Sunday, December 21, 2008

Making and Baking

Instead of a link dump, I'm finally going to post pictures of stuff that I've made, especially holiday-related stuff.

First, I made my own bows! I used this Craftster tutorial and the Paper Source and Sephora catalogs, plus a back issue of Magnet. It was very fun, and really not that hard.

Then I ordered this cool wine bottle wrapping kit from Chronicle Books for Cary so he could make the wine for his work partners look festive.

Next I started baking. I don't bake much, so there are always plenty of things to go wrong. Since the kids had a snow day Friday and Cary got the day off too, I decided to use the extra time to make homemade marshmallows, after seeing how good Emily Martin's looked. Much to my surprise they turned out really well, and are delicious plain or dipped in chocolate.

That's when things went pear-shaped. Yesterday I attempted to make Sarah's delicious sounding Kima's Melt-a-ways. The dough was extremely sticky even after chilling it for an hour, and when baked the cookies ran all over the tray. A quick back and forth on Twitter with Sarah confirmed that I had accidentally doubled the butter. Doh! I started over and the second batch turned out very well. If you want to see a pic, check over at Sarah's blog. Hers is much prettier than mine.

Now I'm making Chocolate Cheesecake Candycane bars. All was going well until the mixture wasn't puffing. Turns out, the oven wasn't on. They turned out OK, but I don't have a pic because they aren't finished yet -- I still have to glaze them.

Boy, can't wait until I have to cook a three pound tenderloin on Christmas Day.
In other handmade news, I'd been wanting to post a picture of my pinecone cheese ball.

And the beautiful duvet cover that my mom quilted for my bed.
What a lot of pictures! -- now I'm off to glaze those cheesecake bars.



5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow - you are quite the baker! I bought marshmallows and Rice Krispies to make (don't laugh) my first batch of Rice Krispy treats EVER! And my aunt gave us a 12-days of christmas chocolate mold, so we're going to give Dylan's teachers my experimental Rice Krispy treats and chocolate (plus overly-generous gift cards, as I tend to over spend on care givers - could it be mommy guilt, hmmmmm)

Auntly H said...

Can I have some of your Christmas energy?
I am sure I have brads somewhere... If I can find them, how long to make a dozen bows?

Maura Smale said...

Very nice! We did do the cookies for the extended family members, but that's about as homemade as it's getting this crazy holiday season. Except that I'm wrapping everyone's presents in cloth, because I am a stinky hippie.

Anonymous said...

Oh MAN! You are killing me!! Especially with the pinecone thing......I seriously need to get you drunk...

Jen14221 said...

where is the famous rockstar interview? I keep clicking over to see it...it wasn't that dude from the Stooges that just died, was it?