Ever since finals ended last Wednesday, I’ve been busy baking in the kitchen. I really don’t know how many pounds of butter I’ve gone through, but I do know I’ve gone through 1 of the 5# bags of flour from SAM’s. I love baking around the holidays because there are so many great things to make and I love being able to share the goods with friends and family.
Sadly we aren’t making the trip down south to Houston this year. Flights were too expensive, especially since my brother and I would only be able to be there for 2 and a half days. Instead we’re spending Christmas in Fond du Lac with the other northern families. It will still be wonderful to be together and celebrate the fortune we’ve had in the past year. I decided to bake cookies for each of the 7 families that will be in Houston. I spent about 5 days baking various cookies and packing them neatly in the cute tins I bought at Michaels. I shipped them out on Tuesday so I’m crossing my fingers that they receive them by Christmas Eve.
Each tin had:
-Peppermint & Chocolate Chip cookies (new recipe I created)
-Bourbon Pecan Lace Cookies (a similar recipe here)
-My signature cookie: Chewy Toffee Chocolate Chip
The cookies certainly won’t replace our presence [or will they? 
] but at least everyone will know we are thinking about them even though we are miles apart.
Of course my baking hasn’t stopped there. One of the first cookies I made earlier in the month was Maple Sugar cookies with royal icing. The hint of maple makes it a unique sugar cookie. On another note, my decorating skills need much improvement. I also made chocolate bark with sea salt, marshmallows, pecans, and toffee. I’m loving the sweet and salty combo lately.
I also made these Almond cookies. They require special ingredients that I somehow had on hand all at once. The dough is very delicious. To make them extra special I made a Maple glaze to drizzle on top and sprinkled shimmering sugar. The glaze was simple- powdered sugar, maple syrup and milk. You want the consistency to be thin enough to drizzle but thick enough to stay on the cookie.
I am working on another holiday baking project. This one is pretty special so I’ll wait to post about it until I’m completely done with it. Merry Christmas Eve Eve!
