Baking Christmas Cookies

So I think saying that Alden and I made a lot of Christmas cookies this year would be an understatement.  I baked 72 maraschino cherry cookies, 40 dark chocolate m&m cookies, 42 chocolate chip cookies, 38 milk chocolate m&m cookies, 54 gingersnaps, 30 candy cane cookies,  72 snickerdoodles and 82 sugar cookies which I also frosted.  I also made rice krispy treats, english toffee and chocolate covered cake balls.  This is just another example of what happens when you give an addicted baker, like me, free reign in the kitchen to do whatever I want and plenty of people to eat whatever I bake.

These were the maraschino cherry cookies and sugar cookies before they were frosted.

This was a new one that I hadn't made before.  They are actually peppermint flavored cookies.

Alden enjoyed helping me mix things together.  This was him helping to mix the frosting up for the sugar cookies. Here is a video of him helping and as you can tell from the video he loves being independent and doing things on his own.

This just shows how every counter in my kitchen was being used.  

These are the sugar cookies that I had a lot of fun frosting!

I love doing all the Christmas shapes!

Okay, so I decided to make English Toffee in honor of Drew and his grandpa who normally do candy making every Christmas season.  It didn't come out as good as theirs but for a first try I thought it came out really well!

This was the english toffee that I wrapped individually in parchment paper to send to Drew.

These are the ginger snaps (which were my favorites of all the cookies I made) and the snickerdoodles.

These are the sugar cookies after I added more detailing to them.

Alden loved being my taste tester.  His favorite cookies to eat were the star shaped sugar cookies.

This was Alden helping me bag the English Toffee to deliver it.  Here is a video of it.  As you can see in the video things would probably go a lot faster if I did things  on my own but I enjoy doing things with him and watching him learn things like "little" and "big."

These were the plates that I made up to take around to friends in the area.

Alden thought it was really cool that he had his own little package to carry to every house.  We put the english toffee in separate bags and I am glad we did so Alden could feel more included.  We had so much fun baking and delivering plates of goodies!