Holiday Baking part 2.....

Wow, this has been a crazy holiday baking scene for me. Just as I did last year, I offered my holiday baking for sale. The picture about shows a mixed tray of cookies and squares. This year I made Jacque Torres Choc. chip cookie, M and M cookies, white choc. macadamia, pistachio cranberry, world peace cookies, kitchen sink cookies, ginger cookies( w/ cinnamon chips)and Anna's famous criss cross PB cookies. For the bar cookies I did.... Symphony brownies, peppermint patty brownies, coffee toffee blondies, apricot coconut sqaures, hello dollies and white. choc. cranberry blondies.

I was baking so much that I woke up last Sunday with a swollen right hand. Because of that, Robin baked these 3 pumpkin roulades for me. I think she did an excellent job.

Holiday Baking.......

For the last 2 weeks,I've been knee deep in Holiday Baking. I decided once again to sell my baking and I was inundated with orders.

Yesterday, Robin and I made 2 items to give away as gifts. First up, we made a huge batch of caramel popcorn. I tested this recipe a couple weeks ago with microwave popcorn and it was good. I thought however, that it would be cheaper to make if we bought raw popcorn and popped it ourselves. Robin popped two kinds ( white and yellow) and we decided we liked the white better. I got the recipe for caramel popcorn over at Egullet. Jaymes has a recipe over on the thread that everyone is using and raving about. Its a pretty simple recipe using butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, salt, mollases, vanilla and baking soda. We added pecans, peanuts and almonds.

In this area, bits and bites are another popular holidaym item. Most people use a Canadian cereal called Shreddies. I like to shake things up and be different( plus I had a 1 dollar off coupon for crispix cereal that I bought in MI). I also added cherrios, almonds and another item not sold in Ontario, Oyster crackers. This was mixed with melted butter and a large amount of Penzey's Rocky Mountain Dip Mix. I added more parmesean, worsteshire, a squirt of lemon juice, garlic powder, smoked salt, more sesame and poppy seeds. This whole mess was baked for a good hour( tossing a few times) at 250F. When it cooled down, we added Rold Gold Pretzel sticks, cheetos and 2 bags of bbq kettle cooked peanuts( bought at Big Lots for 1.00 each). This blend is absolutely addicting!!

Next up, tons of cookies.......

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!!

Slush Punch.....

Here is a kinda crappy picture of the punch. It was totally easy and yummy. The gals at the agency were wishing vodka was an ingredient( which I'm sure you could totally do), but today's function was no alcohol allowed. A mixture is made up the night before and frozen in two ziplock bags. When its time to serve the punch, you dump a bag in a punch bowl and add a bottle of sprite. I garnished with orange and lemon slices.


I don't want to post the recipe here because I might use this for future jobs, but if you're interested drop me an email or note and I'll direct you to it.

Glad that's over.....

Today, I catered an Open House for a local social service agency. I spent the majority of yesterday baking and cooking in preperation. I made Pumpkin Bread, cranberry bread, hello dollies, toll house cookies( with dark choc. rasberry swirl chips), ginger almond biscotti, Sourcream cranberry bars and triple choc. brownies. I made 3 dips. Giada's white bean dip, a leek/carrot veg dip and a ranch dip( using penzey's ranch mix). The dips will go great with the veggie trays. I also made assorted tea sandwiches( tuna, chicken and egg) and various cheese's with crackers. I provided a slush punch( good recipe if you need a punch) and some drinking chocolate( I used the dulce de leche choc mix I got in a blogging by mail exchange).

The sourcream bars were Anna's recipe. I was looking thru the betty crocker site and came across these. She won a prize in the mix it up with betty contest. The bars were easy and very yummy. Even though they start with a packaged cookie mix, the final product doesnt reflect that.

This was fun to do, but a lot of work. I woke up at 6:30am to do the final prep and Robin was an absolute gem. She cut all the crusts off the bread and help me assemble and wrap the trays with plastic. I could not have done all this without her.

Our plane leaves Friday night for Florida. We will leave here around 1pm to make the drive to detroit. I'm not looking forward to the traffic at the border or the snow that is predicted. My 40th bday is Saturday and my fingers are crossed that we will get there for my party. I just pray that the weather holds out.