'Tis the Season!

Some families go crazy with their Christmas baking. They spend hours, if not days, cooking Christmas goodies, turning out treats galore that they then give away or enjoy themselves all through the holidays.  My own Mom used to bake all kinds of cookies, cookies of every imaginable kind.  She'd make enough to fill a couple of five gallon tins that then sat out on our unheated porch, staying cool and available all through the rest of the Christmas season.  Lots of snitching went on, but I don't remember that it was a bad thing.  Nothing tasted quite as fine as a cold cookie from off the porch.  Anyway, as a general rule, we have never gone crazy with Christmas baking.  We generally would make a few things but not to excess.  I guess "excess" is relative; those families that do all that baking don't consider it an excess, its just something they do.  In any case, while we do some baking, we don't get carried away with it.

This year, however, we probably did do more than normal.  It began when I saw a recipe for orange frosted cookies that caught my attention.  I decided to make some.  So one day after work, I pulled out mixer and got started.

One of the things that had attracted me to this recipe was how simple it was.  It only took a few minutes to throw all the ingredients together, including running a couple of oranges through the blender.  That part was fun.

Part of the liquefied oranges went into the cookie batter, the rest went into the frosting.  The result was some cookies that were light and yummy.

Not made for any particular reason, just because they looked interesting.  And, as it turned out, they were.

There were also some "Grinch cookies".  Chocolate chip cookies, only green.  They turned out pretty good, too.

There was a family in the ward that dropped off a box of treats one evening.  Sugar cookies, Chocolate chip cookies, and an assortment of candies that was really good.

There is one baking item that has become a tradition at our house; candy cane bread.  Brombeere got out her Mom's old mixer and made that one afternoon.  Candy cane bread is so good.

Its a sweet bread filled with any kind of filling you want to put in it.  This year it was a raspberry chocolate filling.

You fill it and then weave the top closed.  Then you put it on the pan and curl the top around into a candy cane shape.

Then you bake it.  The recipe makes enough for about three medium candy canes.  We made them just a little smaller this year so that we got four out of a single recipe. Delightful!

Then you drizzle a frosting over them, and garnish them with M&M to make like little holly berries on them. So, so good.

There was also banana bread.  Not for any particular reason, other than we had some ripe bananas sitting around.  I made these, my first time.  It actually turned out pretty good, I thought.

Brombeere needed some treats for school so she made a whole bunch of sugar cookies.  Snowflake sugar cookies, real pretty to look at and real yummy, too.

She needed a lot, enough to make a treat for each student in the whole third grade at her school, quite a few.  So it took a while to get them all made and decorated.  Thank goodness there were a few that weren't quite good enough to use for school so that we were able to enjoy some at home.  That was nice.

Then there were the "paw print" cookies we tried.  They didn't turn out quite like the photo with the recipe but they were still good. Chocolate chip, how can you go wrong?

Then Brombeere wanted to make some blossom cookies.  I ended up peeling almost two packages of Hershey kisses but it was worth it in the end.  They were yummy little morsels.  And these were just so we could have some goodies around with all the company we were expecting over the holidays.  Definitely a worthy cause.

And last, but not least, we were fortunate enough to have Erdbeere here for her birthday.  So, of course, we had to make some kind of birthday cake.  We went with cupcakes.

Cupcakes served with the traditional birthday ice cream.

So, yeah, even though, as a rule, we don't get carried away with Christmas baking, we ended up doing plenty of that this year and ended up with lots of baked treats.  No wonder new years resolutions so often include weight loss goals.