christmas cookies - yum!

Yesterday was my birthday and I feel pretty lucky to be born close to Christmas. I always take my birthday off work and do things I enjoy which usually includes spending time with those I love, wrapping gifts, eating and baking... lots and lots of baking.

Here is the great assortment Christmas cookies this year. I made these gift tags and tin lids for gift giving so everyone knew which cookies are which. 

My holiday baking plan was to make all the doughs ahead of time, keep them in the fridge & freezer and bake everything two days before Christmas.

Worked like a charm! Every single batch of every cookie turned out perfect. I'm really happy with the taste of everything. Most recipes are from the Martha Stewart Cookies book except the Chocolate Orange Biscotti.

Here we are 4 pounds of butter, one bag of sugar and one bag of powdered sugar later. I polished off my stash of pure vanilla, pecans from Georgia and a 10 kg bag of flour. It was too much fun!

christmas desserts

What a Christmas!

I think I'm still coming down off a total overindulgence of sweets with whom I can blame no one but myself for.  The reason - my holiday baking. I've gone way overboard in past years but this year I had to strategize quick cookies which work well on Owen's naps. 

Since my mom didn't bake cookies this year I decided to make several of my grandma's holiday recipes for the first time. That includes Christmas Hopscotch, Marble Squares, Butterscotch Squares & Peanut Chews. Then I made MS's Iced Hermits and Ritz Mints.

Several years ago I started my own Christmas tradition of making Tiramisu. I'm now having it requested as part of the holiday dessert table on Christmas Day. My Tirimisu includes 3 different liquors (Dark Rum, Kahlua and Marsala), marscapone cheese and sabayon base. It's one of my favourite desserts that could really only be eaten at Christmas in order to find enough people to eat an entire dish of this rich dessert.