Cookie Baking With Mom

Every year, Mom and I try to bake cookies together around Christmas time. Some years, we do it when I am home for the Stremmel Famiy Christmas celebration, and some years, we make them directly before Christmas. I was able to return home early Saturday morning, and right away we set in on our tradition. In fact, because I had a later departure than planned, Mom had alread begun so we could have a running head start on our multi-hour tradition. This year, instead of returning to our family favorites, we tried all new recipes. We baked for 7 hours on Saturday and completed the task today with two additional hours. We had some ups and downs with these particular cookies, many times improvising as we went along, and these aren't our best looking creations. But, in the end, we are happy with the tasty results. Here's a picture of the cookie trays we made up for the Strode family (my sister-in-law's parents), the Juliusson family (my hometown best friend's family), and the Stremmel family (for our get-together on Christmas day at Uncle Dick and Aunt Billie's house.)


Here are a few of the new recipes that will be added to our ever-growing "favorites" list:
Chocolate Covered Orange Balls (Dad's favorite)
Raspberry Swirls (My favorite)
Four Spice Crackles (Mom's favorite)

Our most trying creation, Peanut Butter Christmas Mice, did not turn out well at all. You will see some pictures on the recipe site... and then you will see the flattened creatures with licorice tails on our trays. Ours still look a little like mice and they're kind of cute, but clearly, something went wrong. Maybe we can figure this out, but we are so tired of mouse troubles that we may not try again until next year.