Lovely Weekend

 

I generally don't sew much in December because I am decorating and baking and shopping.  Darling daughter helped with the decorating after Thanksgiving and kids keep sending me links to their favorite items so all I have to do is point and click then go to the door when the UPS man comes.   This year I had a couple quilts that I really wanted to get done for Christmas.  So this past weekend the guys went hunting again and DD came home to love up sons dog so she doesn't have to get one then she did my Christmas baking!!!  I had the doughs mixed up so all she had to do was slice and bake or roll dough into balls and bake.  She was having so much fun she even mixed up some more dough.  I let her be queen of the kitchen and I went to my sewing room.  Occasionally she would come in with a question or the scullery maid would come out to the kitchen and do a quick clean up and taste test then back to the sewing machine.  It was a great weekend!!! Thank you Darling Daughter.  All I have left to do is stitch the binding.  --Ann--

Baking day

Done baking today

thumbprints in vanilla and chocolate with raspberry, orange marmalade, or chocolate filling, peanut butter kisses, and cinnamon spritz

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I like a high chocolate to cookie ratio so I made my second pan of peanut butter kisses with the 1/4 ounce scoop.

Merry Christmas,
Ann

Half Baked

Half my cookie dough is baked. Half recipes and still a lot of cookies.

       acorns,                                spice cookies with cayenne pepper,                      sugar stamp,
                  spice cookies w/ almonds,                                     snowballs,                        and shortbread

All these cookies were made from my mother's recipes with the exception of the spice cookies with cayenne pepper. She was of Swedish decent and I would tease her after I married and learned my way through the kitchen and spice rack that a Swedes idea of spicing up the food was to add more butter, more cream or more sugar and maybe a little cinnamon or nutmeg. I only make a fraction of what she made. I think she started baking  Christmas cookies the first of November and didn't quit until the first week of December.  One year she rolled the edge of the shortbread cookies in colored sugar, they were so pretty, white cookies with a red edge and white cookies with a green edge. I tried to do that one year and had colored sugar all over the cookies.  Maybe that is why she only did them that way once.
I finally gave up and dipped the whole cookie in sugar.  I wish I could ask her how she sugared them so nice.

Remembering and celebrating traditions,
Ann

Dough Day

Today was dough day, 9 kinds of cookie dough 1 clean up!!!
I start with the lightest, whitest dough and work my way through the nut and spice cookies and finish the day with chocolate. Nine doughs, 1 mixing bowl, one clean up, all recipes were cut in half, right down to splitting an egg.  That sounds like something from biology class, my way is easier and no test. Break an egg into a measuring cup, beat briskly, one large egg is very close to 1/4 cup, so spoon out 2 short tablespoons of egg into your mixing bowl. Half an egg for half a recipe.

Happy Baking,
Ann