Cookie Day Part 2

Yesterday was one of my favorite days of the year, right up there with Christmas day itself =)  Baking, frosting, exchanging & making up trays, we did 13 tins & trays for family & friends this year:

 

 

And here are the cookies!  Lime Coolers (made by mom):

 

Sugar cookies with sprinkles:

Apricot nectar cookies (me):

Sesame seed logs (my aunt):

Gingerbread people (made by mom but decorated by me):

Marzipan balls with frosting (grandma):

Haystacks (grandma):

Nut butter balls I think ... I don't eat them since I'm allergic LOL (grandma):

Sesame cookies (grandma):

I don't know what these are called a lady at my mom's work didn't want to take home the leftovers so she gave them to my mom:

Rosettes (my aunt):

Fruity foldovers in lemon curd & blackberry (me)

Two kinds of toffee (also from mom's work):

And of course the frosted sugar cookies:

Here are some of my favorite decorated sugar cookies:

 

 

Want to do your own cookie marbling?  I did a tutorial:

 

 

We're in the final countdown, I can't believe it's less than a week until Christmas!  I am actually done with shopping & wrapped everything tonight - are you done, or still running around?

 

Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette

Cookie Day Part 1

Part 1 is making dozens & dozens of sugar cookies today with grandma =)  Part 2 will be Saturday when we get together to frost the sugar cookies & exchange whatever other cookies we all make.  I'm making fruity foldovers & apricot nectar cookies - yum!  I'm already in the spirit because yesterday was the annual dessert fest at work - basically a potluck with only sweet things =)  I made a batch of chocolate cake balls with red & green candy melt coating:

 

 

It's always such fun to see people who've never had a cake ball taste one for the first time LOL.  Almost everyone will take a bite, then look at it like, "Wow, there's CAKE inside!"  I had several people ask for the recipe as well, so I directed them to Bakerella's site.  Have you started your holiday baking yet?

 

If I have time when I get home I've got plans to do another Christmas tutorial =)  Thanks for reading.

 

~Colette

Glazed Lemon Cookies

So, the story behind my "needing" to make these is that I'd had some very similar ones at a local bakery.  They were delicious, but expensive - $2.00 per cookie, which is a bit much even though they're honkin' big cookies.  So I set out to find a recipe that I could make myself.  These aren't quite identical, but they hit all the important points - soft, lemony, glazed yummy deliciousness:

Mmmm, hungry for your own?  I used THIS Lemon Ricotta Cookie with Lemon Glaze recipe from Giada De Laurentis of Food Network fame.  Much easier than last time when I had to type everything out LOL!  This was a super easy recipe, the "hardest" part was zesting the lemons & that was more just tedious, because I did add a little extra zest to make the cookies super-lemony.

Anyway, the frosting has to set for a few hours, so I'm going to attempt to get some of the posting that didn't get done today out of the way.  I'm also ready to change my mani, but procrastinating because I know I have a tear in my thumb that needs to be patched at that time.  I thought I'd go ahead & shoot a video tutorial for patching while I was at it too.  And then the L'Oreal Passport to Paradise marble that I didn't get around to last weekend.

Thanks for reading =)

~Colette

25 Dozen Cookies Later...

I'm actually not exaggerating here LOL. And that's just the ones I was personally involved with baking, not to mention what the rest of the family made. I counted the sugar cookies yesterday after we frosted ... well, tried to count them, I lost track at 12 dozen. Then there were the 4 dozen PBBs for work, which I already showed you, 8.5 dozen cake balls, and 5 dozen fruity foldovers. I took some pics, so if you're hungry, turn back now & come back in a little bit when I will have nail pics posted & a new tutorial =)

Here are the sugar cookies after frosting ... you can probably tell some of the ones that I did LOL, and they apparently got me in the mood for some marbling on my nails:


My aunt made rosettes - there was another box in addition to this one & she said she'd make more fresh for Christmas Day:


Almond bark with pretzels & peppermint, made by Grandma:


Fruity Pebble/Rice Krispie bars, made by Grandma:


Cranberry walnut bars - also made by Grandma =):


Cake balls =) One of my contributions of course. The green are chocolate cake with mint coating, the red are strawberry/strawberry & my personal favorite combination to date:


Fruity foldovers - kind of a sugar cookie based dough with your choice of preserves inside, this is another of my contributions, and I chose apricot & blackberry gooey deliciousness inside:


Snowballs AKA Russian tea cakes, made by Mom ... I never eat these since they have nuts (I'm allergic):


Cardamom cookies, also by Mom. She had a heck of a time finding cardamom, it was sold out everywhere, and then the sugar sprinkled on top was this super-special kind that was hard to find & as you see not that impressive in the end. To top it all off, the consensus was that these taste pretty much like a snickerdoodle cookie LOL. I think Mom considered these a semi-fail on that account:


Stained-glass cookies, also by Mom. One of her favorites, kind of like fruitcake except it's a cookie ... and another one with tree-nuts:


I don't remember what these were called, but they had oatmeal, corn flakes, peanuts, and peppermint frosting, and this is ANOTHER contribution by Grandma:


So we took all that & made 16 various trays, for family & friends =) Here are a few of them:


Cookie day may be my favorite day of the year, even above & beyond Christmas itself. I literally cannot remember a Christmas without a cookie day, it's always been a tradition =)

Thanks for reading.

~Colette

A Busy Time of Year

I'm still here. I'm even still managing to fit in manicures for the most part ... finding time to edit pics & post up, now that's another story. So I just have a quick update & a few non-nail pics.

Today I worked a half day, and then went to grandma's for lunch & then to make sugar cookies which we will frost on Saturday. We seriously did I think like 10+ DOZEN sugar cookies - I was rolling, cookie-cuttering & baking for about 4 straight hours. Then we had dinner, then I came home & did MORE baking. 4 dozen peanut butter butterscotch cookies for tomorrows Cookie Fest at work - basically a potluck of all desserts. Here they are finished, in their tin & ready to go tomorrow morning:


While those were baking I rolled up 8.5 dozen cake balls, in 2 flavors (strawberry & chocolate) - I'd baked the cakes yesterday. I'll be dipping those tomorrow evening, to take Saturday to the family exchange.

So =) I've been busy & will continue to be so. Next week will also be hectic because it is a short week & we have to get payroll finished by Thursday. So I'll probably be putting in extra hours Mon, Tues, Wed to get everything done & still get out on a half day Thurs Christmas Eve.

Anyway, long way to say I'm not sure when I'll get around to posting pics (let alone answering comments ... I'm SO sorry to everyone, I am seriously, seriously behind with comments), hopefully I'll fit in some Friday night & over the weekend. I'm already behind by 3 NOTDs, and I've got another fun design idea for a tutorial, so I'd really like to have time to get it out of my head & onto my nails this weekend =)

A couple more pics before I go, grandma's Christmas tree in the daytime & then lit up at night:



Hope your holidays are as happy as my day was =) Thanks for reading.

~Colette