Sweet Sunday

For all of the cooking that Nate and I like to do together, we have never done an all-out holiday baking extravaganzaa. Mostly because I just don't want the stuff in the house because I will eat it. And because with all of the amazing bakers in the family, just what we DON'T need is more sweets around.

But, I woke up this morning and decided that this was the year we would do some serious baking beyond our cut-out cookies. And man did we bake. We chose a lot of old-school recipes...a very retro Christmas.

We started with Pecan Meltaways. So dense, sugary and delicious.

Moved right along to the Candy Cane Cookies. Major learning curve to this one, with the dough and the twisting and the placing. But we got it edibly-figured out.

That was just the warm-up for the feat of the day: homemade pecan caramels. Nate really spear-headed this effort and now thinks he is an official confectioner. I will admit, those caramels are quite tasty, but with 2 CUPS of heavy whipping cream...they should be.

While Nate was watching his caramel reach 245 degrees, I quickly thre together some Holiday Toffee Bars. The biggest disappointment of the day, but minty-chocolatey and decent.

                                   

We also made some Fudge (more on that later), and the age-old Grandma Sherry classic: Ritz Treats.

Now the Ritz Treats totally warrant their own picture, but I'm going to be honest. They aren't the most appetizing of Chistmas cookies. They look like cat puke on a cracker. But what you don't know if you've never had one, is that they are DELICIOUS. So in an effort to get as many people to try these as possible, we opted-out of the singular pic.

Anyway, here is the glory plate shot:

 

                             

Yes, this was a lot of baking.

In fact, it was:

7 cups of flour

4.5 cups of butter

8 cups of  sugar

2.25 pounds of nuts

80 Ritz Crackers

in total.

But the real clincher is: that we did ALL 6 of these recipes in 3 hours flat. 3 hours. I have wasted more time surfing the internet in one sitting before. And we owe it all to really knowing our crappy little kitchen. With its crappy lighting, limited countertop space and mismanaged cupboards.

So, we cleared all countertops and organized. We even set up a card table in the kitchen for all measuring utensils, pans, bowls, spoons, etc. And we had a dish station. Does this sound crazy? Yes. Do you know me? Then you should have no additional questions.

And now we have a ridiculous amount of sweets. So if you're in the neighborhood, drop by and we'll send you home with a pound or two.