Fa la la la la, la la la la
With my Charlie Brown Christmas tree, stuffed with ornaments, Christmas cards, and garland (trying to fill in the gaps) all lit up in the window, and Christmas music ringing through the house, I began the baking. I pulled 4 kinds of cookie dough, one at a time, from the fridge and got to work. I measured each one carefully to make sure that I got the exact number of cookies out of the dough that I was supposed to. I tempered chocolate and hand-dipped some. I even made two types of treats that couldn’t be prepped for ahead of time! Six hours of baking and tying ribbons later, the box for my family was packed and Christmas baking was finished…for now.
Because they already received the package and most likely will have started eating all of the goodies (and in all likely-hood won’t even read this), I have no qualms with now saying what I bestowed upon everyone this Christmas season.
For mom I made pumpkin cookies. With the texture of cake and the spices of pie, it screams “it’s the holidays!!” I dipped them in chocolate which makes them ten times better.
For dad I made apple-oat cookies. Made primarily from apple sauce and oats, and mixed with golden raisins, these cookies taste like that perfect apple pie…except it’s a cookie! Bliss.
For Scott, there was oodles of goodies. I made a rich chocolatey cookie; chewy with a crackled top. I made half of the batch with chocolate-peanut butter chips, and the other half with chocolate-mint chips. I also made him a batch of one of his favorite things ever: white chocolate pretzels, sprinkled with peppermint sprinkles.
And finally, for the whole crew, I made yum-yum graham bark. I didn’t know what else to call these, since they were just a jumble of yumminess. A layer of graham crackers with freshly made butterscotch poured over it and baked in until a candy-like consistency, then topped with toasted coconut, pecans, and chocolate. Uhhh…yeah…there are no other words.
A variety of the cookies were delivered to my friend Sheena (in the same box, no less) and also to my older brother. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night…
Now, I only have to do that all over again for my boyfriend’s family, whom we are spending Christmas with. That’s ok, I have a long Christmas music playlist.
