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I'm done.
Christmas cookie boxes are done and sent on their merry way! All 17 of them. Blarg.
The pretzel truffles are just gorgeous. Making truffles is easier and messier than I was expecting, and keeping chocolate in temper isn't really as hard as I was afraid it was going to be. I was worried that the truffles would be sort of on the wimpy side, the centers I was scooping out the ganache (that is TOO a properly spelled word, silly spell checker) looked really small. As it happens, they are a great size because the chocolate and pretzels on the outside made them bigger. A lot bigger. The peppermint pretzel bark also came out really well, it's got that lovely snap when you break off a piece.
The mulled wine cookies I'm sort of so-so about. They're all right, but the recipe as given was a bit dull to my taste. I made another batch with more spices in them, and I think they worked out a bit better. Nice, soft cookies, thanks to the wine in the dough, and the icing is tasty and pretty.
Cheddar cheese crackers are OMG fiddly, fiddly, fiddly things to make. Roll a piece of dough out thin, cut into little bitty even pieces, lay those out on a baking sheet so none of them are touching. 4 pans of crackers per batch, one batch of crackers per box. They took almost a week to get baked all by themselves. And I've got almost 4 full batches worth of dough left from simply tossing trim scraps into baggies as I worked. Going to get those rolled and cut and freeze them.
The cookie trees worked out well, and are very sparkly and pretty with all their holiday decoration. I just hope they don't break in shipping.
My buying list was almost spot on. Had 3 big bars of chocolate, one bag of sugar and part of a box of candy canes left, and wound up needing another bag of flour. My kitchen, amazingly enough, is not a disaster area after a week and a half of baking.
Christmas cookie boxes are done and sent on their merry way! All 17 of them. Blarg.
The pretzel truffles are just gorgeous. Making truffles is easier and messier than I was expecting, and keeping chocolate in temper isn't really as hard as I was afraid it was going to be. I was worried that the truffles would be sort of on the wimpy side, the centers I was scooping out the ganache (that is TOO a properly spelled word, silly spell checker) looked really small. As it happens, they are a great size because the chocolate and pretzels on the outside made them bigger. A lot bigger. The peppermint pretzel bark also came out really well, it's got that lovely snap when you break off a piece.
The mulled wine cookies I'm sort of so-so about. They're all right, but the recipe as given was a bit dull to my taste. I made another batch with more spices in them, and I think they worked out a bit better. Nice, soft cookies, thanks to the wine in the dough, and the icing is tasty and pretty.
Cheddar cheese crackers are OMG fiddly, fiddly, fiddly things to make. Roll a piece of dough out thin, cut into little bitty even pieces, lay those out on a baking sheet so none of them are touching. 4 pans of crackers per batch, one batch of crackers per box. They took almost a week to get baked all by themselves. And I've got almost 4 full batches worth of dough left from simply tossing trim scraps into baggies as I worked. Going to get those rolled and cut and freeze them.
The cookie trees worked out well, and are very sparkly and pretty with all their holiday decoration. I just hope they don't break in shipping.
My buying list was almost spot on. Had 3 big bars of chocolate, one bag of sugar and part of a box of candy canes left, and wound up needing another bag of flour. My kitchen, amazingly enough, is not a disaster area after a week and a half of baking.
on getting all the awesomeness done! 
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