Christmas Baking
I love Christmas goodies- cookies, candy- oooohh, yummy!! I was planning on making some goodies this year & I was talking with a couple of friends (Michelle & Karla, my morning workout buddies... funny we were discussing baking while working out!) & we decided to get together & make some stuff- it's always more fun to do just about anything with friends!
We started a couple weeks ago with a "Cookie Night" over at Michelle's- besides making quite a mess....We made, Sugar Cookies, my personal favorite, but can take a long time, the making of the dough, chilling the dough, cutting out the cookies, baking them & then you still have to frost them!-- That is when it is much more fun to make them with friends & a couple bottles of wine! We also made Monster Cookies, Peanut Butter cookies w/ Reese's Peanut Butter cups (not sure the actual name for those cookies) & Chocolate Chip Cookies. Then we got together the next day to frost- we only ended up frosting 1/2 the cookies the first day. About a week later we got together again & frosted the remaining Sugar Cookies- that is quite a feat! We did make it a little bit of a competition- we each made our own Sugar Cookies and after they were all done & decorated we had a tasting contest. For Michelle's sugar cookies, she relied on her personal favorite- Betty Crocker (yes, the package where I think you add just water), Karla made cut out Sugar Cookies & I tried a new recipe Sour Cream Sugar Cookies. And the winner was.............. Karla!!!! We decided to just make one kind of sugar cookie next year & divide up. It's hard to have 3 different kinds going, taking them out of the oven & trying to remember who's was who's.
Then last weekend we got together at Karla's house to make some Christmas candy- we were mixing & dipping....& dipping.... & dipping for I think close to 8 hours!!! We made Wreaths (similar to krispie treats) dipped pretzels, dipped Ritz w/ peanut butter, cake balls (white & chocolate)- this was my first year for cake balls & I highly recommend them- yummy! Oreo balls, peanut butter Bon Bons... humm, I think that might be it. It was a lot of dipping- I think everything except the wreaths were dipped in almond bark! I forgot to take pictures, I did take a quick one towards the end, but some of the candy had already been boxed up. I then divided the candy & cookies up- handed a few goodie boxes out to my neighbors, got the goodie trays ready for Christmas at my mom's & Christmas at Sharon's and we have some to nibble on around the house this week...ooooo, so, yummy!

A big THANK YOU to Michelle & Karla for getting together with me to do some Christmas baking, I know some of the days were longer than we thought & at times our backs & feet hurt, but it was fun & I really hope we do it again next year!