It's Baking Day!

....or at least on of the Christmas Baking Days. Yes, that's Christmas Baking Days capitalized. When I was little we would bake hundreds of cookies--my mom, grandmother and I. At least it felt like hundreds. One year we even made Christmas Tree ornament cookies and decorated with them. That was my least favorite, and I made sure my mom knew that, I much preferred all our family ornaments. I was a bit of a brat.

My favorite cookie, the one I always associate with Christmas and that we cannot possibly have the holiday without is the Swedish Ginger Cookie. It is a family recipe that belonged to my grandmother's mother. Possibly even her mother.

They are sweet and spicy and have orange zest. I love them. They also require frosting. But that I am leaving for another day. My feet hurt.

That's because I couldn't just stop at one batch of Swedish Ginger Cookies. Usually I do two, plus a litany of other cookies. But this year I'm cutting back. With Christmas falling on a weekend and potentially becoming an Aunt over the holiday, I didn't want to stress out over cookies, or the Christmas Eve meal.



But I'm still me, and my version of cutting back produced this

Swedish Ginger Cookies, Almond Wreaths (those didn't work out so well--I used to think a bead of cookie, next time I will make them smaller), Sugar Snow Flakes, Peppermint Cinnamon M&M cookies, Chocolate Cinnamon Tullieres (this is either not the right work or certainly not spelled correctly).

Not pictured are chocolate peppermint bark made inside cookie cutters (very pretty), wrapped up Christmas stripped cookies, Chocolate Cookies with Pepperming and Cherry Cordial Kisses,  and a variation of Cranberry Bliss Bars (another steal from RecipeGirl).

I'm really excited about the Sugar Stars. I had some leftover bright blue cookie confetti that I sprinkled over them, now they don't need to be frosted! And the Peppermint Cinnamon M&M cookies. I started with the basic Tollhouse Cookie recipe and added peppermint extract and instead of using chocolate chips and walnuts I used cinnamon flavored M&Ms. They smell great. 

I may make another batch or two of drop cookies later this week. Jess will be working most nights and I will have to find some way to occupy my time. Other than trying to finish my insane reading goal (18 books and 14 days to go).