Christmas Baking
I’ve never really been a “Christmas Baker”. I do usually make drop shortbread cookies every year, but that was always for my enjoyment, not others! This year we decided to bake some goodies and box them to give them out to some of the people that we’ve met in the community. We thought it was an inexpensive and personal gift to give people that we have just started to get to know.
I spent a lot of time online trying to find easy ideas for christmas baking. I’ve never really been crafty with baking stuff before, so I really didn’t even know where to start. The first thing I found was a cookie tree kit from Golda’s Kitchen. It is a wonderful idea. I made a Rice Krispies tree with it. It was so easy and looked great. We went over to a neighbors for dinner last week, so I thought it was a great opportunity to try it out. It went over great. Everyone thought I had slaved over it for hours. Little did they know, it only took me half an hour from start to finish. I can’t wait to make a gingerbread tree next year. I will need to practice that one a few times before i’m comfortable enough showing others.
The second item I found was a Candy Kit from Golda’s. This kit was awesome. It comes with everything you need. They were really easy to make. I still need (lots) of practice with making it look less like a 5 year old did it! lol. Etienne enjoyed helping me with this treat as well.
I also decided to make the classic shortbread cookies as well as sour cream cookies and chocolate snowdrop cookies. I bought boxes from Golda’s, and put all the goodies in them. Overall, I think they turned out really well. All the kits are reusable, so I can make them for many more Christmases to come.
This was the first year that I have gotten my butt organized enough to send out Christmas cards. I really wanted something personal from here, so we took a picture of us with the dog in front of an Inukshuk. We then made them into a Christmas card and ordered them through Kodak. They did a wonderful job, and shipping was pretty quick.
I have included a few pictures of our treats.
Rice Krispies Xmas Tree
Chocolate lollipops
Shortbread all done
Piping the sour cream cookies
Sour cream cookies
Sour cream cookies, iced and ready to be boxed up
Chocolate Snowdrops ready to go in the oven
All done and dusted with icing sugar
All done....ready to be given out
All I can say is … really impressive. You put my sour cream cookies to shame! Everything looks beautiful.
Thank you….even if it did take us twice to get the recipe right!!
ooh yum it all looks great! We got your christmas card on wednesday. I loved it. Were they expensive to order? I think I will do ours that way next year. Great idea.
They were actually very reasonable. You had the option of putting an additional picture on the inside flap. We decided to leave it blank so we could write on it. They were less than $2/card. That includes the envelopes.
WOW, I am impressed, maybe you should have tried all this while you were living back here so we could enjoy some of it. You and Etienne obviously make a good team and should go into business. The tree looked huge, how do you even eat it??? Just take a piece at a time from the top down? Way to go AGAIN, I am very impressed.
Each layer was an individual star, so you just pulled the top layer off and ate it.
WOW I’m impressed too!!
Do you think the rice krispies tree is doable without the kit?? … just thinking I could make one for the xmas party at the daycare on Monday!
And what’s that orange thing on the bottom of your baking sheet?
Si tu es assez precise je suis sure que tu peux faire un arbre sans les moules mais ca va etre pas mal plus long a faire.
Le machin orange c’est un Silpat. C’est une couche de silicone, c’est super pour les biscuits et des trucs du genre pour eviter que ca colle.
I’ve seen those christmas candy making kits but I wasn’t sure if they’d actually come out looking like they are supposed to. I’m going to get one next year though after seeing how well yours came out.