Holiday Baking-Round I

I finally decided I would do some baking for the holidays. Since I'm done with class (Yay!) and have my evenings free again, I knew I'd have the time.

I started this last Saturday with something really simply...technically not baking, but I'm including it anyways because I still had to be patient and spend time in the kitchen. I made some "white chocolate" dipped pretzels AND to be festive, I sprinkled them with red sugar. I think they look pretty cute. However, I'm like addicted to them, and they will only be made once a year because once I start I can't stop! :-) And, Josh doesn't even like them!

Tonight I tried a new, super easy recipe for chocolate-chocolate chip cookies. (I have to admit I found this recipe while riding the stationary bike at the gym...seriously, who works out and reads recipes for cookies? Only me probably...I'm a nerd.) The recipe actually uses a devil's food chocolate cake mix, so the cookies are very soft! I love soft cookies. The recipe also calls for some white chocolate to be melted and then drizzled over the cookies. So, I thought I'd try them for the holidays since they look a bit fancier in my opinion. Of course, I had to pull out the red sugar again and sprinkle some with the sugar...some without...I couldn't decide if I really liked the sugar accent or not. Thoughts?

Now, for my "oops" moment tonight. The recipe suggested using the baggie method for the frosting drizzle where the corner of the baggie is snipped off in order to do the drizzling. (Wow, can I use the word "drizzle" more?). I've seen this method used on FoodNetwork all the time...so I thought it'd be easy...it's not rocket science right? Anyways, the first few cookies went ok, even though I didn't really like the way they looked. Then, when I got to the 5th cookie...I guess I squeezed too hard...because the baggie totally split and a bunch of melted chocolate just plopped onto the cookie. See the picture?! Oh well. I scraped off what I could...then, I just used a fork and dipped it in the chocolate and then drizzled the best I could. Once again, that took patience, and I wanted to quit after I did about 5 cookies, but I didn't. Then, I decided to eat that cookie since it looked ugly from me scrapping off the glob. :-) So, in the end...I appreciated the glob.

Well, there will be more baking this week...on the schedule is candy cane cookies, cashew cookies, and my chocolate chip cookies. So...check back in later this week!