Monday, December 21, 2009

Baking Weekend, Day Two



My laptop is back, though my jump drive is not, and for once I'm glad I'm behind on uploading my pictures from my camera, so I have pictures dating back from October.  *whew*

My girls and I had a great time during Day One of Baking Weekend, and it was hard to see them go.  The great thing about it is that I know that I'll see them again...and maybe next year, if everything goes just right, we'll have another little on in our troupe.  *sending good vibes to Robin's uterus - AI in just two days*


Day Two ended up just being family, which was wonderful!  We haven't had a "family-only" Baking Day in forever.  We were a cookie making machine.  It took us about six hours to add another six batches of Magic Window cookies and a couple of batches of gingerbread cookies.  Jay finished up his flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache.  I think that chefs give foods fancy names just so us home cooks will never attempt things like ganache.  Do you know what's in a ganache?  Heavy freakin' cream, butter, and chocolate.  That's what!  That's all.  WTF?  A fancy name like ganache should include some culinary magic, not a simple double boiler.  Cripes, even I can work a double boiler!

While we were baking away in the kitchen, having a great - and loud - time, the snow was gently falling outside.  Big, fluffy white flakes descending ever so softly from the sky.  It was beautiful.  We worried not about the snow fall, afterall, we're a Colorado family, born and raised.  What's a little snow?



Well, a little snow plus a little snow adds up to four fluffy inches pretty quickly.  What did we do?  We turned up the music, put on some chili for dinner and my sister made homemade tortillas.  And we kept baking.  And baking.  And baking.

By the end of the day, we were pretty well done with cookies.  Didn't really care to see another one.  And if that damn timer went off one more time, well, we couldn't be held accountable for our actions.  But this is what we had to show for it...
...quite a bounty.  It may not look like much, but at our mid-point my nephew counted up the number of cookies that we had and it went something like:

  • 22 dozen Magic Window cookies


  • 3 dozen chocolate chip toffee cookies


  • 10 flourless chocolate cakes


  • 8 dozen candy cane cookies


  • a couple-a dozen Neiman Marcus cookies


  • a dozen (or so) peanut butter thumbprint cookies


  • and some chocolate-y chinese haystack thingies that my mom makes every year.

Even though the baking was done, were we done?  Oh, no.  That would be too easy.  After everything was out of the oven, we had to pack up our platters (or in my case, shirt boxes) full of cookies for distribution.
My sister and her heathi strung their Magic Window cookies with ribbon so they can hang them on their tree.  Me?  Nope, I just eat them.  I don't bother hanging them on the tree anymore - I just cut out the middleman - and go straight to the mouth.

4 comments:

GunDiva said...

I forgot to add that those four fluffy inches of snow were just enough that my sister and her crew couldn't get out of Mom's parking lot. Trying to drive out on nearly bald tires was a lot like trying to drive on ice with racing slicks - a lot of tire spinning and no forward motion.

JennyMac said...

The table looks wonderful..and that list!?!? you were a baking maniac.

The snow..I could do without. haha.

Anonymous said...

Hahaha! Ohhhh man. That looks like suuucchhh fun! I hope you had a grand ole time!

I think I would enjoy colorado winters, i love the snow... as long as I can hire someone to remove it hahaha.

I am disappointed so far with the amount of snowfall we have gotten here in NY (or lack thereof). last christmas we just got it dumped and dumped and dumped on us haha. Well, it is what it is.

Although I am mad about the fact that I cancelled my welcome home dinner the other night expecting like 12 inches of snow and we got barely 2 inches. lame.

GunDiva said...

JennyMac, I only bake once a year and it's during Baking Weekend. I'm pretty sure it takes me the other 51 weeks of the year to forget about the hard work. And the snow just made it so much better. Well, until my sister couldn't leave. We have a jeep. We left.

Nate - I'm so sorry about you cancelling your welcome home party. That really blows. Know that I'll be there in spirit :)