Christmas baking and cooking thread. Watcha making?

[Starmie]

Wow, everyone seems to bake so much! There's only the four of us here, so much as I love baking I don't go overboard as then I would just eat everything - not good.
I'll make some mince pies and some mini fruit cakes but that will probably be it. Too early yet, I'll do them next week when I'm not working.

[curlylaura]

My mince pies went down really well at work.

[cmb4314]

I have no excuse to bake since we aren't bringing food to any parties or anything, and we're flying for Christmas so we won't bring food with us then either.

We made a German chocolate cake a la the recipe on the back of the Baker's chocolate for my birthday, and that is about as much dessert as we can manage to consume by the time we have to leave town.

We will get Christmas cookies that my mom and relatives make at least

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[SunshineGrrl]

The desire to bake seemingly goes down exponentially through the generations...My grandma cooked up a storm and her kitchen table was stacked with all of them. She'd make fudge, cookies, sugared nuts, Christmas morning bread (kind of a really dense break with the candied fruit that usually goes in fruit cake...not my cup of tea, but my dad loaves it), lemon bread, real bread, homemade caramel, homemade caramel corn, something I think was called summer sausage, though why it was cooked during Christmas when it was called summer sausage is beyond me. And tons of pies, but always a mincemeat pie, which no one but my grandparents ate, sooo...yeah, it got chucked.

My mom used to make a some of these when we were younger, but kind of doesn't anymore. I remember fudge (that always got chucked in the garbage because she was the only one who ate it and it was so rich she only at like 3 pieces and couldn't figure out how to successfully half the recipe, it always came out wrong somehow). Caramel and caramel corn was always made and so good and sticky you could probably pull your own tooth if you didn't wait for it to warm up a bit in your mouth. Lemon bread and Christmas morning bread (which also got chucked because she made like 4 loaves when my dad was the only one who ate it...), and pies...lots and lots of pies. So many it boggled my mind. No mincemeat.

I don't really like sweets and while I am a very good baker, hate it. So...yeah...I've got the recipes for the ones I like, but have never made them outside my mother's house. I've got tons of coworkers now that would love them and inhale whatever food is brought in, but I just don't care enough for the baking or candy making process to actually do it for anybody like my mom or grandma did. Maybe my sister will carry on the cooking line, she has a family and cooks more in one week that I do in 3 months. The only recipes for dinner I know to cook feed 7 or more people...bring that down to me and I'm hosed. I'm also a cheater cook, if it's not relatively easy to cook or at least put together, I'm not terribly interested in coming home from work and putting a complicated dinner together. Or cooking them on the weekends when I could be doing other things.

[Lotsawaves]

There will only be 6 of us and none are really big sweet eaters. I will be making homemade bread, as far as baking goes & desert will be ambrosia salad. I can christmasy it up by adding red and green maraschino cherries.

[curlysue21]

Who Me would you mind sharing the recipes for you cinnamon and eggnog fudge? That sounds just like something I was looking for to make as a fudge!

[Saria]

Not Who Me, but this is how most people make fudge these days, with marshmallows or marshmallow creme:

http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.com/2...fudge.html?m=1

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2011/12/21/eggnog-fudge/

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2...ts-recipe.html

[nynaeve77]

I usually bake for teacher gifts. This year I think I'm making:

Gingersnaps dipped in white chocolate
Peanut butter blossoms
Chocolate chip

I also do a few candies. I'm going to do buckeyes, fudge, and maybe truffles. Danae was talking about doing chocolate lollipops, so I might buy some molds for those, too, since those are pretty easy. I also do homemade cocoa mix. This year I might pulverize some candy canes for a peppermint mix. I did homemade marshmallows last year, but since I don't have a stand mixer, they're kind of a pain in the butt.

[curlysue21]

Originally Posted by Saria

Not Who Me, but this is how most people make fudge these days, with marshmallows or marshmallow creme:

Not So Humble Pie: Fudge Part I: White Chocolate Eggnog Fudge

Eggnog Fudge @ Not Quite Nigella

Eggnog Fudge with White Chocolate and Walnuts | Serious Eats : Recipes

Thanks! I am looking for something different than regular chocolate.

[Saria]

I think I'm going to make marshmallows wrapped in an apple cider caramel sheet. I have tons of apple cider jelly and boiled cider. I'm just trying to decide on flavor combo. Maybe rum marshmallows and mulled cider, or plain cider and gingerbread marshmallows.
And maybe I'll make nougat again this year.

[mad scientist]

Cookie exchange is tonight and you'd think it was Christmas lol. My kids are soooo excited! They are lurking upstairs waiting to see what kind of cookies arrive. I'll be lucky if the 12 dozen cookies last until next week much less Christmas.

[jeepcurlygurl]

Gingerbread marshmallows. Wrapped in caramel. I might die.

[Saria]

Definitely going to make those.
But someone stop me and save me from myself because I'm feeling a huge urge to make a croquembouche and I absolutely should not.

[Gretchen]

I'll make eggnog cakes for the neighbors, cupcakes for the twins' birthday, Dec 22, and misc cookies as the mood suits.

Yum!

[jeepcurlygurl]

Mmmm. Eggnog cake. Those sound intriguing!

[Gretchen]

Originally Posted by jeepcurlygurl

Mmmm. Eggnog cake. Those sound intriguing!

They're pretty tasty. They use eggnog flavoring from Penzey's. I make them in little Christmas molds.

[thelio]

My supervisor demanded that me and another worker come to her house and bake. we are making:

fudge
lemon bars
sugar cookies
shorbread
gingerbreadmen

we are going to package them up all nice and pretty and give them to everyone at work.

[rouquinne]

^^^will you be paid for your time??? get a fabulous meal out of the deal????

something????

[thelio]

Originally Posted by rouquinne

^^^will you be paid for your time??? get a fabulous meal out of the deal????

something????

She's buying everything, and making us dinner!An authetic chinese meal!

[curlylaura]

The hairy bikers (google them, awesome guys) have just made Christmas pudding flavoured vodka. That might be a weekend job!