Mommy's Blog: Holiday Baking

Ho took a very nice picture of the cedar outside of our house

It’s been a busy holiday. From Dec 24 to Jan 2, we only had 2 days with no friends or family gathering. I also got stomach flu and started throwing up on New Year Day, then it carried on for 2 days, still felt the influx on day 3. What a way to start the year.

I meant to bake pound cakes for some friends but the baking time is too long. Luckily I found the cookies recipes which is versatile enough for me to make different flavours to put in boxes. The cookies need only 10-12 mins to bake, much more practical for me. Too bad I totally forgot to take pictures of the wrapped goodies. Oh well, I can always make them again.

I started off with ginger cookies for the kids’ teachers as Christmas gifts. Just like one of the parents said, “How many mugs does a teacher need?” Rather than giving something which might be completely useless to the teachers, homemade snacks will be a better choice. Besides, ginger cookies sound a lot more “Christmasy” to me.

I didn’t have time to make ginger bread man shape for the teachers because the dough was really soft. It would take me forever to keep the shape when transferring all cookies from the counter to the baking sheet. These were from the second batch I made for office potluck. See how they grew!

I also made chocolate chip walnut and cranberry almond cookies using another recipe. Jennifer suggested me to add oatmeal to the chocolate chip ones. Great idea!

Tons of cookies. I made enough cookies to fill 2 big containers like this for office potluck, friend’s potluck lunch, and gifts for friends. They were finished before the winter holidays were over and I had to make more for more gifts.

In the later batches, I also made fleur de sel, parmesan cheese, and cinnamon...