tony. Michelle is going to bake her Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake and make Oreo Truffles tomorrow as well.

Despite all my aches and pains, I did have a good day. I played and sang along with Christmas music. I wore festive knee socks with my green capri sweats and a red t-shirt. And, best of all, I know that my family will go ga-ga over my hard labor when they decidedly devour my cookies en masse. May they all gain a good 15 pounds this Christmas on me!

And, just for fun, I took some pictures to commemorate my cookie-baking endeavors...


Me, as is. (Haven't showered, no makeup, hair a wreck... yikes!)


Festive feets! (I <3 my socks!)


I used an entire bottle of vanilla extract, five pounds of white sugar, two pounds of brown sugar, three pounds of butter, a pound of cream cheese, three pounds of confectioner's sugar, two jars of maraschino cherries (stems on, please), and five pounds of flour. Just to name a few...

This is what my cats were doing while I was busting my arse in the kitchen...


Jasmine


Olivia


William


Chocolate Star Gingersnaps in the making...


Chocolate Star Gingernaps getting ready for the oven...


Chocolate Star Gingersnaps all done! Don't they look yummy? They are my favorite!


Choclate Covered Cherry Cookie dough


Chocolate Covered Cherry Cookies all done! C'mon, I know you're drooling!


Fudge Puddles sans the "fudge puddle" part. (Basically a peanut butter cookie base.)


Fudge Puddles all done! They are sinfully delightful.


Michelle rolling out Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies. (She took care of the part of baking sugar cookies that I hate!)


Fun with food coloring and Royal Icing


A few of the finished Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies. (I frosted one of the stars for fun. :P)


Michelle being goofy with the Chocolate Covered Cherry cookies. (I did the cookie part, she put on the finishing touches. It was a group effort!)


My sister -- the Martha Stewart wannabe (sans the stint in jail, of course).