Fun in the sun!!

We're off to Ft. Lauderdale until Dec 28th. See ya when we get back.

New deck with doggie ramp!!...

How much do we love our weiner dogs? We had our contractor make a doggie ramp( it was Robin's idea actually) on our new deck. Dachshunds shouldnt go up and down stairs and now they don't have to.

How much am I looking forward to Xmas in Florida? We had over a foot of snow this weekend, yuck!!

Christmas baking.....

Robin put together a little baking brochure for me and surprise, surprise I got some orders!! I took the train up to Burlington last Friday and spent the afternoon with The Chocolate Doctor making English Toffee. Actually, she made the majority of it, I watched. She also showed me how to temper chocolate. I was happy to use up some E. Guittard coverture that I bought from Williams Somona a year ago!! I used some for a Sugar High Friday event, but I didnt like it. It worked great with the toffee.

Yesterday I spent the entire day baking because one of my customers needed to pick up her order. Thanks to Anna for some inspiration. Anna told me about the jumbles which were really great. Anna made hers with pecans, but I used some toasted almonds. I also used dried bing cherries( from Trader Joe's) and dark choc. chips. I made some candy cane shortbread and to my total surprise, I actually had rice flour in the pantry( don't know why I bought that). I didnt have pepperminte extract and had to send Robin up to the store in the middle of a blizzard to fetch me some. Ina Garten's fruitcake cookies are amazing. I'm not a fruit cake fan, but these rocked!! I used a dried fruit breakfast blend that I bought at Walgreens and candied peel and cherries. I made some oatmeal cookies that were on the back of the reeses pieces for baking bag. You can find the recipe for the molasses crinkles and dried cherry/pistachio wedding cookies on epicurious!!