Christmas Baking

Tomorrow is "Christmas Baking Day" for me and my mom. It's our annual tradition where she bakes tons of things and smacks my hands to keep me from eating raw cookie dough. Just kidding... kinda. As I've gotten older, I've become more of an active participant in baking day... and it's something I look forward to most during the Christmas season.

What does baking day entail, say you?

About 50 sticks of butter.
About 4 dozen eggs.
A big hoking amount of flour and sugar...and spice... and everything nice.
Vanilla and almond extract.
And a variety of chocolates, nuts and dried fruit.
A KitchenAid mixer. (this year I'm considering bringing mine and then we can have deuling KitchenAids.)
Christmas music.
Wine. And not for cooking.
About a billion pots, pans, sheets and tins.
At least one freak out in which we say "Why did we say we'd make all this?!?!"
Mom.
Me.
And Kevin for unwrapping Hersey Kisses. It's his job every year.

And what are we baking this year?
Oh yeah. Christmassy Chocolate Bark. It was awesome.

And this:
Who doesn't like Peanut Butter Hersey Kiss Cookies?!? Terrorists probably.

This:
Cranberry Orange Scones. Wowee wow wow.

And this.Almond Snowball Cookies. I usually wait for Kelly's mom (Kel and her mom have a Christmas Baking Day too) to make me my cookie tin and add extra snowballs for me and Chad. But since Kel's mom has moved out of state (noooooo), I might have to make some of my own!

Oh, and this.
Chocolate Oreo Truffles. Baby Jesus said so.

This:
Because Kevin asked for it and mom usually gives in to his requests. Who am I kidding... mom will NOT deny any of her children Christmas cookie requests. Oh, hi fudge. You look pretty today.

And probably this too:Homemade toffee. This is usually the recipe that while we're making it something will look wrong and we'll call our neighbor Alice (whose recipe it is and who I like to call my NC Grandma) and we won't even get the full question out before she says "I'll be right there!!!" and will run three houses down to rescue us from destroying her toffee.

And we'll make my absolute favorite Italian walnut cookies that I've never seen anyone else make other than my mom and grandma. And every year my mom says she refuses to make them again next year because they are so time intensive and you work for hours and only have this teeny tiny tray of cookies to show for it. But they are our favorite and she'll end up making them anyway. BTW - There are no pictures of this cookies because they are really that elusive. Sorry. They will just have an air of mystique on this blog.

So that will be my weekend. I will try to chronicle the end result with pictures. But that will require me to remember to bring my camera - and I make no promises.

PS: Sorry for making you hungry. Here's to hoping you find an old piece of chocolate in the back of your desk that will get you through the morning!