I am at about the midpoint of my holiday vacation (my office is closed through New Years) and this is the first chance I have had to sit down. Been super busy doing the holiday thing -- visiting people, eating, shopping in over crowded germy shopping malls until i swear never to set a foot back inside ever again but then come back a day later.. you know. That thing.
The days I WAS at home all day, i spent in the kitchen. Because it's December and that's what i do! I bake yummy things that are full of calories and then eat them myself, feel guilty for the gluttony and decide to share with my friends. If they are all squishy and fluffy then i won't look too bad next to them, right?
Last year i made 5 batches of cookies. This year there were 6. Plus home made hot chocolate. And labels and cute packaging.
So when i say batches, there were at least 2 if not 3 dozen cookies per batch. In total there were 18 dozen cookies, more than 216.
A new cookie made it into packages this year. White Chocolate Gingerbread. Next time two small tweaks; less chips, no sugar coating. But still good and somewhat different.
Maybe a new cookie will show up each year. This year i want to mention that there are two important things to note. The first is that there are no nuts in any of the cookies. That's because i accidently walnutted my allergic friend this past summer and I hope to never do that again. The second is that although this took a combined 9 hours ( over two days and 200 Christmas songs) and it was long and tedious it went 100 TIMES BETTER WITH MY MAGIC MIXER. Awesome investment.
My personal favorite is the chocolate chocolate chip one, in case you were wondering.
Funny story though, my last batch were the peanut butter cookies. It was a long day, so i was excited to be done with it all. Which only made the little kitchen disaster that much more devastating I was cracking the second egg into the batter and my hand slipped and i put the whole egg into the mixer. The whole egg with the shell. Oy. >.< Had to start over again!
My favorite part i think is boxing them up. And slapping on the labels. It's like I am my very own production line. Production like of Yum....
The other part to his present was hot cocoa. I found this recipe on the Internets and figured that the only thing better than giving people diabetes, would be to give people cookies AND hot cocoa. Super rich, chocolatey hot cocoa. And so i did just that.
This stuff actually has white chocolate chips food processed into oblivion in the mix. That's what makes it so creamy. (And what makes the "Calories: Made with love, there are none" line a bold faced lie.) I misjudged how many white chocolate chips i would actually NEED though. So i have a good 3-4 cupcakes in the cabinet. I'm sure those will be put to good use. I have had way too many requests to remake my blackberry cupcakes.
I made about 40 servings of this stuff to give out. Okay 39. I kept one for myself. I have to try everything once myself right? That's how i learned that you need to use twice the amount of milk then what the directions call for.
I had some cookie bags that matched the hot cocoa bags. I liked the bright colors. Good job Target.
But mostly it was a mix match of treat boxes. Oh Christmas joy! I've given out about half of the cookies so far, but i have a lot of people that i have not been able to see yet. I am a little bit worried that i will end up with too many left over cookies and have to start eating them all myself.
And that won't be a good idea, seeing as I have eaten ALL THE THINGS these past few weeks. So not quite sure if i will get to bake anything else before the end of the year. Not because of time, or lack of ideas but because I DON'T WANT SWEETS NEAR ME RIGHT NOW. >.< I promised red velvet for a friend but i just dont know if i have it in me!
On a related note though, i got so many cute cupcake things for my birthday and Christmas this year so there will be LOTS of new posts in the new year as i start to use them all. I shall try to post about them this week, but if not expect me in the new year!
xoxo,
Anna
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteyum yum. i eat all the cookies :D
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