Monday, December 22, 2008

Holiday Baking

I spent this past Sunday staying inside (9 degrees outside- I wasn't leaving) and baking. I wanted to get a care package together to send to my grandma, so I gathered all my marked holiday baked goodies recipes & spent a few hours in the kitchen. At about hour three, I remembered I was 6 months pregnant & should probably take a break. So I only made it through about half of my recipes. I'll probably make some more tomorrow.

I actually made these beauties earlier in the week.
Chocolate Chip Tea Cookies & Minty Cocoa Cookies:

I have to agree that the tea cookies were excellent, but a little rich with the chocolate drizzle.

I made this dough last week & froze half of it b/c it made too many cookies! I just pulled them out of the freezer & let them defrost for about 15 minutes. Then followed the instructions on baking.
Pecan Snowballs

I decided that these were probably not the best for a goodie bag. I placed them inside plastic Zip-locs since the powdered sugar was getting all over everything else.

I started off making the Pecan Pie Cookies. These were a huge hit on the Internet last year, I was surprised they hadn't made an appearance this year.

I made a pecan pie/tart last year for my husband. Its his favorite pie, but this year, I promised to make him molten chocolate cake. So I satisfied his pecan pie craving with these cookies.

I felt I needed to add something other than cookies, so I made Irish Cream Brownies.

I cut them into smaller bites so people weren't on chocolate overload.

And lastly, peanut butter pretzel chews. When I saw this recipe, I immediately thought of my husband. He has this thing about sweet + salty. He loves Take 5 bars & when we have fondue, he usually requests fritos or tortilla chips to dip into the chocolate. A little odd, but quite delicious.

So when I saw this recipe called for pretzels, chocolate, peanut butter & salt. I knew it would be a winner. The only difference between the recipe & my cookies is that I mixed the chocolate chips in with the dough. This was really b/c I was so flipping tired.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Julie,
I can't wait to try the Chocolate Chip Tea Cookies. They sound wonderful. Thank you so much for posting them. Terry

What's Cookin Chicago said...

All your treats look delicious and is a great way to spend a day in the kitchen!

StartingOver@28 said...

Now I am totally starving!

Hey - heard you had a frozen pipe on Sunday! So did we!

ashley said...

they all look fabulous!

pecan snowballs sound fabulous!

High Plains Drifters said...

How many different names are there for the snowballs? My mom called them Mexican wedding cakes, Russian tea cakes, and about a dozen other names. I think she just couldn't remember what they were called, and made it up as she went.

Here's our version:

http://tinyurl.com/2k99ys


Chris Stevens said it best:

Christmas reveals itself to each of us in a personal way — be it secular or sacred. Whatever Christmas is — and it's many things to many people — we all own a piece of it. Kinda like Santa's bag, inside there's gift for everyone.

Erin said...

Glad you enjoyed the Minty Cocoa cookies! It looks like yours came out great. Happy Holidays!