Cookie Baking Extravaganza!

It's been awhile since our last post.  We have been busy with the holiday season!  Shopping, spending time with family, and of course, baking!  We'll give you a glimpse of our Christmas cookie baking and share the recipes we have made! 
  
Last Sunday, when it was snowing like crazy in Minneapolis, we thought, what better day to stay inside and bake dozens of cookies?!  30 dozen cookies to be exact.  No, we didn't have any reason to make this many cookies...other than we wanted enough to share with work, friends and family! :)

As long as we were stuck inside, why not bake like crazy?!  Here are our supplies before our 7 hour baking frenzy.

Gathering our supplies before baking

We looked all over for both new recipes and some of the tried and true recipes and we ended up with a pretty solid lineup.  

We made (see links for recipes):
*Turtle Cookies: These ones are great!  The perfect combo of pecans, chocolate and caramel. Definitely a winner!

*Salted Caramel Chocolate Shortbread Bars: These are another favorite!  Shortbread layer on the bottom, thick caramel layer in the middle, topped with chocolate and sea salt!  It makes an entire 8 x 13 pan!  This is a make your own caramel-but don't worry...it's easy with the candy thermometer!  Just follow the instructions as listed and ensure that you stop cooking the caramel when it's at 240°F.
  
*Mexican Wedding Cakes: Tried and true favorite!  Simple recipe, and delicious!

*Christmas Crock-pot Candy: 
This is the recipe that gave us the biggest headache.  We made it as directed and the peanuts ended up burning in the crock pot, even when on low.  We may see if there is a better way

*Chocolate Pretzel Rings: These ones are simple-no recipe needed!  Just set the oven at 275°F and put a baking sheet (with parchment paper) of pretzel rings with a chocolate kiss in the middle (we used caramel ones-yum!  You could use any of the flavors out there now) in for 3 minutes.  As soon as they come out of the oven press a M & M on the kiss and let it harden.

*Chocolate Peanut-Butter No Bake Cookies:These are so easy!  We were running out of vanilla extract and we were stuck inside because of the snow, so we couldn't run to get more-so we replaced the vanilla with almond extract.  This substitute was a good surprise!

 We cannot take credit for any of the recipes, so please see the links above to get the recipes. :)


Here are our finished products!

Yum!!

We hope you try these simple and delicious recipes!  Share some of your favorites in the comments below!