First Annual Holiday Baking Weekend

For the past few years, my friend Parker and I have been talking about getting together one weekend without kids and husbands and do all of our Christmas cookie baking. This year we finally made it happen! We made our lists of what we wanted to accomplish and each did a grocery run beforehand. Parker drove to my house and arrived Friday afternoon. I started on some cake pops that morning as they take a while to cool, form and dip. My idea was to use the Andes peppermint crunch bits for a festive holiday look.

Yes, that is a CAN of frosting posed next to the Andes bits. Avert your eyes and pretend you didn't see that.

Here is the finished product. I didn't have any green Andes bits (I can't believe I didn't put some of those in the cart), but I did have Hershey's Mint Chocolate Chips, so I baked some of those into the cake batter - delicious! For the peppermint pops, I baked some of the bits into the batter and they are quite soft and liquefy as they bake. I also mixed a few more bits into the frosting/cake crumble mixture so they could be seen. After dipping the pops into melted white or chocolate almond bark, I sprinkled with more bits (and crushed candy canes on a second batch) or chopped up Andes Mints.


A tip: I used toothpicks that were dipped in the melted chocolate, then stuck into the pop. Once that was set, I then finished coating the pop. Once all the chocolate was completely firm, I GENTLY pulled the toothpick away. This allows you package them up easily.

My wonderful husband brought dinner home....

so we didn't have to clutter up the kitchen with "real" food preparation!

There are more photos that I will try to share this week - we were able to mix up quite a few recipes! We had decided ahead of time that it would be smart to prepare all the batters, then freeze into cookie dough balls and bake as needed in December.

In other news, I had my doctor appointment on Friday afternoon in between cake pops and last minute candy shopping. (Never a dull moment around here) In short, I have some tendinitis that needs to be addressed, but it sounds like it will be fairly straight-forward and if things go as planned I should be running by Christmas. Seeing that my freezer is fully stocked with brownies, fudge, cookie dough and biscotti, I think that it is a good thing.

Until then, carrot sticks are a wise choice - they seem to work for the reindeer.