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Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Baking Frenzy

I went on a little baking frenzy this weekend.  I'm not sure what possessed me.  Maybe it's the fact that I finally had time.  I didn't have to edit photos.  Wow what a relief that was.  Of course I have a to-do list that's still a mile long, but I ignored it.  

First I made my Grandma's thumbprint cookies.  As a child these were my favorite.  As an adult what a pain in the butt they are to make!  Wow.  



Then I made my current favorite cookie.  I got this recipe from a coworker at my previous job.  They are called "Almond Balls" but I think that's misleading cause there aren't any nuts in them.  I suspect most people would think there are based on the name.  But instead there is yummy delicious almond extract.  I have a huge bottle because I almost always add more than the recipe calls for.  I'm not going to lie, I thought about drinking the bottle.  Ha!  



Then I got this stupid idea that these packages of cookie decorations at Walmart would be fun. I'd seen them a while back but didn't get any.  Finally I caved this weekend.  What the hell was I thinking?   First up were these cute little penguins. The instructions didn't say what size circle to make.   So the white parts were way to big and had to be cut down.   I had to provide my own icing and it appeared it needed to be black.  What food coloring combo makes black?  I didn't know you could buy black food coloring.  That's what I did.  I'm sure I'll get full use of that bottle. ;)   We made boys and girls and putting them together was pretty easy.  You iced the cookie, sprinkled black sugar sprinkles on (why I don't know), but the white part on and then the decorations.   



I also bought a santa kit.   These were easier as I didn't have to cut anything down.  But how do you make a skin colored icing?  Well I looked at the box and saw peach.  I thought that might work.  One drop of red and 2 drops of yellow.  Well it looks like Santa hit the spray tan booth!  He's a tad orange. Ooops! I knew this before we iced them but gosh I just didn't feel like messing with the color and making it even worse. 



I brought cookies to work yesterday and I decided to try the santa as there was one left.  Yikes!  The red hat is cinnamon.  That didn't go so well with the almond extract flavoring in the icing.  Oh well.    

I should say those penguins and Santas were made from Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix.  Cause who makes that from scratch?   I was surprised it didn't have me refrigerate it.  I happened to have 2 bags of the mix and liked how well it worked that I made more cookies. 



And I got bored with sprinkles.  I played with my icing and I now realize how far I have to go to make those really nice professional looking cookies.  Yikes. 



I also made oatmeal raisin cookies but didn't take a photo of those.  They are boring! :) 

I used to put together a Gingerbread house every year.  And every year I said never again.  I don't think I did one last year.  But recovering from hip surgery made it hard to do anything but watch the Hallmark Channel.   For my birthday last month my mom got me a Gingerbread Barn! OMG! How cool right? There was even this gummi horse that stuck out of the window.  Oh dear!  The concept was great but the execution not so great.  The icing sucked.  It was thick and didn't want to stick to the cookie that much.  The cookies for the roof were cut in way that didn't piece together well.   The whole thing was not very stable! lol 




They gave you two piping bags.  That's great but when you need to get the tip out for the other color that doesn't work so well.   So I put the white on with a knife and tried to water down the icing to make it spreadable.  Didn't work so well. 

The horse was SO cute, but he was too heavy for the icing and kept falling off. 



You can see how the roof just didn't want to stay together. 



I think the size ratio for the horse head was slightly off but he sure was cute!



I loved the gummi decorations that came with it.  That made it super easy to decorate.   But literally right after I snapped these photos the wall with horse caved in.  I gave up and threw the thing in the trash.  In previous years I kept the house set out for a few weeks in my living room. But this one just wasn't going to make it.  If the horse wouldn't stay on that took all the joy out of it for me.  lol 

Here's wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!!! I wish I could say I enjoyed the holiday season, but I really don't.  Maybe if I was a happier person I would, but instead I just hear the clock of life ticking and think off all the things I didn't accomplish this year.  But that's a story for another day.   Enjoy your holiday!

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